Documents / Case file
This CIA archives copy, released in 2026, holds Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14 (Analysis of Reports of Unidentified Aerial Objects). The Air Technical Intelligence Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base issued it on 5 May 1955. The study reduced about 4,000 sighting reports from 1947 to 1952 to IBM punched cards, with 3,201 cases charted, and applied chi square tests to compare known and unknown sightings. It concludes that it is highly improbable the reports represent technological developments beyond present-day scientific knowledge.
From the source:Release of 2026-06-12 This is the USAF Project Blue Book with a CIA cover sheet stating the document is "Official Record Copy." With the exception of the handwritten note on the first page, the content of this document has been available on CIA's public website.
I IUpon completion of final identifications, all data were transferred to IBM cards, preparatory to analysis. I I I ANALYSIS OF THE DA TA Broadly stated, the problem at this point consisted of the judicious application of scientific met~ods of categorizing and analyzing the sub jective data in reports of sightings of unidentified aerial objects. It was Irecognized that an approach to this problem could best be made by a sys tematic sorting and tabulation program to give frequency and percentage Idistributions of the important characteristics of sightings. A suggestion that an attempt be made to anticipate all questions that might be asked in the future about a sighting or a group of sightings, and to provide answers, Iwas rejected. The systematic approach also made it possible to develop a detailed reference manual of the attributes of the sightings included in this study. I Thus, at the beginning of the analysis, a detailed plan was developed Ifor sorting, counting, and tabulating the information from the punched-card abstracts of reports of sightings. It was believed at the time, and later substantiated, that the results of the program for sorting and tabulating Iwould serve as a, guide for the more sophisticated treatment involving statistical methods. IAlso, it was anticipated that any patterns or trends that might be found could be subjected to concentrated study in the hope of discovering Isignificant information relating to the characteristics of "flying saucers". Further, it was believed that these trends could serve as certain of the criteria of validity for any concepts (models) developed in the attempt to Idiscover a class of "flying saucers". IThe three parts of this study ( 1) the sorting and tabulation program, (2) the advanced study of the results of that program, and (3) the investiga tion of the possibility of conceiving a model of a "flying saucer" from Idescriptions reported, are discussed in sections entitled "Frequency and Percentage Distributions by Characteristics", "Advanced Study of the Data", and "The I Flying Saucer' Model". I IFrequency and Percentage Distributions by Characteristics IThe original conception of this study assumed the availability of sufficient data to describe adequately the physical appearance, maneuver characteristics, range, direction, and probable path of the object or Iobjects observed. However, familiarity with the data, acquired during the I14 I
Case file, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 312 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.