Page:Project Blue Book, complete status reports.pdf/335

UNCLASSIFIED an educational program on unidentified aerial objects in order to decrease the volume of reports of known objects. They were given copies of the briefing itself which outlined the outstanding known causes of "flying saucer" reports and -were asked to circulate this information to the filter center and observers. Another point stressed by the briefing was the fact that analysis and conclusions on a sighting could be accomplished by ADC personnel themselves. ATIC encourages the preparing officer of a FLYOBRPT to attempt to arrive at a conclusion as to what caused the report of an unidentified object. They were advised of the main categories of conventional objects which cause reports, such as balloons, aircraft, and astronomical bodies. A general opinion held by all officers in ADC was that the required AF Form 112 as per AF Letter 200-5 causes a great deal of excessive clerical work. They suggested that the subject Form 112 should be eliminated entirely. They stated that in many instances that Hq ADC required many file copies of both the TWX and the AF Form 112, and that this substantially reduced the number of reports submitted to ATIC. In many installations there are simply not enough clerical personnel to do the vork. The results of this suggestion and ATIC's opinion will be examined in the following item.

IV.

Air Force Letter 200-5 as it reads at the present time requires that all TWX s to ATIC on an unidentified flying object will be followed within 72 hours by a -written Form 112 which elaborates on the sighting. It is felt that the Form 112 is superfluous when the sighting can be explained from the TWX alone which,, is usually the case 70 percent of the time. In view of this, ATIC is currently amending Air Force Letter 200-5 to state that just a TWX will be sent in on an original FLYOBRPT and if ATIC feels that more information is needed it will in turn contact the reporting unit and ask them for the Form 112. The new requirements for a TWX will request more complete information than was previously asked.

V.

Project Blue Book has a contract with a civilian research organization which serves the project with an IBM analysis of all unidentified aerial object reports and technical analysis of any specific problems submitted. Coding and evaluation of all reports from 1947 to 1952 has been completed and the formal IBM study is now being run. Up to and including 1952, 2,500 reports were received through military channels. This number does not include many letters reporting sightings sent in by the public at large. Trial questionnaires were sent out to the most reasonable of these letters during the summer of 1952, when reporting was extremely high. Approximately 1,000 of these questionnaires were completed and returned to Project Blue Book and are now being incorporated into the IBM analysis. Thus 3,500 sightings of unidentified aerial objects will be studied.

One two-day evaluation conference was held during 4 March and 5 March 1953. Two representatives from the Air Technical Intelligence Center and three representatives from the contract organization participated in this conference and processed 265 reports. These reports were given final evaluations before Rh UNCLASSIFIED