Decade
UAP history in the 1960s: 13 entries in date order, each with public sources. By track: Sightings (7), Government (4), Experiencers (1), Military (1).
Betty and Barney Hill said a bright object followed their car on a night drive through New Hampshire's White Mountains, and under hypnosis in 1963-64 described being taken aboard a craft. Their story drew wide coverage from 1965 on, and a state historical marker now stands in Lincoln.
Socorro police officer Lonnie Zamora reported a shiny oval object and a roaring flame in a gully, then found burned brush and ground marks. Blue Book chief Hector Quintanilla called it the best-documented case on record, and it stayed unidentified.
Hitchhiker Norman Muscarello and Exeter police officers Eugene Bertrand and David Hunt reported a low object with bright red lights over fields near Kensington, N.H. Officers from Pease AFB investigated, and the policemen publicly disputed the Air Force's conventional explanations.
Police and residents near Dexter and Hillsdale, Michigan reported glowing lights over swampy ground. Air Force consultant J. Allen Hynek suggested swamp gas, drawing ridicule, and Rep. Gerald Ford called for hearings, which the House Armed Services Committee held that April.
The House Armed Services Committee held an open hearing on UFOs with Air Force Secretary Harold Brown, Blue Book consultant J. Allen Hynek and Maj. Hector Quintanilla. Brown said an advisory board found no threat and urged contracts with universities to study selected sightings.
Students and teachers at Westall High School in suburban Melbourne reported a silvery object that descended toward a nearby property and then left; hundreds gathered on the oval. Local papers covered it, but authorities said they knew nothing and no official explanation was given.
Portage County deputies Dale Spaur and Wilbur Neff said they chased a bright object from near Ravenna about 85 miles into Pennsylvania before dawn; officers elsewhere reported it too. Blue Book chief Hector Quintanilla attributed it partly to Venus, an answer the deputies and others disputed.
All ten Minuteman missiles of Malmstrom's Echo Flight went offline within about half a minute, an event recorded in declassified unit histories. Former launch officer Robert Salas and others later said guards reported glowing objects at the time; their decades-later accounts are disputed.
Amateur prospector Stefan Michalak said a landed craft near Falcon Lake, Manitoba, vented hot gas that set his shirt alight and left grid-shaped burns. The RCMP and RCAF investigated, a University of Colorado team studied it for the Air Force, and no definitive explanation was reached.
Fishermen, RCMP officers and others reported a lit object descending into the sea off Shag Harbour, Nova Scotia; boats found only yellow foam and a navy dive team found nothing. RCMP and military messages referred to an unidentified flying object, and no official explanation was ever given.
The House Committee on Science and Astronautics held a one-day symposium on UFOs chaired by Rep. J. Edward Roush. Six scientists, including J. Allen Hynek, James McDonald and Carl Sagan, presented views, and further papers were added to the printed record.
An Air Force-funded University of Colorado study led by physicist Edward Condon was made public. It concluded that further UFO study was unlikely to advance science, and the Air Force later cited it when closing Project Blue Book.
Air Force Secretary Robert Seamans Jr. announced the end of Project Blue Book, citing the Condon study and its review by the National Academy of Sciences. The Air Force said no case it had studied showed a threat to national security or evidence of extraterrestrial vehicles.
