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 ~ I translation and transcription from reports to punched cards, indicated that there would be relatively few specific variables or factors that would yield meaningful correlation studies. Either the original data were too subjec \L, tive, or the incompleteness of the original reports-wo1J:_ld seriously reduce the sample of a specific variable. I I Preliminary tabulations of various sortings substantiated the im possibility of deriving statistical results from certain variables, such as movement of the observer during the sighting, sound, shape parameter, I size, angular velocity and acceleration, appearance and disappearance bearing, initial and final elevation, altitude, and orientation of the object. The statistically usable variables presented in this study include the date, I time, location, duration, reliability, and method of observation of the sighting, and the physical attributes of number, color, speed, shape, light I brightness, and identification of the objects sighted. The presentation of frequency and percentage distributions of any of I the variables must be interpreted in the light of the sample of incidents I represented. For example, the analysis of the reported colors of the objects sighted, based on ALL SIGHTINGS, could lead to misrepresenta tion of the distribution of the reported color of the objects, because of the I multiplicity of reports on some of the phenomena. On the other hand, the percentage distribution of the light brightness reported by each observer is more likely to be correct than a distribution based on one report for each phenomenon. To assure that the most nearly correct presentation I was made, and to avoid the possibility· of failure to uncover any pattern or I trend inherent in the data, the variables were studied on five different bases or samples. These samples, and their numerical relation to each other, were as follows: I ALL SIGHTINGS (all reports) 3,201 cards UNIT SIGHTINGS, all observers 2, 554 cards UNIT SIGHTINGS, single observer 2, 232 cards I UNIT SIGHTINGS, multiple observers 322 cards OBJECT SIGHTINGS 2, 199 cards I The preliminary tabulations indicated that the samples based on UNIT SIGHTINGS, single observer, and UNIT SIGHTINGS, multiple observers, I would not add materially to this study. Accordingly, although the fre I quency distributions were recorded and are available for study, they are not presented in this report. 'I The bases of ALL SIGHTINGS, UNIT SIGHTINGS ( referring to all observers), and OBJECT SIGHTINGS are presented in Appendix A as Tables Al through A240. A critical study of these tabulations reveals that there is no apparent change in the distribution of any variable from one I basis to another, and that no marked patterns or trends exist in any sample. _I 15 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.