============================================================================== --------------------------------- Stairway to Heaven BBS UFO Information Reporting Service London, England --------------------------------- Node 1: +44-81-769-1740, 8-N-1, Speeds - 300 to 16.8k HST/DS Node 2: +44-81-769-1740, 8-N-1, Speeds - 300 to 16.8k HST/DS Node 3: +44-81-769-8046, 8-N-1, Speeds - 300 to 21.6k HST/DS SysOp - Shane Nolan þ UFO and Related Text Files þ þ UK UFO EMail Conference þ þ WildNet UFO EMail Conference þ - Please credit HUFORS as the source of this material - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ TYPE OF INFORMATION : New information about Project Blue Book LOCATION : NA SOURCE : UFO Magazine [Nov/Dec 1993 - Vol: 12, Issue: 5] DATE OF INCIDENT : NA RELEASE DATE : 13th February 1994 FILENAME : LOSTBLUE.ASC ============================================================================= [Permission Granted to Reproduce this Article] ANOTHER BREAKTHROUGH Larry Fawcett & Barry Greenwood - For the uninitiated, both these gentlemen have earned a reputation for their painstaking efforts over many years at sifting through a minefield of UFO rhetoric, claims and counter-claims, concentrating on the hard facts, and producing their findings in the Just Cause bulletin, [CAUS(E) an abbreviation for Citizens Against UFO Secrecy]. Even those who sometimes fall victim to their pronouncements maintain a grudging respect and admiration for the diligent manner in which these two men go about their business. In a nutshell, Fawcett and Greenwood rank amongst the best UFO researchers in the world, but their specialist 'business' field is in documentation. Provide documentation and they will give honest assessments, warts and all. Many who are familiar with the UFO subject will also be familiar with the term "Project Blue Book" - the United States official study of the phenomenon. Having been pleasantly surprised at the revelations afforded by Gresh and Knapp, I doubted that any further correspondence over the next few months would generate similar excitement. But I was wrong. Within days if receiving the MUFON Journal, and devouring its Russian content, I was flabbergasted to receive the September issue of Just Cause with a headline banner proclaiming: LOST BLUE BOOK RECORDS SURFACE Now, just so that my expressions of astonishment are clearly understood, let me explain that to UFO researchers the world over, Project Blue Book was the instrument we would use long before the Freedom of Information Act came in to being during 1976. Blue Book contained official documents, testimony, photographs and summary conclusions. Every page, every line, every name was poured over by researchers and either written or spoken of throughout the globe. Even today, Project Blue Book is often referred to by people like myself, particularly when drawing various comparisons between events of that era and modern times. It had never crossed my mind, that somewhere, further Blue Book records, unseen and unrecorded by historians, may have sat gathering dust in some dark forbidden place, until now... Fawcett and Greenwood provide the most incredible findings which ravel like a modern dat detective story... 'CAUS has recently acquired a large assembly of Project Blue Book information not presently included in the National Archives holdings. Central to this are thirty two rolls of microfilm of the Air Force's 1952 [news] clipping service, a product of the upgrading of Blue Book's activities by Captain Edward Ruppelt, former head of the project in 1952. An assortment of other rolls of film and hardcopy relating to Project Sign (a predecessor to Blue Book) and the 1960's Condon Committee round out [complete] the holding [data]. 'We are indebted to Professor Herbert Strentz, a former research associate with the University of Colorado's Condon Committee, for making the information available. The story behind the acquisition is that sometime during the summer of 1967, Strentz paid a visit to Project Blue Book's headquarters at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, along with Condon staffers [personnel] Norman Levine, Roy Craig or David Saunders (he could not remember which at this late date). 'During a meeting with Colonel Hector Quintanilla, then head of Blue Book, it was discovered that Blue Book personnel were in the process of house cleaning and throwing out some "unnecessary material." 