What happened
After the 1966 Michigan sightings and Gerald Ford's call for a hearing, the U.S. Air Force paid the University of Colorado to run an independent scientific study of UFOs. Physicist Edward Condon, a former director of the National Bureau of Standards, led a team that included astronomer William Hartmann, chemist Roy Craig and psychologist Michael Wertheimer. They reviewed Blue Book and civilian files, chased new reports and examined photos, radar cases and physical traces. The project was dogged by controversy: Condon said in a lecture that the subject was nonsense, and a 1966 memo by coordinator Robert Low about making the study look objective leaked in 1968, leading to the firing of two staffers and NICAP's withdrawal. The final report, Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects, ran to 1,485 pages and 59 case studies. Condon's summary said nothing from 21 years of UFO study had added to scientific knowledge. A National Academy of Sciences panel endorsed it, and the Air Force used it to close Project Blue Book.
The original account
Our general conclusion is that nothing has come from the study of UFOs in the past 21 years that has added to scientific knowledge. Careful consideration of the record as it is available to us leads us to conclude that further extensive study of UFOs probably cannot be justified in the expectation that science will be advanced thereby.
Edward U. Condon, 'Conclusions and Recommendations', Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects (1968), Section I, Air Force-funded report
The official explanation
The report's defenders, including the National Academy of Sciences panel chaired by Gerald Clemence and the journal Science, judged it the most thorough study of UFOs ever done and agreed the extraterrestrial hypothesis was the least likely explanation. Most of its case studies found ordinary causes: planets, balloons, aircraft, meteors, refuelling operations and fabricated photographs. Condon argued that scientists were free to pursue specific, well-framed UFO research, but that a government programme was not warranted.
The anomalous case
Critics have long pointed out that the report's own case studies do not match Condon's summary. Hynek wrote that the committee failed to explain more than a quarter of the cases it examined, and that Condon's introduction never mentioned that mystery. The report itself concluded of the 1956 Lakenheath-Bentwaters radar-visual case that the probability that at least one genuine UFO was involved appeared fairly high. Physicist James McDonald called it scientifically inadequate, and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics found no basis for Condon's prediction that further study would yield nothing. Robert Low's leaked memo, describing how the study could appear objective to the public while its staff expected to find nothing, gave critics grounds to argue the conclusion was settled before the work began.
The strongest argument that this was something genuinely unknown or classified, with each claim attributed to the person who made it.
Documents
- Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects, Section I: Conclusions and Recommendations report, files.ncas.org
- Condon Report full text, table of contents report, files.ncas.org
Sources
- Condon Committee Wikipedia
- Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects, Section I: Conclusions and Recommendations University of Colorado / NCAS online edition
- Project BLUE BOOK - Unidentified Flying Objects (incl. USAF fact sheet) U.S. National Archives
Witness reports elsewhere
These archives can't be republished here, so we link to them instead.