USAF-Sponsored Colorado Project for the Scientific Study of UFOs
Michael D. Swords, Ph.D., 1995 MUFON Symposium Proceedings
1995 MUFON Symposium Proceedings Presentation by
Michael D. Swords, Ph.D.
Professor Natural Sciences
Western Michigan University
ABSTRACT
One of the most significant elements in the history of UFOlogy was the
so-called Condon Project, centered at the University of Colorado in 1967-1968.
This paper discusses the origin, methodological philosophy and overview of the
research problem, the activities, results, and external impacts of this work.
The paper finds a complex mix of personalities, attitudes, and theories enmeshed
in political and social forces, which predestined the project's conclusions and
crippled its ability to make any scientific contribution toward the solution
of the UFO mystery. Its resultant impacts were nevertheless formidable, both
negatively and positively.
THE ORIGINS OF THE COLORADO PROJECT
When telling a story one is told to begin at the beginning, but, time and life being
continuous rivers stretching back into the past, where does one really begin?
Although starting with the Big Bang and working forward to 1966 might be
scientifically most defensible, perhaps beginning with one of my favorite people,
J. Allen Hynek, would be preferable. Dr. Hynek, in his famous role as Project
Bluebook scientific advisor, had been around the idea of transferring responsibility
for UFO research to academia (or some more dedicated non-military research institutions).
For over a decade, General Thomas D. White, USAF chief of staff, had suggested as
early as 1955 that Air Force Intelligence turn over the UFO problem to an outside
contractor, such as Battelle or Rand (Watson, 1955). Hynek, and the military
personnel at Bluebook, had in the interim toyed with the idea of enlisting NASA,
the National Science Foundation, and the Brookings Institution for aid. In the
summer of 1965, the Pentagon asked Hynek for his views on involving the National
Academy of Sciences. Hynek replied in August of 1965 (Hynek, 1965). Hynek's letter
to Colonel John Spaulding agreed that NAS involvement would strengthen the potential
for solving both the scientific and the sociological problems, which the Air Force
currently faced. And, the structure, a working panel of committed experts, should
include both physical and social scientists, and involve itself over a several month period.
Hynek's views, of course, were not acted upon with any immediacy, but they added to
the Pentagon's rolling pot of opinions about how to get rid of the UFO problem.
The next major step toward the Colorado Project grew out of this stew when a select
committee of the Air Force's Scientific Advisory Board met to consider the issue
in February of 1966. This was the "O'Brien Committee". The group met for one day,
"considered" the information (if such a characterization can be allowed for such
a brief affair), and recommended a strengthening of the UFO investigative program.
The major strengthening was to be accomplished by contracting a central university
(with several allied universities to supply investigative teams) to coordinate
in-depth research on about one hundred sightings per year and to be in immediate
touch and cooperation with Project Bluebook. The project should be as public
in its research as possible, and present its results regularly to interested
congressmen (Steiner, 1966). This committee report was released in February of 1966.
Coincident with the release there arrived (mainly in Michigan) one of the biggest
UFO flaps in history. The flap energized the UFO community (especially NICAP and
James McDonald), but more importantly for our story, it pushed the decision on a
university study over the threshold. And Allen Hynek played a primary, and unwanted,
role. Hynek's characterization of the Dexter-Hillsdale sightings as "swamp gas"
unleashed a howl of anger, protest, ridicule, and raw publicity across the whole
globe. Congressmen became so put-off by the apparent USAF irresponsibility that
they put heat on the Pentagon to explain how this could be going on. Gerald Ford
essentially demanded an apology to his constituents. The level of grief doled out
to Allen Hynek finally and inexorably pushed him over his threshold of loyal
hyperconservatism as well. Hynek, in a different style, initiated his own
"coming out party" at the same time as the more aggressive, flamboyant McDonald.
Within the House Armed Services Committee, he, Air Force Secretary Harold Brown,
and Bluebook chief Hector Quintanilla were called to testify within a week of
the swamp gas furor. Hynek strongly supported the O'Brien Committee recommendations
for a university study, and the committee report was attached to the congressional hearings.
In May the Air Force announced that it would begin looking for the recommended universities.
Jim McDonald began lobbying for his own participation, and, in his usual over-enthusiasm,
succeeded instead in convincing persons like Brian O'Brien not to consider him (or his
university presumably). Allen Hynek wrote Secretary Brown supporting his decision to
place this in the hands of civilian scientists and out of the military. Little progress
was made in getting a topflight scientist to take on the task, however. Through the
month of June the Air Force had no expressions of interest. In July the Air Force
changed "salesmen" and tried again. At the very end of the month, Colonel Thomas
Ratchford of the Office of Scientific Research appealed to Dr. Edward Condon, and
a quality that he had displayed continually throughout his distinguished career,
patriotic loyalty, and gained his agreement, if the university administration,
faculty, and allied institutions would give their support.
