Air Force Selecting University to Study 'Flying Saucer' Data
By WALTER SULLIVAN
In obvious response to public disquiet regarding recent "flying saucers" reports,
the Air Force is organizing a new approach to the problem.
It is seeking a contract with a leading university to undertake a program of
intensive investigations of a certain number of such reports.
The identity of the university will not be made public until the
arrangement is final, but Air Force sources said it was an institution
of sufficient stature to guarantee in the public mind that its
inquiry would be impartial.
The investigating teams are to include at least one physical scientist, such as an
astronomer or someone familiar with atmospheric physics. Significantly, there will also
be a psychologist, preferably one with clinical experience.
This marks a departure from past Air Force policy. It has not taken seriously
the thousands of reports of "unidentified flying objects," or UFO's, that have
come in during the last two decades.
These investigations have been termed "Project Blue Book" because the
results are reported in such books. The attitude of the Air Force toward
the problem is reflected in the fact that the project staff has consisted in
one officer, one sergeant and a secretary.
The blue-book analyses of 10.147 sightings from 1947 to the start of this year
furnished a conventional explanation for all but 646
of them. The remainder were classed as unidentifiable for lack of adequate information [Not true].
The explanations have ranged from weather balloons to swamp gas.
The later was cited to explain strange glowing lights reported at two points in Michigan last March.
In both case they were
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