There have only ever been two official Congressional Hearings held on UFOs. The House Armed Services Committee convened the first such hearing in 1966 in response to widely publicized UFO sightings and repeated public and media criticism of the Air Force’s Project Blue Book. The hearing had the noted support of former U.S. President, Gerald Ford, the House Minority Leader. However, the only witnesses who testified were allied to Project Blue Book. As a result, the Secretary of the Air Force announced that there would be an outside, independent review of Blue Book. This was to be the genesis of the University of Colorado’s Scientific Study of UFOs –or the Condon Committee project (after Edward U. Condon), as it is popularly known. Two years later, the House Science and Astronautics Committee convened a second hearing (which occurred during the final stages of the Condon Committee project) to review the scientific evidence for UFOs. It took the form of a scientific symposium in which six scientists testified and six others submitted prepared papers

In 1969, the Condon Committee published its findings. According to the director of the project, physicist Dr. Edward U. Condon, no scientific evidence existed in support of a genuine UFO mystery for UFO. The result? It was recommended that Project Blue Book should be terminated. Critics of the Condon Report have noted, however, that no less than 30 per cent of the cases investigated by the committee defied explanation. According to the critics, such as Dr. J. Allen Hynek, Dr. Condon's conclusions were politically oriented rather than scientific: the Air Force wanted Blue Book closed at the earliest opportunity.

Nevertheless, of the six scientists who testified as part of the University of Colorado’s study, five were of the opinion that UFOs were still a valid area for investigation. Of those, the late Dr. James McDonald concluded:

"My own study of the UFO problem has convinced me that we must rapidly escalate serious scientific attention to this extra- ordinarily intriguing puzzle."

Following the release of the Condon Report, Project Blue Book was set for termination, with an announcement to that effect made in March 1969. A formal directive was finalized in December of that year by Air Force Secretary Robert C. Seamans, Jr. According to Seamans:

"The continuation of Project Blue Book cannot be justified either on the ground of national security or in the interest of science.”

From the commencement of Project Sign to the conclusion of Project Blue Book, 12,618 UFO reports were analyzed. Of these, 18% (701 cases) were catalogued as unidentified – and nearly half of which dated from 1952. Since the close of Blue Book, the Air Force has constantly tried to distance itself from the UFO subject – publicly, at least. The Air Force’s current fact sheet on UFOs states that "since the termination of Project Blue Book, nothing has occurred that would support a resumption of UFO investigations by the Air Force." Nevertheless, as the Freedom of Information Act has shown, official interest in the UFO subject continues - albeit at a restricted and far more covert level than that of Project Blue Book.

For years rumors have circulated to the effect that the Central Intelligence Agency has been deeply implicated in the UFO mystery and in the crashed UFO controversy in particular. These assertions are further bolstered by the contents of the Majestic 12 documents. Nevertheless, at an official level at least, the CIA has only confirmed its direct involvement in one UFO study – the so-called Robertson Panel. To fully understand the official story of the Robertson Panel, take note of the following from the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) historian, Gerald Raines:

In January 1953, H. Marshall Chadwell [CIA Director of Scientific Intelligence] and H. P. Robertson, a noted physicist from the California Institute of Technology, put together a distinguished panel of nonmilitary scientists to study the UFO issue. It included Robertson as chairman; Samuel A. Goudsmit, a nuclear physicist from the Brookhaven National Laboratories; Luis Alvarez, a high-energy physicist; Thornton Page, the deputy director of the Johns Hopkins Operations Research Office and an expert on radar and electronics; and Lloyd Berkner, a director of the Brookhaven National Laboratories and a specialist in geophysics.

The charge to the panel was to review the available evidence on UFOs and to consider the possible dangers of the phenomena to US national security. The panel met from 14 to 17 January 1953. It reviewed Air Force data on UFO case histories and, after spending 12 hours studying the phenomena, declared that reasonable explanations could be suggested for most, if not all, sightings. For example, after reviewing motion-picture film taken of a UFO sighting near Tremonton, Utah, on 2 July 1952 and one near Great Falls, Montana, on 15 August 1950, the panel concluded that the images on the Tremonton film were caused by sunlight reflecting off seagulls and that the images at Great Falls were sunlight reflecting off the surface of two Air Force interceptors.