EDWARD UHLER CONDON
Dr. Condon was a very prominent scientist, and very much the governmental and
security insider. He played a major role in the development of nuclear weapons
in WWII, and became the director of the National Bureau of Standards, where he
resided at the start of the UFO phenomenon in 1947. In that capacity he was also
a member of the executive committee of the National Advisory Committee for
Aeronautics (NACA), which became NASA. He was president of the American Physical
Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American
Physics Teachers Association. He was elected to the prestigious National Academy
of Sciences, and was a member of Washington's elite Cosmos Club. Despite a bout
of insane persecution by the McCarthyist House Committee on Un-American Activities,
he never lost the confidence of anyone that mattered either in science or in the
military. After retiring from the NBS, he bounced around briefly, landing in
Colorado at a joint facility funded by the University and the NBS. There, he
had settled in as a patriarch of physical science whose activities were more
organizational and service-oriented than basic research. His reputation was
made. His personal and organizational relations were strong. He had little to
risk even in a potentially risky business. Here, he had encountered an administrator
who admired him as an American scientific legend: Robert Low.
THE PROJECT'S PERSONNEL AND STRUCTURE
It is a tribute to the chaos and tribulations of the Project that one cannot
set down a straightforward and meaningful listing of the working staff.
The original Air Force contract listed seven names: Condon, Colorado
Administrator Robert Low, psychologists William Scott, David Saunders,
and Michael Wertheimer, plus chairman of psychology Stuart Cook, and
atmospheric physicist Franklin Roach. Low would serve as "project coordinator",
essentially being Condon's arms, legs, and most of his brains on the running of
all phases of the affair. Edward Condon would, as much as possible, make heavy
executive decisions and otherwise "play" in the project only as much as he
liked. Of these seven named researchers two were virtual immediate drop-outs:
Scott and Cook. They cannot in any meaningful way be considered contributing
personnel (Brittin et al, 1966).
Many other persons figured in the mix. Some flashed on the scene and were gone.
Some were distant contractors working in isolation. Others were intimately
involved. Of the latter, there are seven names for whom anyone would grant
a significant on-the-ground project involvement with UFO cases and investigation:
chemist Roy Craig, electrical engineer Norman Levine, astrophysicist William
Hartmann, physicist Frederick Ayer, administrative assistant and preliminary
case screener Mary Lou Armstrong, and grad students Dan Culberson and James
Wadsworth. Many others were involved. Of these, the ones who contributed
significantly in either counseling the project and interacting with it on-site,
or in doing field investigations, were plasma physicist Martin Altschuler,
radar analyst Gordon Thayer, physicist Gerald Rothberg, and auto engineer
Frederick Hooven. These individuals are distinguished from a tribe of others
by having some more-than-fleeting direct involvement with project investigations
and personnel.
Because of the social conflicts and alleged incompetent leadership of the project,
the list of contributors was unstable, and the second half of the project became a
disorganized scramble to create a final document from "what was left", but the
following is my best estimate of a proper naming of the research staff:
Primary team:
- Edward Condon, physicist, Colorado
- Robert Low, administrator, Colorado
- Franklin Roach, physicist-astronomer, Environmental Science Services Administration
- David Saunders, psychologist, Colorado
- Michael Wertheimer, psychologist, Colorado
- Roy Craig, chemist, Colorado
- Norman Levine, electrical engineer, Arizona
- Mary Lou Armstrong, administrative assistant, Colorado
- William Hartmann, astronomer, Arizona
- Frederick Ayer, physicist, Colorado
- Dan Culberson, psychologist, Colorado
- James Wadsworth, psychologist, Colorado
Secondary contributors:
- Martin Altschuler, Astrophysics, NCAR
- Gordon Thayer, physicist, ESSA
- Gerald Rothberg, physicist, Stevens Tech
- Frederick Hooven, engineer, Ford Motor Company
All these individuals (and others) worked hard enough to earn their "letters" on the
team, but, in the judgment of this author, the hardest workers (for good or ill)
were Low, Craig and Wadsworth. Saunders and Hartmann deserve honorable mention.
It is interesting to note that a graduate student (Wadsworth) played such a major
role in the case investigations.
The organizational structure of the project was, frankly, a mess. It took several
months for them to even attempt to decide on an organizational structure. Major
debates occurred regarding what they were supposed to be doing. Each primary academic
had a different (and strong) opinion about how to do the research. The rough concept
of Colorado as a central coordinating research focusser allied to investigating teams
dispersed in other schools around the country fell apart almost immediately. Colorado
would have to do basically what was done itself, and contract out specific bits of
academic research studies elsewhere (studies, by the way, with no necessary
connection to the more mysterious core of UFO reports). The Air Force was
supposed to be completely cooperative in notifying the project of new cases,
providing on-site help if there was an air base involved, and generally digging
out older cases and other inside information. They were only marginally cooperative
on all but the provision of old Project Bluebook data. There was also to be a
hotline where Air Force, pilot, press et al could reach the Project with new
sightings. With the short time span for organization, this too was only marginally
effective. Different members of the "team" (it is a bit absurd to call it that)
took on tasks to which they were drawn, or, which they essentially insisted on
doing. Many things were planned and very few completed. It is a miracle of
last-minute creativity that the final report achieved any semblance of organized
research at all. This is merely to state a fact, not to blame. It was ridiculous
to think that a two year project (including the writing time) could start from
total ground zero on a topic like UFOs and even get going smoothly by the time
the grant ran out. Still, it could have proceeded with a lot better direction than it had.
