This is Edward J. Ruppelt's memoir of his role in the seminal US Air Force UFO study projects: Projects Sign, Grudge and Blue Book. According to this account, he coined the acronym 'UFO' and put many of the official procedures for reporting and studying UFOs in place. An enjoyable read, this book captures the feel of working for the mid-20th century US military. He describes the changing attitudes of the USAF about UFOs during the early 1950s: wobbling between denial, ridicule, paranoia, and genuine inquiry.

A key point of this book is to resolve doubts about the military's role. Ruppelt makes a strong case that UFOs weren't a top secret weapons system; the reports were not disinformation by intelligence agencies; nor was there a concerted effort to cover up UFOs by the US government. Ruppelt does recount many times when the brass tried to dismiss reports without investigating them sufficiently. However, this comes across as simply standard-issue military 'cover-your-ass' behavior, not a vast conspiracy.

He gives unique details on some of the most impressive sightings on his watch. These were largely witnessed by highly trained observers such as radar operators, fighter and commercial pilots, astronomers, and other scientists, often during the course of their official duties. The Air Force group that Ruppelt worked for had access to data on top secret balloon launches and test flights, so they were able to sort out which reports could be explained in this way. He consulted with a wide range of scientific specialists, many of whom were in favor of the extraterrestrial hypothesis, and some who were skeptics.

Fully a quarter of the reports were still unexplained after this rigorous filtering. Ruppelt is decidedly agnostic, but open-minded, about the reality behind the 'unexplained' sightings. Unlike Keyhoe, he does not claim that UFOs are interplanetary spacecraft, only that this is one of the possible explanations. --J.B. Hare, May 13, 2008.

 

 

The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects

by Edward J. Ruppelt,

Former head of the United States Air Force Project Blue Book

DOUBLEDAY & COMPANY

Garden City, New York

[1956]

Scanned, proofed and formatted at sacred-texts.com, May 2008. This text is in the public domain in the US because the copyright on this book was not renewed in a timely fashion.

TO ELIZABETH AND KRIS

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Jacket

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Title Page

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Verso

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Registration and Renewal Report from Thompson Compumark on the Copyright Status of this work

Flap Text

"Unidentified Flying Objects"—exactly what are they? Are they interplanetary spaceships manned by intelligent beings? Or is the whole UFO business just a mass of hoaxes, hallucinations, and readily explained natural phenomena?

This is the first serious book about UFOs to be written by anyone actively connected with the official investigation of these phenomena. As chief of the Air Force project assigned to the investigation and analysis of UFOs, Mr. Ruppelt and his staff studied over 4,500 reports and discussed them with everyone from out-and-out crackpots to top-level scientists and generals.

All reports received were subjected to military intelligence analysis procedures. Astronomers, physicists, aerodynamic engineers, and psychologists were consulted in the course of the Air Force's exhaustive investigations.

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The official Air Technical Intelligence Center reports of their findings, many details from which are revealed for the first time in this book, contain some completely baffling detailed accounts of UFO sightings by thoroughly reliable witnesses.

Here are the complete official accounts of the classic cases—the Lubbock Lights, the Utah Movies, the Florida Scoutmaster, the Washington Sightings—as well as a wealth of less-publicized but equally amazing incidents.

While others who have written books and articles on UFOs imply that they were conferring with officials in the inner sanctum, Mr. Ruppelt, as this fascinating book makes clear, was the inner sanctum.

About the Author

From early 1951 until September 1953, Edward J. Ruppelt was chief of the United States Air Force's Project Blue Book, an operation of the Air Technical Intelligence Center. Since 1953 the author has been in close contact with the present project staff and recently made a trip across the country to check current developments. Mr. Ruppelt is now a research engineer for the Northrop Aircraft Company.

JACKET PHOTOGRAPH OF LUBBOCK LIGHTS BY CARL HART, JR.

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Hoaxes,
hallucinations,
or spaceships?

Here is the first serious, unbiased account of the United States Air Force investigation of these mysterious objects in the sky, written by the man who was head of Project Blue Book.

 

 

 

Foreword

This is a book about unidentified flying objects—UFO's—"flying saucers." It is actually more than a book; it is a report because it is the first time that anyone, either military or civilian, has brought together in one document all the facts about this fascinating subject. With the exception of the style, this report is written exactly the way I would have written it had I been officially asked to do so while I was chief of the Air Force's project for investigating UFO reports—Project Blue Book.

In many instances I have left out the names of the people who reported seeing UFO's, or the names of certain people who were associated with the project, just as I would have done in an official report. For the same reason I have changed the locale in which some of the UFO sightings occurred. This is especially true in chapter fifteen, the story of how some of our atomic scientists detected radiation whenever UFO's were reported near their "UFO-detection stations." This policy of not identifying the "source," to borrow a term from military intelligence, is insisted on by the Air Force so that the people who have co-operated with them will not get any unwanted publicity. Names are considered to be "classified information."

But the greatest care has been taken to make sure that the omission of names and changes in locale has in no way altered the basic facts because this report is based on the facts—all of the facts—nothing of significance has been left out.

It was only after considerable deliberation that I put this report together, because it had to be told accurately, with no holds barred. I finally decided to do it for two reasons. First, there is world-wide interest in flying saucers; people want to know the facts. But more often than not these facts have been obscured by secrecy and confusion, a situation that has led to wild speculation on one end of the scale and an almost dangerously blasé

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attitude on the other. It is only when all of the facts are laid out that a correct evaluation can be made.

Second, after spending two years investigating and analyzing UFO reports, after talking to the people who have seen UFO's—industrialists, pilots, engineers, generals, and just the plain man-on-the-street, and after discussing the subject with many very capable scientists, I felt that I was in a position to be able to put together the complete account of the Air Force's struggle with the flying saucer.

The report has been difficult to write because it involves something that doesn't officially exist. It is well known that ever since the first flying saucer was reported in June 1947 the Air Force has officially said that there is no proof that such a thing as an interplanetary spaceship exists. But what is not well known is that this conclusion is far from being unanimous among the military and their scientific advisers because of the one word, proof; so the UFO investigations continue.

The hassle over the word "proof" boils down to one question: What constitutes proof? Does a UFO have to land at the River Entrance to the Pentagon, near the Joint Chiefs of Staff offices? Or is it proof when a ground radar station detects a UFO, sends a jet to intercept it, the jet pilot sees it, and locks on with his radar, only to have the UFO streak away at a phenomenal speed? Is it proof when a jet pilot fires at a UFO and sticks to his story even under the threat of court-martial? Does this constitute proof?

The at times hotly debated answer to this question may be the answer to the question, "Do the UFO's really exist?"

I'll give you the facts—all of the facts—you decide.

July 1955

E. J. Ruppelt

 

 

Contents