The panel concluded unanimously that there was no evidence of a direct threat to national security in the UFO sightings. Nor could the panel find any evidence that the objects sighted might be extraterrestrials. It did find that continued emphasis on UFO reporting might threaten "the orderly functioning" of the government by clogging the channels of communication with irrelevant reports and by inducing "hysterical mass behavior" harmful to constituted authority. The panel also worried that potential enemies contemplating an attack on the United States might exploit the UFO phenomena and use them to disrupt US air defenses.

To meet these problems, the panel recommended that the National Security Council debunk UFO reports and institute a policy of public education to reassure the public of the lack of evidence behind UFOs. It suggested using the mass media, advertising, business clubs, schools, and even the Disney corporation to get the message across. Reporting at the height of McCarthyism, the panel also recommended that such private UFO groups as the Civilian Flying Saucer Investigators in Los Angeles and the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization in Wisconsin be monitored for subversive activities.

 

The Robertson panel's conclusions were strikingly similar to those of the earlier Air Force project reports on SIGN and GRUDGE and to those of the CIA's own OSI Study Group. All investigative groups found that UFO reports indicated no direct threat to national security and no evidence of visits by extra-terrestrials.

Following the Robertson panel findings, the Agency abandoned efforts to draft an NSCID on UFOs. The Scientific Advisory Panel on UFOs (the Robertson panel) submitted its report to the IAC, the Secretary of Defense, the Director of the Federal Civil Defense Administration, and the Chairman of the National Security Resources Board. CIA officials said no further consideration of the subject appeared warranted, although they continued to monitor sightings in the interest of national security. Philip Strong and Fred Durant from OSI also briefed the Office of National Estimates on the findings. CIA officials wanted knowledge of any Agency interest in the subject of flying saucers carefully restricted, noting not only that the Robertson panel report was classified but also that any mention of CIA sponsorship of the panel was forbidden. This attitude would later cause the Agency major problems relating to its credibility.

Despite the history of the CIA’s involvement in the UFO controversy as presented by Haines and the Agency itself, suspicions abound that the full story has yet to be told. Victor Marchetti, formerly of the CIA, has stated that he heard from within “high-levels” of the Agency accounts of the bodies of “little gray men” recovered from a crashed UFO held at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio. Similarly, the late UFO investigator Major Donald Keyhoe learned from insider sources that the purpose of the Robertson Panel was to debunk and demystify the UFO subject and to allow the CIA to continue its UFO investigations at a far more covert level – something that ties in with the material presented in the Majestic documents.

Those with an interest in determining what has been learned by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) about UFOs will in most cases be presented with the following press release:

No branch of the United States Government is currently involved with or responsible for investigations into the possibility of advanced alien civilizations on other planets or for investigating Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO's). The US Air Force (USAF) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) have had intermittent, independent investigations of the possibility of alien life on other planets; however, none of these has produced factual evidence that life exists on other planets, nor that UFO's are related to aliens. From 1947 to 1969, the Air Force investigated UFO's; then in 1977, NASA was asked to examine the possibility of resuming UFO investigations. After studying all of the facts available, it was determined that nothing would be gained by further investigation, since there was an absence of tangible evidence.

In October 1992, NASA was directed by Congress to begin a detailed search for artificial radio signals from other civilizations under the NASA Towards Other Planetary Systems (TOPS) / High Resolution Microwave Survey (HRMS) program (also known as the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence project). Congress directed NASA to end this project in October 1993, citing pressures on the US Federal budget. The HRMS did not detect any confirmed signal before it was stopped. However, similar work continued through efforts of private groups and through academic institutions. The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute (SETI Institute) in Mountain View, CA, effectively replaced the Government project, borrowing the signal processing system from NASA. The SETI Institute is a nonprofit corporation conducting research in a number of fields including all science and technology aspects of astronomy and planetary sciences, chemical evolution, the origin of life, biological evolution, and cultural evolution.