METHODOLOGY
And here was the rub. The Colorado Project was an unusual scientific research grant
in that it was almost forced upon a scientist who knew little about the research
problem, rather than empowering a scientist who knew all about what he wanted to
do. Robert Low, of course, was in no better position to figure out what to do.
There were apparent scientific experts available who could have helped them
immensely, but there were problems. Allen Hynek, still employed by the USAF,
was tainted by that connection, and was, in fact, ordered not to get too close
to the Project. The only other two obvious candidates, James McDonald and Donald
Menzel, were in such intellectually and emotionally polarized positions that the
Air Force could not risk involving them either. The civilian experts, NICAP and
APRO, were even less acceptable in an academic testing ground. So the naive eggheads
had to blunder forward on their own, albeit receiving lots of "advice" from all sides.
One member of the Colorado team, who in most ways contributed little to the research,
at the beginning of the thinking period produced a concept which had a powerful effect
on all the deliberations. Michael Wertheimer was a psychologist and interested in perception.
He used his interests, and philosophical reasoning, to verbalize what became known as the
"Wertheimer Hypothesis". It has two components: one psychological, one epistemological.
The psychological problem: In analyzing a UFO report one is usually interested in the
initial stimulus, which precipitated the report. This agent is called the "distal stimulus".
This event sends wavelengths (light, sound) through the environment, which is often able
to distort those signals. When they finally land on the eye or the eardrum, they are
labeled the "proximal stimulus". Are these two stimuli identical (or better, is one
a faithful messenger of the other)? The sense preceptors turn the proximal stimulus
into neural impulses with more or less accuracy depending on chronic or temporary
factors within the individual's central nervous system. Upon reaching the cortex,
these impulses must be accurately perceived (sort of gelled into a proper relation
to themselves) and then cognition (knowing) must take place (they are placed into
a proper relation to what's already known or believed). At every stage there is some
risk of distortion. Once the reporter reports to the UFO researcher, that researcher
must not automatically take the report as an accurate representation of the distal
stimulus, which initiated it.
Wertheimer's point here, beyond the obvious, was that there has been little in the way
of testing "everyday folk" under observation circumstances anything like those involved
with UFO reports. Therefore there is no data baseline against which to judge how much
distortion is likely to occur in raw reports. UFO researchers like McDonald and Menzel
obviously were operating on very different assumptions regarding this matter.
The epistemological problem: The UFO research scientist receives a large pile of such
reports with various degrees of puzzling elements and unknown degrees of distortion.
He goes into these honestly and with great skill and energy. If he is intellectually
honest, there will never be the day when he can claim to have simply, unambiguously
solved all the reports. He will be faced with piles labeled "IFOs", "insufficient
evidence", and "UFOs". Let us assume that he has been paid a lot of money to test
the hypothesis: some UFO reports refer to extraterrestrial spacecraft. The fact that
there exists, still, a pile called "UFOS" (actually for strict philosophy's sake,
even the "insufficient" pile will do) indicates that the scientist cannot prove that
no UFO reports refer to ET craft. However, the converse is also true. Barring something
truly astounding in the evidence, the existence of the "UFO" pile cannot prove that
the pile or any of its members relates to extraterrestrials either. All it says is
that the reports remain a mystery. Wertheimer suggested the word "framasands" to
categorize these cases, simply to emphasize that we could not say what they were.
Anyone is free to disregard such logic and decide to go with their own intuitions and
"common sense", of course, but philosophically, and even in most ways, scientifically,
the argument is pretty tight (especially given the psychological, stimuli-distorting
precautions of the Wertheimer preface). The argument staggered Condon. He wondered
whether there was any way to fruitfully proceed on the problem. It angered the USAF
representative, Colonel Robert Hippler, who wanted to argue that you could, within
reason, disprove the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis. It nettled David Saunders, an
ETH-sympath, for the opposite reason. This was presented as the lead-off idea to
a briefing of USAF officials (Ratchford, Hippler, Quintanilla, and others) in
January of 1967. A debate on methodology naturally ensued (UFO Study Project, 1967).
This briefing laid down the polarized positions of the main project members, and the
key USAF people, pretty clearly. Michael Wertheimer wanted to create UFO-simulation
events and then sweep through the area studying the perceptual, memory, and reporting
accuracies of the population. Another psychologist, Stuart Cook, supported that.
