Project Blue Book Mariana UFO Incident PDF

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of centers between the images, their separation distance and their inclination to the horizon. All of the quantities, except for the inclination to the horizon $ ^{*} $ are presented in figures 5(a), 5(b), and 6.

The three independent quantities (azimuth, altitude and separation) all appear to agree to within the limits of observational errors with an assumption that the UFO system held an essentially fixed configuration and executed a constant velocity rectilinear motion over the period of their filming (16 seconds). The angular (azimuth) velocity is found to be 0.012 radians per second and the azimuth heading of the apparent course is $ 171^{\circ} $ (making an angle of $ 55^{\circ} $ from the line of sight to the water tower). Theoretical curves depicting the appearance of the object's motion if they were on different azimuth headings are included in figures 5(a) and 5(b), along with the observed data (cf. Appendix I for the calculation methods). As mentioned in the Appendix, some random errors exist and the true motion of the objects may well have been a gently sweeping curve with tangents bracketed between $ 169^{\circ} $ and $ 173^{\circ} $ . Of course, we cannot rule out some other curvilinear motion of the objects. However, any such motion would necessitate the coincidence of azimuth, altitude and separation -- all varying proportionally and "geared" together (to a separation tolerance of $ 1^{\prime} $ and azimuth and altitude variation of $ +5^{\prime} $ ). In any event, we shall adopt the hypothesis of nearly rectilinear fixed configuration motion as a basis of some of the following analysis, our only justification being that this is the simpler hypothesis and that in the brief period of the filming any gentle curvilinear trajectory could well be approximated by a straight line, cf. figure 4 for a map of Great Falls on which has been sketched possible UFO paths. **

Measurements of the diameter of the developed images were also made. They were less accurate (+0.01mm on the 16mm film) because of the smallness of the dimension and fuzziness of the images, figure 6. The measurements do confirm that the dots dwindle in size (and the objects finally completely disappear from view). There seem to be slight fluctuations which can be attributed to a variation in the luminosity of the objects. A somewhat detailed discussion of the degree to which these dots do or do not represent the objects photographed inclusive of aberrations and the photographic process is presented in appendix II. Some pertinent photographic experiments made in this regard are also analyzed and the results reported there. In any event it is obvious that these small images do not exactly represent the objects photographed. One can conclude, from the fact that these images fade completely away, that (unless the regressive component to their motion has been grossly underestimated) the objects were not isotropic constant luminosity radiators (Such radiators would be closely approximated by a balloon or a silver sphere shining by reflected sunlight.)

* The inclination to the horizon is found to be very small, the objects appearing to move almost in a plane parallel to the earth's surface. There is a slight decrease in the angle of inclination as the objects regress, but its small value is almost masked by the random errors inherent in the measurements.

Figure 4 indicates three typical parallel azimuth headings of the IFO system. Any heading parallel to these would of course be possible since without parallax no valid estimation of distance can be made.