Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14: Analysis of Reports of Unidentified Aerial Objects

(12) Case XII. The object had windows in its top and front
and its top midsection. It also had a set of propellers
around its waist.
It is not possible, therefore, to derive a verified model of a "flying
saucer" from the data that have been gathered to date. This point is i m -
portant enough to emphasize. Out of about 4, 000 people who said they saw
a "flying saucer", sufficiently detailed descriptions were given in only 12
c a s e s . Having culled the c r e a m of the crop, it is still impossible to develop
a picture of what a "flying saucer" i s .
In addition to this study of the good UNKNOWNS, an attempt was made
to find groups of UNKNOWNS for which the observed characteristics were
the same. No such groups were found.
On the basis of this evidence, therefore, there is a low probability
that any of the UNKNOWNS represent observations of a class of "flying
s a u c e r s " . It may be that some reports r e p r e s e n t observations of not one
but several classes of objects that might have been "flying s a u c e r s " ;
however, the lack of evidence to confirm even one class would seem to make
this possibility remote. It is pointed out that some of the cases of KNOWNS,
before identification, appeared fully as bizarre as any of the 12 cases of
good UNKNOWNS, and, in fact, would have been placed in the class of good
UNKNOWNS had it not been possible to establish their identity.
This i s , of course, contrary to the bulk of the publicity that has been
given to this problem.--The reason for the nature of this publicity was
clearly brought out during the re-evaluation study. It is a definite factjthat
upon reading a_JLejw rje_p_QrJLs_,_.:^ that "flying
s a u c e r s " a r e r e a l and a r e some form of sinister contrivance. This reaction
is independent of the training of the r e a d e r or of his attitude toward the
problem prior to the initial contact. It is unfortunate that practically all of
the a r t i c l e s , books, and news stories dealing with the phenomenon of the
"flying saucer" were written by men who were in this category, that i s ,
men who had read only a few selected r e p o r t s . This is accentuated by the
fact that, as a rule, only the more lu r id - s oundin g reports are cited in these
publications. Were it not for this common psychological tendency to be
captivated by the mysterious, it is possible that no problem of this nature
would exist.
The reaction, mentioned above, that after reading a few reports,, the
r e a d e r is convinced that "flying s a u c e r s " a r e real and a r e some form of
sinister contrivance, is very misleading. As more and more of the r e p o r t s
a r e read, the feeling that " s a u c e r s " are r-e-al fades, and is replaced by a
feeling of skepticism regarding their existence. The reader eventually
reaches a point of saturation, after which the reports contain no new infor-
mation at all and a r e no longer of any interest. This feeling of surfeit was
universal among the personnel who worked on this project, and continually
necessitated a conscious effort on their part to remain objective.
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