Colonel Hippler said absolutely not. That's all we need: Inventing fake UFOs to
fool people; a public relations catastrophe for the Air Force. Cook, Condon, and
Low wanted to focus on the observer and the conditions surrounding the observation
(a Menzelian debunking-oriented strategy). Colonel Ratchford thought that this
would be interesting science. Colonel Hippler said that this was the road to
another public relations catastrophe. Don't emphasize this either. Franklin
Roach preferred to downplay the Wertheimer perceptual concerns and concentrate
on powerful cases (a Hynek-NICAP-type approach). Condon immediately challenged
that as not being able to approach an ETH decision. Jack Evans of the Sacramento
Peak high-altitude observatory suggested looking at cases involving credible
experienced observers, such as pilots (the other half of the Hynek-NICAP approach).
Hippler thought that might be worth doing. Evans also suggested trying to bypass
the observer problem and get real time data using large sensor grids. Hippler
replied that lots of grids already exist. Maybe they'd be useful.
David Saunders stayed silent a long time. He then suggested the "other" psychological
approach: mass data (which de-emphasizes individual idiosyncrasies) and attempts to
find correlations between discrete qualities of the reports. Low immediately directed
this idea at tests of the credibility of the observations. Saunders said it went way
beyond that. Condon changed the subject to the social problems UFOs were causing the
Air Force and the public. Finally, Colonel Ratchford thought that concentrating on
case categories, which might pay off scientifically in data on ball lightning or other rare
physical and perceptual phenomena would be a good idea. Condon was still confused about what
they were supposed to do and why. He still thought studying the observers was a good idea.
Ratchford and Hippler finally said: all we're "asking you to do is to take a look at the
problem" (U'FO reports, not observer problems), and make a recommendation about what we
(the USAF) should do about it in the future. You may not solve the problem, but you may
be able to decide whether it's worth going on. Condon ended with: "It is a very puzzling
problem, gentlemen ... We said we would have an answer on this phase of the work
(methodology) ... by the end of January. But it does not appear that we will make
that deadline." On this, they never made any deadline at all.
RANDOM ACTIVITIES
The Project engaged in many activities and this is no time to attempt to chronicle
them. However, a selection might give the reader a useful picture of what went on.
Early in the game, they attempted to go to school from a variety of experts. All
sorts of individuals traipsed through Boulder to give them advice: McDonald, Menzel,
Hynek, Vallee, Keyhoe, Hall, as well as science and technology types who knew little
about UFOS. Some individuals, such as Bob Wood and James Harder, insisted on audiences
whether they were invited or not. Of these visitations the one everyone was most
concerned about involved Keyhoe and Hall. It seemed to go well to both sides and
set up a temporary cooperative and respectful exchange between the two organizations.
Project members (especially Low) also attempted education by various trips to areas
where experts or other unique information sources resided. One of these trips created
part of the problem that the project suffered internally. This was Low's trip to Europe.
Such a trip was obviously worth making considering the presence overseas of two UFOlogical
giants, Aime Michel and Charles Bowen. Because Low decided to combine more than one type
of business, and some pleasure, he chose a time when neither expert was available.
Some of the project team were outraged by this strategy coupled with a stay at Loch
Ness to compare UFOs with the "monster". Whatever excuses one might make, there is
no escaping that Low blew it on this. A dedicated research project requires dedicated
research trips. If the two main reasons for going aren't available, you pick another
time. Project members viewed this correctly as a lack of seriousness on Low's part.
Some of the other trips ended up with "purchases" (subcontracts) from high-priced
think-tanks of technical reports which Condon and Low hoped would add (literally)
weight to the final report.
A major activity demanded by Roach and Saunders was the collection and analysis of
significant old reports. Condon fought against this consistently but the weight of
opinion almost everywhere else insisted that something at least be done. The
agreed-upon idea was that project members would read piles of candidate cases,
discuss them, and nominate the most interesting for an inclusion into a Case Book
of powerful reports. This Case Book would turn out to be a large significant thing
with many pages per case. Condon, as an absentee project head, and Low, wilting
under general opinion, could not police this very well. The procedure was begun
but as the project work grew and people became spread thin, it fell into disuse,
which, of course, was fine with Condon. A few remnants of the idea remain in the
archives at the American Philosophical Library in Philadelphia, and its "ghost"
became Chapter 2 of Section IV of the report. Many excellent early cases were
nominated and folders prepared, which never made it into the "scientific study".
The only areas where responsible coverage of such cases exists in the report are
the chapters dedicated specifically to photographic evidence (William Hartmann)
and radar evidence (Gordon Thayer). Persons such as Saunders, Levine, Roach, Hynek,
McDonald, Keyhoe, and Hall had legitimate reasons to being displeased with the
coverage of important "old" cases, especially when data was abundantly, easily
available (even right in the office).
Everyone agreed (even Condon) that field studies on new cases were a good idea
despite their problems. So, a procedure was set up with a UFO hotline with
someone available to answer at any time. Mary Lou Armstrong typically was
the first screener, and Saunders or Low would usually rule on whether it was
hot enough to "go". Certain persons volunteered for field research, and Roy
Craig and Jim Wadsworth were the mainstays. It's hard to decide exactly how
to count these field trips, but, roughly, the team went on about thirty-eight
of them between August 1966 and the end of 1967. Most of the cases were trivial;
things none of us would have made much of an effort on today. Still there were
a few so-called (by Low) "super cases" (ex. Michalak; Schirmer). Later critics
objected that the project didn't seem to be getting, or perhaps selecting,
quality cases. At one time even Condon wrote to complain to the USAF about
slow and incomplete reporting from that source. By the end of the year the
Wright Pat project admitted to nineteen unknowns, most of which either didn't
get to Colorado or weren't deemed important enough to research if they did.
