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Project Blue Book Special Report (second copy)

Internet Archive · 309 pages · text from the file's own layer

This is Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14, "Analysis of Reports of Unidentified Aerial Objects," Project No. 10073, dated 5 May 1955. The study reduced about 4,000 sighting reports received by the U.S. Air Force between June 1947 and December 1952 to IBM punched cards and analyzed them statistically, including chi square tests comparing knowns with unknowns. It concludes that the reports very probably do not represent technological developments beyond present scientific knowledge, and it notes that no case produced physical evidence.

  • p. 7 …Air Force on unidentified aerial objects were reduced to IBM punched-card abstracts of the data…
  • p. 10 …form suit- able for transfer to IBM punched cards was extremely difficult ""and time consuming. For…
  • p. 14 …Thus, the selection of the IBM punched- card system for analysis of data forced the adoption…
  • p. 18 …Multiple punching elirninated the need to use several columns for discrete expression of the variations., Selection…
  • p. 22 …counting, and tabulating the information from the punched-card abstracts of reports of sightings. It was…
  • p. 23 f m translation and transcription from reports to punched cards, indicated that there would be relatively…
  • p. 63 …cosines, and tangents of angles had been punched for each 0.01 of a degree from…
  • p. 68 …These group numbers were punched on the cards and incorporated into the coding system. The number…
  • p. 296 Observer's Data Sheet Question WORK SHEET Punched Card Column Code Description 2 3 h Serial…
  • p. 297 Observer's Data Sheet Question Punched Card Column Code Description 6. 7. a. 1 0 . Ui…
  • p. 299 …If no data are available for any column, the Y (or 12 punch) should be used…
  • p. 300 …Air Force Technical Information Sheet Question Punched Card Column Code Description I. f? • f V : HIT…
  • p. 306 …Air Force Technical Information Sheet Question Punched Card Column Code Description 1. 1 2 k 12…
  • p. 307 …Air Force Technical Information Sheet Question Punched Card Column Code Description 3o hi U6 75* 76…
Group 5 — Night sightings for which the sun was more than 10°
below the horizon and which were not included in
Group 4.
Group 6 — Sunrise sightings for which the sun was between 0°
and 10° below the horizon.
Group 7 — Sunrise sightings for which the sun was between 0°
and 10° above the horizon.
These group numbers were punched on the cards and incorporated
into the coding system. The number of OBJECT SIGHTINGS in each group
for each identification was then tabulated and is given in Table I.
TABLE I OBJECT SIGHTINGS
Identification
Balloon
Astronomical
Aircraft
Light phenomena
Insufficient information
UNKNOWN
Other
Total
1
156
52
187
8
72
134
.64
673
Angle
2
17
6
23
2
12
14
82
of
3
28
43
49
4
26
25
12
187
Elevation
4
83
236
144
25
76
150
* 50
764
Group
5
40
118
60
7
28
86
36
375
6
0
9
5
0
2
6
3
25
7
2
6
2
0
0
7
7
24
ff
i
According to this table, a large majority of the KNOWN OBJECT
SIGHTINGS in Group 1 (343 out of 467) were either aircraft or balloons. In
Groups 4 and 5 combined, a large majority (681 out of 899) were either
balloons, aircraft, or astronomical. Accordingly, a re-evaluation of the
UNKNOWNS in these three groups was planned with the objective of deter-
mining which of the UNKNOWNS in Group 1 might possibly be aircraft or
balloons and which of the UNKNOWNS in Groups 4 and 5 might possibly be
balloons, aircraft, or astronomical objects. More will be said of this
project later.
Statistical Chi Square Test
In the meantime, mirror graphs had been constructed from the fre-
quency tabulations which seemed to show that, -when the KNOWNS (total less
UNKNOWNS) and the UNKNOWNS were grouped according to one of six
characteristics, the percentage of KNOWNS and the percentage of
• . ' - • • 6 0

Cases discussed

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Report, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 309 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.