During several space missions, NASA astronauts have reported phenomena not immediately explainable; however, in every instance NASA determined that the observations could not be termed "abnormal" in the space environment.

The 1947 to 1969 USAF investigations studied UFO's under Project Blue Book. The project, headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, was terminated December 17, 1969. Of the total of 12,618 sightings reported to Project Blue Book, 701 remain "unidentified."

The decision to discontinue UFO investigations was based on an evaluation of a report prepared by the University of Colorado entitled, "Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects;" a review of the University of Colorado's report by the National Academy of Sciences; previous UFO studies; and Air Force experience investigating UFO reports during the 1940's, '50's and '60's. As a result of experience, investigations, and studies since 1948, the conclusions of Project Blue Book were:

(1) no UFO reported, investigated, and evaluated by the Air Force was ever a threat to our national security;

(2) there was no evidence submitted to, or discovered by, the Air Force that sightings categorized as "unidentified" represented technological developments or principles beyond the range of modern scientific knowledge; and

(3) there was no evidence indicating that sightings categorized as "unidentified" were extraterrestrial vehicles.

With the termination of Project Blue Book, the USAF regulation establishing and controlling the program for investigating and analyzing UFO's was rescinded. Documentation regarding the former Project Blue Book investigation was permanently transferred to the Modern Military Branch, National Archives and Records Service, in Washington, DC 20408, and is available for public review and analysis.

Since the termination of Project Blue Book, nothing has occurred that would support a resumption of UFO investigations by the U.S. government. Since neither NASA nor the Air Force is engaged in day-to-day UFO research, neither one reviews UFO-related articles intended for publication, evaluates UFO-type spacecraft drawings, or accepts accounts of UFO sightings or applications for employment in the field of aerial phenomena investigation.

It should be noted that there are very few indications of deep involvement in the Majestic projects on the part of NASA personnel; therefore, that NASA should take a stance very much like that of Project Blue Book is not surprising.

As evidence that the controversy surrounding the so-called Roswell Incident refuses to roll over and die, in the 1990s the Air Force published two investigative reports pertaining to the events of July 1947. The following is taken from the Air Force’s press release on the first report published in 1994 in response to an inquiry launched by the General Accounting Office (GAO) — the investigative arm of Congress.

Contrary to allegations, many of the accounts appear to be descriptions of unclassified and widely publicized Air Force scientific achievements. Other descriptions of "bodies" appear to be actual incidents in which Air Force members were killed or injured in the line of duty.

The conclusions are:

-  Air Force activities which occurred over a period of many years have been consolidated and are now represented to have occurred in two or three days in July 1947. "Aliens" observed in the New Mexico desert were actually anthropomorphic test dummies that were carried aloft by U.S. Air Force high altitude balloons for scientific research.
-  The "unusual" military activities in the New Mexico desert were high altitude research balloon launch and recovery operations. Reports of military units that always seemed to arrive shortly after the crash of a flying saucer to retrieve the saucer and "crew," were actually accurate descriptions of Air Force personnel engaged in anthropomorphic dummy recovery operations.
-  Claims of "alien bodies" at the Roswell Army Air Field hospital were most likely a combination of two separate incidents:

1. a 1956 KC-97 aircraft accident in which 11 Air Force members lost their lives; and,
2. a 1959 manned balloon mishap in which two Air Force pilots were injured. This report is based on thoroughly documented research supported by official records, technical reports, film footage, photographs, and interviews with individuals who were involved in these events.

Despite the Air Force’s attempts to diffuse the controversy surrounding the Roswell events of 1947 and preempt the GAO’s findings, it is significant to note several key factors.

• First, Mogul balloons possessed no unusual characteristics such as those described by the witnesses to the event.

• Second, the crash-test dummy experiments that the Air Force asserts led to the legends of alien bodies being recovered were not initiated until the 1950s.

• Third, during the course of its investigation, the GAO learned that all of the administrative records of Roswell Army Air Field from March 1945 until December 1949 and all outgoing messages from the base from October 1946 to December 1949 had been inexplicably destroyed.

The Roswell enigma continues — despite the best efforts of the Air Force to lay the matter to rest.