And, as a separate issue regarding current field research on an "old" case
John Fuller had paved the way for a Benjamin Simon hypnosis of Betty and
Barney Hill, if Colorado was interested. They weren't.
Meanwhile, David Saunders had become somewhat overloaded pursuing his own favorite
idea - the computer catalog database. Hopes were high that at least five hundred
cases would be entered in time for the project report. Simultaneously, Saunders
became impressed with Aime Michel's concept of Orthotenic lines, as an indication
of intelligent activity in UFO waves. A major brou-ha-ha ensued over his insistence
on the importance of orthoteny, and its inclusion in the report. Low was, putting
it mildly, unconvinced. An outside statistical expert was brought in to critique
the work. Though the exchange seems to have been civilized, the bad relations
were further frayed. When Saunders (and Levine) were fired, all this cataloguing
and statistics collapsed. At least, much later, this work emerged as the CUFOS
UFOCAT project.
'GOOFINESS' PROJECT ACTIVITIES
Our last brevity about project activities will come under the heading of "goofiness".
This was the element in UFOlogy chosen by Edward Condon as his own interest. To put
this decision in the best light, consider Ed Condon as someone who doesn't want to
do this UFO project, is near the end of his science career and has paid his dues,
and might as well have some fun while he's involved with this chore. There are,
of course, worse lights one could shine on it. Condon considered all this sort
of material under the titles of "Magic" or "Religion, Cults, Psychological".
In several places he is obviously having a grand time trying to track down
malefactors like "Mel Noel", or strange stones like that of the Tulli Papyrus
or the Allende nonsense of the Philadelphia Experiment. He shared his enjoyment
of the stones of the congenial lunatic "Dickson/Dicksun of the second and third
universes" with Dr. Urner Liddel, the old anti-UFO warhorse of the Office of
Naval Research. He ordered Jim Wadsworth to the Bonneville Salt Flats to check
out a "psychic prediction", just in case a UFO really lands. He wrote to
the governor of Utah to see if he would like to attend. He created a card
system for each "cult", whereupon he hoped to list its membership, publisher,
date of origin, "channel", and home planet among other pertinencies. This piece
of science never materialized, and consequently did not make the final report.
His most controversial act was his highly publicized act of attending the
"little boys having fun" Congress of Scientific UFOlogists held in New York
in June of 1967. Despite heavy pleadings and protestations from the group,
he absolutely insisted on watching the fools’ parade. His presence did much
to increase publicity to its damaging (to UFO research) best. And, without
saying anything, it was his clearest statement about what he felt about the field.
PROJECT RESULTS
The most concrete result was the approximately thousand-page paperback that most serious
UFOlogists have sitting on their shelves (Gillmor, 1969). To those of us who have opened
it, it has a peculiar structure, almost audibly saying, "don't try to read me". Paranoia
aside, this probably is not deliberate. Reading the primary documents of the project
indicates very clearly that the organization's chaos and personnel dislocations that
afflicted it made the creation of a smooth document impossible.
The project deadline ensured that editing and arranging was a process bordering on the
hysterical. When one adds to this a real deliberate decision to obfuscate the individual
cases by not precisely locating them in time or space (or, of course, witnesses), it's
a miracle that one can get anything out of reading it at all. The late director of Air
Force Intelligence, Charles Cabell, had characterized the Project Grudge report as
"the most poorly written piece of unscientific tripe I've ever read". One wonders
what he would have said about this one?
Of course, in a thousand-page book there are bound to be things worth reading. The main
things focused upon here have been the cases and their identifiability. Many heroic
readers (inc. James McDonald and Peter Sturrock) noticed that a close look at the
report's own results clearly points to an ongoing mystery in the field, and one
with at least the potential for important discovery (McDonald, 1969; Sturrock, 1974).
This has significance mainly because Dr. Condon said essentially the opposite in his
conclusions. This paper being a historical rather than a data analysis, this
incongruency of internal versus summary conclusions should be explored by the
reader in the document or in the works of Drs. McDonald, Sturrock, et al.
At the larger level of results, the Air Force used Condon's conclusion, with thanks,
to do what they wanted to do: they closed Project Bluebook permanently.
The conclusion of the report was stated, briefly, as such: there has been no advance to
science through the study of UFOs in the past, and there likely will be no advance in
the future. Consequently, the Air Force should give up its official project. There
are, therefore, three main elements to the conclusion:
- There has been no advance.
- There almost surely never will be.
- Project Bluebook should close.
Almost everyone would agree to number one. Most, probably, would agree to number three.
The problem was number two. Were UFOs worth studying if the study was serious and potent?
