Context
Boulder, Colorado. October 6, 1966. The University of Colorado agreed to undertake an Air Force-funded scientific study of UFOs. The physicist Edward U. Condon would direct it. Robert J. Low would coordinate it. The budget began at $313,000 and later rose above $500,000. NICAP briefed the project that November, and both NICAP and APRO handed over files.
The cases
The report held 59 detailed case studies. Some refused to be explained. May 11, 1950. A farm about 10 miles southwest of McMinnville, Oregon. Two witnesses saw a silvery object with "a sort of superstructure." "There was no noise, visible exhaust, flames, or smoke." It moved slowly west, then accelerated, tipping and changing direction. They took two photographs. The astronomer William K. Hartmann concluded that every factor he investigated appeared consistent with "an extraordinary flying object, silvery, metallic, disk-shaped, tens of meters in diameter, and evidently artificial."
Summer 1956. Lakenheath, England. Radar tracked targets at "400 to 600 mph," with no build-up in speed. A bright light crossed the field "at terrific speed." An RAF Venom interceptor gave chase. The pilot reported: "I've got my guns locked on him." Then the object got behind him. "The UFO acted like it was glued right behind him." Low on petrol, the pilot broke off. The report judged that the probability that at least one genuine UFO was involved "appears to be fairly high."
The memo
July 1967. James E. McDonald came across a memo Low had written on August 9, 1966. It read: "The trick would be, I think, to describe the project so that, to the public, it would appear a totally objective study but, to the scientific community, would present the image of a group of nonbelievers trying their best to be objective but having an almost zero expectation of finding a saucer."
Two staff members, David R. Saunders and Norman Levine, were dismissed for alleged "incompetence." On April 30, 1968, NICAP cut ties with the Condon Committee. That May, Look published John G. Fuller's "Flying Saucer Fiasco" and called the study a "$500,000 trick." Low resigned. On July 29, 1968, Representative J. Edward Roush chaired a House symposium. Five of the six scientists who testified saw a valid anomaly.
The verdict
The report reached the Air Force in November 1968 and went public in January 1969. Condon concluded that "nothing has come from the study of UFOs in the past 21 years that has added to scientific knowledge." More than a quarter of the cases stayed unexplained. On January 8, 1969, a National Academy of Sciences panel called extraterrestrial visitation "the least likely explanation of UFOs." On December 17, 1969, Air Force Secretary Robert C. Seamans Jr. announced the end of Project Blue Book. It had logged 12,618 reports. Of those, 701 remained unidentified.
The debate
Science called the report "unquestionably the most thorough and sophisticated investigation of the nebulous UFO phenomenon ever conducted." Nature found it "more like taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut." Philip J. Klass later wrote "The Condon UFO Study: A Trick or a Conspiracy?"
J. Allen Hynek was blunt: "The Condon Report settled nothing." McDonald said it examined "only a tiny fraction of the most puzzling UFO reports of the past two decades." Sturrock wrote in 1987: "Critical reviews came from scientists who had actually carried out research in the UFO area, while the laudatory reviews came from scientists who had not."
Legacy
Hynek published The UFO Experience in 1972 and founded the Center for UFO Studies in 1973. Blue Book's records went to The National Archives in 1975 and opened in spring 1976. The report closed an Air Force project. It never closed the argument.
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