Culture and science
The books that shaped how the public sees UFOs. 176 events, newest first.
Close encounters19 Aug 1952
Florida scoutmaster Sonny DesVergers said a hovering craft engulfed him in a red mist, singeing his arms and cap, while three scouts waited in his car. Blue Book chief Edward Ruppelt wrote it off as the best hoax in UFO history, though investigators never proved how it was done.
Military1 Aug 1952
An Air Defense Command radar near Bellefontaine tracked a fast target north of Dayton, and two Wright-Patterson F-86 pilots photographed a silver sphere on gun-camera film. Blue Book first carried it as unknown, then attributed it to a jet and a weather balloon.
Photo: USAF photo 82042 AC, Public domain
Military29 Jul 1952
An Air Defense Command radar in central Michigan tracked a fast target over Saginaw Bay and vectored an F-94. The crew reported a bright light and a brief airborne radar lock-on before the target pulled away. Blue Book chief Edward Ruppelt later wrote that it had no good explanation.
Photo: US Air Force, Public domain
Military24 Jul 1952
Two Pentagon-based Air Force colonels flying a B-25 from Hamilton AFB reported three silver, tailless delta craft passing them at high speed over Carson Sink. Blue Book chief Edward Ruppelt wrote that checks for aircraft and balloons found nothing and the case stayed unknown.
Photo: Airwolfhound from Hertfordshire, UK, CC BY-SA 2.0
Sightings14 Jul 1952
The crew of a Pan American airliner flying from New York to Miami reported eight UFOs near Newport News, Virginia. Blue Book chief Edward Ruppelt lists it among the July 1952 reports leading up to the Washington radar sightings later that month.
SightingsJul 1952
1952 brought the Air Force more UFO reports than any year before, about eight times the totals for each of the previous two years per the Condon Report. Project Blue Book chief Edward Ruppelt dated the 'Big Flap' from about June 1, with reports peaking in July, including the Washington radar cases.
Photo: Associated Press, Public domain
Government29 Apr 1952
Air Force Letter 200-5 told every Air Force base to wire UFO reports to the Air Technical Intelligence Center and the Pentagon, followed by fuller reports by mail. Edward Ruppelt wrote that it also let Project Blue Book contact any Air Force unit directly.
MediaApr 1952
A Life magazine article researched by Bob Ginna raised the possibility that saucers were interplanetary, quoting scientists who took the idea seriously. Ruppelt, then Blue Book chief, wrote that senior Pentagon officers had unofficially encouraged it.
GovernmentMar 1952
The Air Force reorganized its UFO investigations as Project Blue Book. By the time it closed in 1969, the Air Force programs had logged 12,618 reports, 701 of them still listed as unidentified.
Photo: US Governement, Public domain
Military1952
Project Blue Book planned cameras fitted with diffraction gratings to split UFO light into a spectrum and tell meteors, aircraft and balloons apart. Chief Edward Ruppelt later wrote that in tests they could not usefully photograph a bright flare at 450 yards, but were sent out anyway.
Photo: US Air Force, Public domain
GovernmentNov 1951
Starting in November 1951, the reactivated Project Grudge, renamed Blue Book in March 1952, issued a series of 12 classified status reports on its work. They were declassified in 1960 but, per the Condon Report, were hard to obtain until NICAP published them in 1968.
Photo: US Air Force, Public domain
Sightings25 Aug 1951
Texas Tech professors reported formations of soft glowing lights over Lubbock, and student Carl Hart Jr. photographed a formation days later. Blue Book's Edward Ruppelt investigated; birds reflecting new streetlights was the main lead, but he reached no firm conclusion on the photos.
Sightings15 Mar 1951
A chief aircraft engineer at the Delhi Flying Club and about 20 others reported a long, bullet-shaped object trailing a white cloud that looped over the field and left at high speed. The case is in the Project Blue Book files, and NICAP says Blue Book listed it as unidentified.
Photo: Ashish Bhatnagar, CC BY-SA 3.0
Sightings20 Jan 1951
After Sioux City tower controllers reported a bright light, the pilots of a Mid-Continent Airlines DC-3 said a large wing-shaped object passed their nose and flew beside them briefly. The Air Force blamed a B-36; Blue Book chief Edward Ruppelt later wrote that no B-36 could have done it.
Photo: Project Blue Book, Public domain
MediaSep 1950
Columnist Frank Scully's book claimed government scientists had recovered crashed saucers with small occupants, citing oilman Silas Newton and a 'Dr. Gee'. In 1952 Denver authorities charged Newton and the man said to be Dr. Gee in an oil-device swindle, discrediting the story.
Photo: Unknown author, Public domain
SightingsApr 1950
In spring 1950 the crew and passengers of a TWA DC-3 night flight over northern Indiana reported a large orange-red object. Blue Book chief Edward Ruppelt later wrote that the official answer was blast-furnace light reflecting off haze, an explanation the pilots rejected.
Sightings17 Mar 1950
Many residents of Farmington reported large numbers of fast, darting objects on St. Patrick's Day 1950, after scattered reports on the two previous days. Blue Book chief Edward Ruppelt later suggested fragments of a burst Skyhook balloon as the likeliest cause.
Photo: Christopher Nicol, CC BY-SA 3.0
MediaJan 1950
Retired Marine Maj. Donald Keyhoe argued in True magazine's January 1950 issue that flying saucers were interplanetary craft and disputed Air Force explanations. Radio and press amplified the claim, and Keyhoe expanded it into a 1950 book of the same name.
Photo: Donald Keyhoe, Public domain
Media1950
Fawcett Publications issued Donald Keyhoe's 'The Flying Saucers Are Real', a paperback expanding on his January 1950 True magazine article. Keyhoe argued the Air Force knew more about flying saucers than it admitted.
Photo: Donald Keyhoe, Public domain
Government27 Dec 1949
The Air Force announced that Project Grudge was closed and released its final report, which attributed saucer reports to misidentification, mild hysteria and hoaxes and recommended cutting the effort back. Grudge continued at a minimal level until Project Blue Book replaced it.
Photo: US Air Force, Public domain
Sightings24 May 1949
A group fishing near the mouth of the Rogue River, including employees of a NACA aeronautical laboratory, reported a round silver object, watched through binoculars, on May 24, 1949. An Air Force OSI report could not rule out an aircraft; the case was later listed in Blue Book Special Report 14.
Photo: Yurivict at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0
MilitaryMar 1949
From March to June 1949, soldiers guarding the nuclear weapons storage site at Killeen Base, Camp Hood, reported unexplained moving lights. Army observers tried to triangulate them on 17 March, and Project Blue Book later listed that case as unidentified.
GovernmentSep 1948
Project Sign staff drafted a top secret 'Estimate of the Situation' concluding that some saucers were interplanetary craft. According to later Blue Book chief Edward Ruppelt, Chief of Staff Gen. Hoyt Vandenberg rejected it for lack of proof and it was later burned; no copy has surfaced.
Photo: USAF, Public domain
Government1948
In early 1948, Air Force officers from Wright-Patterson asked J. Allen Hynek, director of Ohio State's McMillin Observatory, to help Project Sign find which saucer reports were astronomical. Hynek, then a skeptic, had no role in Grudge but returned as Blue Book's consultant from 1952 to 1969.
Photo: United States Government, Public domain
Military1948
Large plastic Skyhook research balloons, about 100 feet across, were flown in secret for the Navy, unknown to most Air Force pilots. Blue Book chief Edward Ruppelt and the Condon report later cited them as the likely cause of many reports, including Capt. Thomas Mantell's fatal 1948 chase.
Photo: US Navy, Public domain