Condon said no. Hynek, McDonald and Keyhoe said a loud "yes!" What did the Colorado Project,
as a whole, say? Here is a listing of the Project members and their opinion, as can be
found in project records or commentaries shortly after the report materialized.
Edward Condon: no
Robert Low: no
Franklin Roach: yes
David Saunders: yes
Michael Wertheimer: ?, possibly no
Roy Craig: ?, possibly no
Norman Levine: yes
Mary Lou Armstrong: yes
William Hartmann: yes
Frederick Ayer: yes
Dan Culberson: yes
James Wadsworth: yes
Martin Altschuler: ?, possibly no
Gordon Thayer: yes
Gerald Rothberg: yes
Frederick Hooven: yes
My toting up of the "opinion poll" is two "no's", three undetermineds, and eleven "yes's".
Skeptics may say whatever they wish, this array of opinions from the people within the
project form a stark contrast to the opinion (and it was an opinion) "concluded" by Condon.
IMPACTS
Opinion or not, the report had strong impacts. The Air Force, as noticed, closed Bluebook.
This had the desired side effect of lessening the amount of conversation about flying
saucers linked to the military. Science magazine welcomed the report, and the bastion
of hyper-conservative prejudices, Nature, even more so (Boffey, 1969; Nature, 1969).
But the overall result in the scientific community was surprisingly mixed. The mere
existence of a university project had brought UFOlogy out of the closet, and, for the
moment legitimatised it. Many scientists had written to Condon and the project
expressing interest. The report didn't stop this trend. Condon found himself in a
position of trying to talk scientists out of holding seminars on the subject. The
worst came for Condon when the foursome of Thornton Page, Walter Orr Roberts, Carl
Sagan, and Philip Morrison decided to create an all-day symposium at the American
Association for the Advancement of Science meeting. Reading the manuscript collections
on this battle of power and prejudices (on all sides) is one of the more enlightening
experiences to anyone interested in the non-ideal nature of real scientists. The AAAS
symposium was ultimately held, and was mainly negative in tone, but it did not put a
stop to academic interest either (Page, Sagan, 1972). Rather, the early to mid-seventies
were a boom time for academic involvement, albeit mostly behind the scenes rather than,
as at AAAS, in the spotlight. It was the main era of the so-called "invisible college",
and featured the work of Allen Hynek, Peter Sturrock, Frank Salisbury, Leo Sprinkle,
and James Harder, among many others. In the popular eye, however, the period from
the end of Condon to the big wave of 1973 was a fade-out era for UFOS. Whether by
cause or coincidence, NICAP began to fail and APRO had a bit of downturn. On the
other hand, the exact time also saw the rise of another popular power in UFOlogy,
the Mutual UFO Network. The Condon project's immediate effect toward down playing
UFO research, therefore, was restricted to two areas: the contractor got what it
wanted out of the conclusion; and the highest levels of the science establishment
firmed in their stand not to give monetary support to UFOlogists.
THE ISSUES OF BIAS
The Condon report has been much maligned as a document not reflecting the views of the
project researchers, nor the data contained therein. Given some reasonable slack for
the short time and money available for the work, this maljudgment is still justified.
The question which arose, blaringly in public, was: was the project prejudiced from
the beginning? People have argued, vociferously, both ways. To this author the answer
is completely and documentably clear.
The question of bias could be approached in several ways: (a) Was the contractor biased?
Was there a certain answer that it wanted, or worse, even demanded? (b) Was the contractee
(lead researcher) biased? (c) Was the project administrator biased? and (d) What did the
people who worked on the project say?
A. Regarding the contractor (the USAF): I believe that only the most extreme of
position-takers would try to argue that the Air Force had an open mind about
what it wanted to see come out of this grant. The Air Force wanted to get UFOs
out of the Air Force, period. To do this the phenomenon had to be made to appear
trivial, at least in terms of technology and security. Because the Air Force had
the responsibility to ensure safety in the skies, even as regards long shot
possibilities, the phenomenon probably needed to be trivialized in all respects
to rationalize completely dumping it. Fortunately for the historian, none of this
has to be laid at the door of assumption. The main information-carriers of both
elements in the Air Force critical to the project tell us so in the existent
documents. In a belligerent interview with Foreign Technology Division chief,
Colonel Raymond Sleeper, Robert Low and Bluebook personnel were treated to
the following exchange:
Sleeper: "Do you know what benefit the Air Force has derived from the Bluebook study?
... Zero! UFOs exist because people, faced with an unstructured existence, find the need
to structure it. If you'll just find out about that, you'll find the key to the UFO problem"
Low: "Why did you give the contract to the University of Colorado? Do you consider it
a waste of money?"
Sleeper: "I do." (Low, 1966)
And, turning to the Pentagon, we have mentioned the briefing to Ratchford, Hippler et al,
earlier. Colonel Hippler was the contact point between Colorado and the higher-ups.
