Topic
Official programs, reports, laws and hearings, from Project Blue Book to AARO and the National Archives. 366 events, newest first.
GovernmentNov 1967
Moscow Aviation Institute astronomer Felix Zigel appeared on Soviet television asking viewers for UFO reports. In November 1967 AP reported that a commission led by Air Force Gen. Stolyarov was studying UFOs; the group was closed after about five months.
Government7 Jun 1967
University of Arizona atmospheric physicist James E. McDonald presented a paper titled 'International Scientific Aspects of the Problem of Unidentified Flying Objects' to the United Nations Outer Space Affairs Group in New York.
Photo: United States Government, Public domain
Government3 Jun 1967
The town of St. Paul, Alberta built a UFO landing pad as its main Canadian centennial project. Defence minister Paul Hellyer arrived by helicopter to open it, and Guinness lists it as the first official UFO landing pad.
Photo: Line Fault, CC BY-SA 4.0
GovernmentJun 1967
University of Arizona atmospheric physicist James McDonald spent late June and early July 1967 in Australia recording interviews with UFO witnesses. Reuters reported him saying in Sydney that governments, backed by the CIA, were downplaying the subject.
Photo: United States Government, Public domain
Government20 Feb 1967
Condon and four committee members visited the CIA's National Photographic Interpretation Center, which agreed to give technical help on UFO photos as long as the work was never identified as CIA work. In May 1967 NPIC briefed them on an analysis that debunked photos from Zanesville, Ohio.
Government25 Jan 1967
Early in the Air Force-funded Colorado study, project director Edward Condon told a Sigma Xi audience in New York state that his inclination was to recommend the government get out of the UFO business. Critics later cited the remark as a sign the study was prejudged.
Photo: National Institute of Standards and Technology, Public domain
GovernmentNov 1966
During NASA's Gemini 12 flight, Jim Lovell reported four objects near the capsule and judged they were items the crew had thrown overboard. The Condon study agreed, finding the transcript shows four items were discarded, against claims by writer John Keel that only three were.
Photo: NASA/Jim Lovell, Public domain
Government7 Oct 1966
The Air Force Office of Scientific Research announced a contract with the University of Colorado for an independent scientific study of UFOs, the project whose final report physicist Edward Condon summarized. The first contract gave $313,000 for 15 months starting November 1, 1966.
Photo: National Institute of Standards and Technology, Public domain
Government19 Sep 1966
The Air Force issued Regulation 80-17, replacing AFR 200-2, to set uniform procedures for investigating and reporting UFOs over the United States. It tied the program to air defense and required bases to keep a UFO investigative capability. Later changes pointed reports to the Condon study.
Photo: US Air Force, Public domain
Government5 May 1966
The Library of Congress Legislative Reference Service issued a report by Robert L. Chartrand, assisted by William F. Brown, summarizing UFO reports, Air Force monitoring under Project Blue Book and public reaction. It came weeks after the April 1966 House Armed Services hearing on UFOs.
Photo: William Henry Jackson, Public domain
Government5 Apr 1966
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.
Photo: United States Department of Defense, Public domain
Government28 Mar 1966
House Minority Leader Gerald Ford of Michigan wrote to the leaders of the House Armed Services and Science and Astronautics committees urging an investigation of UFOs, calling the Air Force's 'swamp gas' explanation of the Michigan sightings flippant. The Armed Services hearing followed on April 5.
Photo: Gerald R. Ford / US Congress, Public domain
GovernmentMar 1966
An ad hoc committee of the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board chaired by Brian O'Brien reviewed Project Blue Book and recommended a university-based scientific study of UFO reports. That recommendation led to the University of Colorado project headed by Edward Condon.
GovernmentMar 1966
After meeting Washtenaw County Sheriff Douglas Harvey about the Dexter sightings, Michigan Rep. Weston Vivian went to Washington planning to ask the Defense Department and the Air Force to investigate, according to a press report entered in the April 1966 House hearing record.
Photo: US Government Printing Office, Public domain
Government1966
University of Arizona atmospheric physicist James McDonald began an intensive study of UFO reports and visited Wright-Patterson AFB to review Air Force UFO files. He later told a House symposium the files surprised him and changed his views.
Government1966
NSA cryptologist Lambros Callimahos wrote an unclassified paper, published in the NSA Technical Journal in 1966, on how humans might exchange messages with an alien civilization, starting with simple beeps for numbers and building up to letters and math. It is about signal design, not UFO reports.
Government24 May 1962
On the Aurora 7 orbital flight, astronaut Scott Carpenter found that rapping the inside of his capsule released clouds of the glowing 'fireflies' John Glenn had reported. He judged them to be frost or ice flaking off the spacecraft, an explanation NASA accepted.
Photo: NASA, Public domain
Government20 Feb 1962
On the first U.S. orbital flight, John Glenn reported thousands of glowing specks he called 'fireflies' drifting past Friendship 7. On the next Mercury flight Scott Carpenter released similar showers by tapping the hatch, and NASA's history links them to frost on the capsule.
Photo: NASA, Public domain
GovernmentDec 1960
A Brookings Institution study done for NASA proposed research on the social effects of space activities, including how the public might react to discovering intelligent life or artifacts on the Moon, Mars or Venus, and whether such news might be presented to or withheld from the public.
Photo: Gryffindor, Public domain
Government5 Aug 1960
Donald Keyhoe's NICAP told UPI that Senate leader Lyndon Johnson had the Preparedness subcommittee staff keep watch on UFO sightings; congressional sources confirmed it. NICAP kept pressing for open hearings, which a House panel declined in 1961.
Photo: US Senate, Public domain
