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This Black Vault compilation contains a September 1997 reply from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense to John Greenewald's FOIA request, enclosing its UFO records. The enclosures include a Navy information sheet dismissing the Philadelphia Experiment and an Air Force UFO fact sheet listing 12,618 Project Blue Book sightings, 701 of them unidentified. They also include the National Academy of Sciences review endorsing the University of Colorado report and the concluding pages of a 1994 Air Force Roswell report attributing the wreckage to Project MOGUL.
“Sightings”41 pages
• -- SCIENCE CONFLCT - · .-' . .. . By James Oberg F riction between science and fly· ing saucers has generated a bliz- zard of sparks over the years. The sides are well defined: Establishment scientists trad1tionaHy dismiss UFO data as fanciful fiction. while UFO enthusiasts ponray themselves as outcast Galileos. prophets of a new scientific revolution. Advocates of Unidentified Aying Ob- jects insist ttl at they are onto some extraor- dinary phenomenon unaccountable by contemporary science. The favonte theory involves alien spacecraft. but grow•ng splinter groups promote va rious psychrc , interdtmensional. cross-temporal. con- sprratonat, or even more b1zarre hy- potheses. Whatever it is. UFO enthusiasts assen. the confirmation ot extraterrestrial 'ngs could be a key to the next great :tkthrough in human knowledge. rewcoutd argue such a premise. Early in 1977. the wire services reponed that astronomers now favQr scientific stud· ies of UFOs. According to The New York Times. ·unidentified !lying objeCts should be mvestigated further. a majority of trained astronomical observers said in a survey disclosed recently.· Closer analysis showed that the private pro-UFO survey actually meant that only one-Quaner ot those polled responded that UFOs ·certainly• or ·probably· de- served :.:udy, w1th a few more agreemg . •"J:.A:ao. : ~-~ -..·.... •._.., .. that they "possibly" deserved study. More to the point. only one-quarter of 1 percent · ol the astronomers thought that UFOs were important enouQh to warrant their personal attention. But the poll did nevertheless seem to bestow some measure of scientific re- spectability to this topic, previously ranked among the lunatic fringe. The poll was symptomatic of the changing image of UFOs. and the new status of UFO re- searchers. After three decades of exuberant if ama- teurish lieldwor!(, turious propagandizing , and aimless theorizing, a number of UFO groups have finally begun to play the game using rules of science. Accepting the burden of proof. they have mounted an impressive scientific program designed to demonstrate, finally. that UFOs exist. On a dark hillside in Texas, white- uniformed men monitor a battery of instru- ments. hoping to catch and record the subtle physical ellects alleged to accom- pany UFO visitations. In photographic laboratories across the country. data pro- cessing specialists analyze computerized images ol alleged UFO photographs. seeking evrdence of forgery and potential proof of authentic ity. A computerized data base in Chicago prints out pattern analy- ses ot UFO sightings, seeking a signal behind the noise of thousands of annual ....-. . •, • -~·· · f ,..-..,.... So~etacutar r;tow'"9 (JFO was f.)/'loto r;ra(JI!~C! lrom a Coneore1e C1urmr; 1973 solar eclipse.. . 28 OMNI Oc.r'78 repons. Pieces of metal picked up near. .. . alleged landlnQ.Sites undergo speCtro- scopic examinaiion in well-equipped laboratories. . These are the techniques of science. applied to a subject long regarded as be- yond the fringes of science. But these are the techniques that will produce proof, if proof is possible . Standards are flOW tighter and the experience ol UFO investigators greater. so that many ·unknowns· have dimin- ished. More and more cases have been solved . but always a fraction remain un- solved. unexplained, unidentified. This residue of unknowns is the basis for UFO enthusiasts' hope. Skeptics disagree. saying that mherentlimitations in human perception, memory. and knowledge will always introduce a small artificial reSidue of unknowns. So what kind of data will stand up to sO. entific standards, not as a leftover residue of mysteries but as a definitive list of re-- corded events? Laying aside the possibilities that alien ambassadors will land at the White House or that the fabled "sPcret captured flying saucer• will ever be rescued from alleoed governmental oblivion, hard evidence lor the reality and respectability of UFOs must come from laboratot~es now engaged in scientific research. The "PrOject Starlight International" team. privately but generously funded by some Texas millionaires. has assembled an array of instruments that COI.IId produce incontrovertible ev1dence. They have cam- eras. radar, spectrometers. magnetome- ters. radiation sensors. grav11ometers. and a small laser beam to communicate with extraterrestrials shOuld they t\appen by. The Starlight UFO trap has now been in full operation for nearly three years. New eQuipment continues to be added. inc:lud· ing a radar set and computerized atert system that automatically telephones vOl- unteer skywatchers in the vicinity ot a computed UFO pos1t1on. The system works well in drills-but nothing substan- tive has resulted. The most exciting recent e'.'ents have dealt with a fierce wood tlck 1nfes1atton on
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