Low had tried to get him to tell them clearly what the Air Force wanted, during the
briefing. Hippler had dodged. We should remember that this was a contract initiated
by the USAF, not Condon and Low. Condon and Low were doing this in service to the
Air Force, not for themselves. What the contractor wanted was vital to be clear
upon. Three days after the briefing, upon returning to the Pentagon, Hippler
wrote Condon (Hippler, 1967). He opened by saying that this was an informal
letter and not to be taken as official Air Force position. Well, anyone is
welcome to buy that, but one would suggest a few visits to a common sense counselor
would be helpful. Low, who responded for Condon, showed that he was hip to exactly
what he was hearing. Hippler had two things to say. He was unhappy with the Wertheimer
Hypothesis, and felt that Colorado could come to an anti-extraterrestrial conclusion.
Secondly, he emphasized how costly Project Bluebook had been over the years, and that
they'd really like to get rid of it. If Colorado needed an extension in order to come
up with a "proper recommendation" that would be arranged (recall that this was January
1967 and the Colorado Project had just started). Low wrote back thanking him, "You have
answered quite directly the question that I asked." The Air Force absolutely wanted
a recommendation ending Project Bluebook, preferably tied to some trivializing
assessment of UFOS. They said so right up front, but only to Condon and Low.
B. Regarding the contractee (Condon): Some writers might want to defend Edward Condon
as going into the fray with an open mind, but coming out with a closed one. The
"coming out" with closed, and highly emotional, statements is certainly clear,
and all over the documentation. "Coming in" takes a little more assessment. What
we know for sure is that Condon took the project as a patriotic service, and,
therefore, knowing what the Air Force needed, would function accordingly. This
is, of course, prejudice enough, but what did he personally feel? Condon made
several public speaking "boners" which many take to be spontaneously revelatory
of his inner views. Perhaps they were. Condon was however a witty joker, and these
faux pas could have been just bad judgment. But when all is weighed, I believe that
one must admit a strong negative bias, only held in check by his knowledge that this
was a touchy public relations situation. In April of 1967, still very early in the
project, Condon received a letter objecting that UFOs are a waste of time. Condon
wrote the following (and wisely did not mail it):
"The study of UFO reports is an elusive thing. I'm not sure that the government
ought to be spending any money on it ... I did not seek it, and it is not fun.
It was thrust upon me, and is distracting me from another job which I would rather do."
He goes on to suggest that the writer send the letter recommending that the government
eliminate spending on "uncatchable, unprovable, unidentifiable unthings" to Robert
McNamara, USAF Secretary Harold Brown, and members of the House Committee on Armed
Services (Condon, 1967). With these initial attitudes it is no surprise Condon could
write a report summary so much at variance with his staff. One positive nod to the
grand old scientist, however: he knew, despite it all, that something scientifically
interesting might be in here somewhere. And so, he carefully crafted his language
so as to encourage others to look, but not to encourage funding. More on this in a moment.
C. Regarding the administrator (Low): Robert Low is a more difficult figure to comprehend.
He was not a scientist, despite being around science all his working life. He was a savvy
administrator, who knew what was important: the contractor, the higher administration,
the boss. But he often also demonstrated a refreshing, almost childlike curiosity about
these neat things he was delving into. I believe that this put Low into an awkward position:
doing a "Condon-imitation" trying to police a project headed toward a fixed conclusion,
while being honestly interested in a lot of it himself. In the end, of course, the
"administrator" and the job won out. In his administrator's hat Robert Low wrote the
infamous "trick" memo of which so much has been written (Low, 1966A). A great semantic
debate has been held over the various ways the word "trick" can be used, and everyone
is correct. The tale is told, however, by reading the whole memo in the context of the
time. The Air Force has just convinced Condon to try the project. Bob Low has just been
briefed himself as to his and the university's role.
The idea has just been floated by the high administration and all sorts of objections
are arising. Low, the effective administrator- politician, is attempting to cast the
potential project in a way that will mollify the objectors. Whether he believes any
of what he himself is saying or not, he describes the project in ways which emotional,
prejudiced people might tolerate. His use of "trick" and all the surrounding words
meant to cast the project into a "proper light" for these "UFO negative" people.
Of course it ends up sounding prejudicial against UFOs as serious entities.
It has to. That's the audience he's writing to. The real question is not the
Low memo, it's what Low himself believed. That we may never know. All we can
assess is how he acted. In that he was the loyal right arm of Edward Condon,
as was his Job. Many of the project staff were unhappy with his actions and
interferences, the strongest statement of which is in the resignation letter
of Mary Lou Armstrong (Armstrong, 1968).
D. Regarding the views of the project team members: Given that so many of these
people disagreed with Condon's concluding opinions, the fact that they viewed
the project to be biased early on needs little further documentation. Statements
abound in the aforementioned Armstrong letter, the rebutting Saunders-Harkin book
(1968), and letters following the project by Thayer, Roach, Rothberg, etc, Toting
up the score sheet on evidences of bias, we find strong, usually concretely
documented, signs of prejudice in all four venues. Since 100 percent is
pretty good coverage, it seems that the conclusion that the Colorado Project
had strong early UFO-negative biases is a good assumption.
