Years later, UFO debunker Philip Klass would suggest that shadows under the eaves of the barn "proved" the picture was taken in the morning, rather than the evening, and that proved the case a hoax. Others wrote the shadows off to random light scattering and essentially unimportant.
But the real point here is about a case that even the scientists with the Condon Committee found of sufficient interest that they analyzed the photographs. But not so the Air Force. The Project Blue Book files show that this case is "information" only. It is not a case and doesn't even have an evaluation written after it.
It would seem to me, that if you are charged with determining what the flying saucers are, that if a case came to your attention that had two good photographs to go with it, you would make an effort to learn more. It would seem to me that this sort of a case would be better than all those with single witnesses that the Air Force chased down. It would seem to me that the value of such a case would be higher than those where there is only the testimony of witnesses.
So, where are we then? The Air Force files, contrary to what they would have us believe, are a treasure trove of old cases. We have separated the rumors from the facts by studying the reports as they gathered decades ago. We can learn, just as Menzel suggested that neither Chiles nor Whitted felt the aircraft buffeted by turbulence, though such facts have been presented in the past.
We can learn, that even though the Air Force claimed a solution to the case, that the solution didn't fit the facts. The Minot Air Force Base report showed that.
We can learn that the Air Force, though arguing that UFOs weren't real and that its officers had found no evidence to support any other conclusion, that such wasn't the case. While they claimed all but 701 sightings were identified, we have learned that those eleven thousand plus files might have been labeled, but a good third of them were never identified. It is a subtle but very real difference.
We can learn that controversial cases, such as the Hill abduction, the McMinneville photographs, or the Kelly-Hopkinsville attack, while in the files, were there as "information" only. Why would the Air Force investigators shy away from investigating these cases, but would collect information about them. It is an interesting fact.
We can learn, by studying the cases, that the Air Force officers who knew the truth about what was in the files rarely, if ever, shared it with the general public or the media. Inside, they were making their proclamations, and without access to the data it would be difficult to argue the point. Now, with that data firmly in hand, we can see, time and again, how the officers were less than candid.
We can learn that a true evaluation of the material in the case files has not been done. Here, I have only scratched the surface of what can be found in the files. If someone, or some organization was to undertake a complete, and I think it must be objective, re-evaluation of the files, what is found would be startling. Would the proof that UFOs are alien spacecraft be proved? I don't think so. But, it would certainly be a starting point and would reveal that something strange has been going on.
We can learn that Blue Book was not the final authority on UFO sighting investigations. We can see, from regulation and reports, that other organizations including the CIA, the 4602d AISS, and other military units held responsibility for investigating UFOs. The situation wasn't one of a single entity investigating the sightings, but one of multiple entities often investigating cases without coordinating with one another.
We can learn that Blue Book was not an objective investigation searching for answers, but a military organization with a specific mission. The investigations sometime got in the way of the mission. That was proven when Quintanilla was forced to go to interview the police officers who had chased UFOs.
The arguments from Project Blue Book turn out to be circular. There are no UFOs, therefore we can find no evidence that there are UFOs. Since we found no evidence that there are UFOs, there cannot be UFOs. But all they had to do was study their own files without letting their personal beliefs, or the beliefs of their superiors influencing them. What we have in the Project Blue Book files are dozens of cases that scream for proper scientific scrutiny. That has yet to happen.
What we can learn from the Project Blue Book files is that something very unusual has been happening since June 1947. It has been investigated, analyzed, studied, and considered, and no one has provided a good solution as yet. In fact, by studying these files, it seems that a solid case for the extraterrestrial hypothesis can be made. That surely is not what they wanted, but it's what they got.
Project Blue Book, as well as its predecessors was a sham from the beginning. They went through the motions of gathering the data, they filled reams of paper with meaningless thoughts, and they worked to convince us that there was nothing to flying saucer reports. But when we were allowed to see the evidence, we saw what it showed. Flying saucers do exist, and the best evaluation suggests that they are extraterrestrial in origin. That is what we can learn from Project Blue Book.
Appendix A: The Lubbock Lights, the Washington Nationals, and the Las Vegas UFO Crash: An Analysis of the Data
Over the years there have been a number of important cases that have received a great deal of attention. To understand the situation at Project Blue Book, it is necessary to understand those cases. Many of them show how the investigations progressed and how the solutions were determined. There are, however, a number of other cases that were well researched by Air Force investigators at the time they occurred. These other cases, for the most part, took place between August 1951 and January 1953.
In putting together the book, I wanted to deal with cases that were important to understanding the philosophy of the Air Force investigation without confusing the issue of what they were really attempting. Because of that, there were a couple of cases that I wanted to discuss, but that didn't fit the flow of the narrative elsewhere. For that reason, I combined the cases and put them here.
The following are three cases that were investigated in depth by Air Force officers. For the most part, they found what they believe to be explanations for the sightings. As happened in so many other aspects of the Air Force study, the facts do not directly support the conclusions drawn. This is, you might say, just additional ammunition for the case I have been attempting to make throughout the book.
In August 1951, a series of spectacular sightings, including a series of photographs, took place over Lubbock, Texas. This all happened about the time that Ed Ruppelt had taken over the leadership of Blue Book and was reorganizing it. Less than a year later, a series of sightings took place over Washington's National Airport. The explanations offered by the Air Force, and the investigation of the case demonstrated the mindset of the military at that time. And, about ten years later, the Air Force investigated a series of sightings that culminated in the apparent explosion of something near Las Vegas, Nevada.
The Lubbock Lights story began on a hot August night as several professors from Texas Tech College (later University) sat outside. A group of dully glowing lights flashed overhead. They moved silently, crossed the sky rapidly, and seemed to be in some kind of loose, but organized, formation. They were only in sight for two or three seconds and none of the professors got a very good look at them.
The professors, W.I. Robinson, A.G. Oberg, and W.L. Ducker, discussed what they had seen trying to figure out what it might have been. They also tried to determine what to do if the lights returned. An hour or so later, the lights reappeared, and this time the professors were ready.