UFOs - Leslie Kean [59]
In fact, Condon himself did not participate in the analysis of the carefully researched case studies that made up the bulk of the study, and it appears he also didn’t bother to read the finished product. The lengthy study did provide some excellent scientific analysis by other members of the committee, buried among many tedious case analyses of marginal importance which dragged on, page after page. Other key cases were left out altogether. Some reports actually verified the reality of still unsolved and highly perplexing UFO phenomena. For example, investigator William K. Hartman, astronomer from the University of Arizona, researched two extraordinary photographs from McMinnville, Oregon, and stated that “this is one of the few UFO reports in which all factors investigated, geometric, psychological, and physical, appear to be consistent with the assertion that an extraordinary flying object, silvery, metallic, disc-shaped, tens of meters in diameter, and evidently artificial, flew within the sight of two witnesses.”22
Regardless, Condon’s summary stated, “Nothing has come from the study of UFOs in the past twenty years that has added to scientific knowledge.” And the National Academy of Sciences endorsed Condon’s recommendations. “A study of UFOs in general is not a promising way to expand scientific understanding of the phenomena,” it concluded seven weeks later.23 Condon added insult to injury by telling the New York Times that his investigation “was a bunch of damn nonsense,” and he was sorry he “got involved in such foolishness.”24
The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) was among those registering objections after its panel spent over a year studying the actual 1,000-page text of the Condon report. The AIAA stated that Condon’s summary did not reflect the report’s conclusions but instead “discloses many of his [Condon’s] personal conclusions.” The AIAA scientists found no basis in the report for Condon’s determination that further studies had no scientific value, but declared instead that “a phenomenon with such a high ratio of unexplained cases (about 30% in the Report itself) should arouse sufficient curiosity to continue its study.”25
Behind Condon’s and Low’s disdain and closed minds, along with those of others in that camp, lay, once again, the problem of confronting the extraterrestrial hypothesis. As Hynek pointed out at the time, Condon and his supporters mistakenly equated the notion of UFOs with something extraterrestrial, believing that if UFOs were acknowledged as a genuine phenomenon, an implicit acceptance of the extraterrestrial hypothesis would ensue. This was clearly unacceptable to them. As Low pointed out in his memo, the simple act of admitting such a possibility was “beyond the pale,” and any professional doing so risked losing prestige within a scientific community not open to such a radical concept. Even after twenty-two years of Air Force accumulation of data, along with independent studies made by various scientists such as McDonald, an overwhelming number of scientists and government officials still felt profound unease with entertaining even the remote possibility of such a hypothesis. That aversion was strong enough that its purveyors didn’t mind that it completely undermined the accuracy and effectiveness of an expensive, years-long scientific study on which so much depended, and which everyone knew would have a huge, historical impact.
Instead, the final nail was in the coffin. In December 1969, the Air Force announced the termination of Project Blue Book—our government’s only official investigation of UFOs—effective the following month. From then on, scientists could justify