There is one other element in this to explore, however. The USAF could have received
what they wanted out of the conclusions without there being such a strong negative
on the UFOs as potentially scientifically interesting. They were obviously of
potential scientific interest, as people kept coming up with all sorts of wild
physical and psychological hypotheses to explain them. Colonel Ratchford mentioned
about a half dozen "spinoffs" he considered intriguing if the project wanted to
look into them. But the recommendation was a much stronger negative in the end. Why?
Edward Condon seemed to be open to the idea of further academic study of some elements
of this subject until about halfway through the project. Then he changed. What happened?
All sorts of scientists began talking about getting government funding for UFO research:
Allen Hynek, of course; more surprisingly, Frank Drake, William Hartmann, Frederick Ayer;
and most threateningly, James McDonald. A very powerful red flag went up in Condon's mind.
Red ink. Funding deficits for other worthier science. 1967 began for the sciences what were
to be called the "doldrum years" of government (non-) funding. Cutbacks were severe and
everywhere. McDonald, with his characteristic aggression, talked before Congress of a
UFO budget dwarfing that of the space program. Others had chimed in, usually with a
little more restraint, but everyone was talking serious dollars. Condon knew how many
scientists were interested; some, famous names. He knew that the idea was getting a
hearing from the non-scientist politicians who controlled money. One more flap and
this would become a scientific catastrophe. So Condon did everything he could do.
He pounded the hammer down. UFOs were nonsense. They did not seem to deserve any
research at all. And they certainly did not deserve to be funded.
FINAL REMARKS
The Colorado Project is a very educational research topic. It begins back with idealistic
naivete (by Hynek), and ends with pragmatics, economics, and social forces. As the currents
of personalities and powers intersected, it became a conclusion waiting for a process to
present it. And in the end, who won? The Air Force won. They finally achieved what they
needed for twenty years: the deconstructing of the public link between themselves and UFOS.
And who lost? The search for the Truth; the ideals of academia and science; and Jim McDonald,
to whose death this might have contributed in part.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author wishes to thank the officials and staff of the American Philosophical Library,
the University of Colorado, and the Center for UFO Studies for access to the relevant
materials from those archives.
REFERENCES
- Armstrong, Mary Lou (1968). Letter to Dr. Edward U. Condon, February 24, 1968 (APL and CUFOS files).
- Boffey, Philip (1969). "UFO Study: Condon Group Finds No Evidence of Visits from Outer Space", Science 163: pp. 260-2, January 17, 1969.
- Brittin, Wesley; Condon, Edward; and Manning, Thurston (1966). A proposal to Air Force Office of Scientific Research for support of Scientific Study Of Unidentified Flying Objects, Boulder, Colorado, November 1, 1966 (APL and CUFOS files).
- Condon, Edward (1967). Letter to Paul Belzer, April 1967 draft (APL files).
- Dick, Steven (1992). "Edward U. Condon, UFOS, and the Many Cultures of Science", History of Science Society, Washington, D.C., December 28, 1992.
- Gillmor, Daniel (ed.) (1969). Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects, Bantam Books, New York.
- Hippler, Robert R. (1966). Letter to Dr. Edward U. Condon, January 16, 1967, (reply from Robert Low: January 27, 1967) (APL files).
- Hynek, J. Allen (1965). Letter to Colonel John E. Spaulding, August 30, 1965 (CUFOS files).
- Jacobs, David (1975). The UFO Controversy in America, University Press, Bloomington, Indiana.
- Low, Robert (1966). Notes of Robert J. Low's Trip to Washington, December 1966 (APL files).
- Low, Robert (1966A). Memo to E. James Archer and Thurston E. Manning, August 9, 1966 (APL and CUFOS files).
- McCarthy, Paul (1975). "Politicking and Paradigm Shifting: James E. McDonald and the UFO Case Study", unpublished Ph.D. thesis (CUFOS files).
- McDonald, James E. (1969). "Science in Default: 22 years of Inadequate UFO Investigations", paper presented with his talk at the AAAS Symposium of 1969.
- Nature (1969). "A Sledgehammer for Nuts", Nature 221, pp. 899-900, March 8, 1969.
- Page, Thornton, and Sagan, Carl (ed.) (1972). UFOS: A Scientific Debate, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.
- Saunders, David and Harkins, Roger (1968). UFOS? Yes!, New York: World.
- Steiner, Harold (1966). Special Report of the USAF Scientific Advisory Book Ad Hoc Committee to Review Project "Blue Book", March 1966 (O'Brien Panel: CUFOS, APL, Colorado files).
- Sturrock, P.A. (1974). Evaluation of the Condon Report on the Colorado UFO Project, SUIPR Report #599, October 1974, Institute for Plasma Research, Stanford University.
- UFO Study Project (1967). Air Force Advisory Panel Briefing, Boulder, Colorado, January 12, 1967, (APL files).
- Watson, Harold E. (1955). Letter to Major General John A. Samford, July 7, 1955 (APL files).
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