'Quintanilla asked the Colorado staffers if they wanted any of it. They asked Strentz who said yes, since at the time he was engaged in research on UFO press coverage for his doctoral dissertation. This research was eventually published as "A Survey of Press Coverage of Unidentified Flying Object, 1947- 1966." circa 1970 (Arcturus Books, 1982). 'Saved from oblivion by Strentz were thirty two rolls of 35mm film of the April to September 1952 press clipping coverage - two rolls of public letters reacting to April 7, 1952 Life magazine article, "Have We Visitors from Outer Space?" - reels one, seven, eight and nine of Project Sign summaries (microfilm produced by the Air Force for circulation to scientists for Analysis and comment). 'These summaries cover cases 1-72, then 172-237 in the Sign records. They have not been sanitized as far as we can tell. There are also two rolls titled "Varied UFO, First Part" and "1965 El Toro." 'These rolls appear to have been prepared for the Condon Committee and deal with high interest cases of the 1950's and 1960's. The "El Toro" reference concerns the famous Rex Heflin photo from Santa Ana, California. One roll seems to be Air Force officers entering a plane carrying a box. The scene then switches to outside shots while the plane is in flight. Nothing overtly peculiar is visible. 'After weeding out a few other duplicate rolls, we have about 32,000 pages of 1952 UFO press coverage and 8,000 pages of other records from early years of UFO history. The material should have been part of National Archives UFO holdings had it not became separated in 1967. Thank's to Professor Strentz's foresight it is preserved for posterity. In his book, "The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects" (Doubleday, 1956). Captain Edward Ruppelt described the clipping service several times: 'Pages 136-7: "Back in March (1952), when it had become apparent that the press was reviving its interest in UFOs, I had suggested that Blue Book subscribe to a newspaper clipping service. Such a service could provide several things. First, it would show us exactly how much publicity the UFOs were getting and what was being said, and it would give us the feel of the situation. "Then it would also provide a lot of data for our files. In many cases the newspapers had reports that didn't go to the Air Force. Newspaper reporters rival any intelligence officer when it comes to digging up facts, and there was always the possibility that they would uncover and print something we'd missed. "This was especially true in the few cases of hoaxes that always accompany UFO publicity. Last it would provide us with material on which to base a study of the effect of UFO publicity upon the number and type of UFO reports. "Colonel Dunn like the idea of a clipping service, and it went in to effect soon after the first publicity had appeared. Every three of four days we would get an envelope full of clippings. In March the clipping service was sending the clippings to us in letter sized envelopes. The envelopes were thin - maybe there would be a dozen or so clippings in each one. Then they began to get thicker and thicker, until the people who were doing the clippings switched to using manila envelopes. "Then the manila envelopes began to get thicker and thicker. By May, we were up to old show boxes. The majority of the newspaper stories in the shoe boxes were based on material that had come from ATIC." Page 139: "In June the big flap hit - they began to deliver clippings in big cardboard cartons." The service was dropped, Ruppelt explained, because Blue Book ran out of room to keep them all. The clipping service then disappeared in to history. Because the clippings did not shift over to the National Archives with he Blue Book records in 1976, the originals were very likely destroyed, but before that the entire lot was transferred to microfilm as early as December 1952. We know this because the microfilm boxes bear a label "Develop before December 1952." They were kept at Blue Book for the next fifteen years until their release to Strentz. For the record, this is how the boxes were labelled: 1) May June/24 July 2) 19 June/15-23 Sept. 3) 1-15 July 4) 16-19 July, Nas Fort. 19 July 5) 23-24 July 6) 25 July 7) 25-27 July/15-18 Sept. 8) 28 July 9) 29 July 10) 29-30 July 11) 29 July/14-15 Aug. 12) 30 July 13) 30 July 14) 30-31 July 15) 31 July 16) 31 July 17) Aug 52 18) 2 Aug 19) 2-3 Aug 20) 3-4 Aug 21) 5-6 Aug 22) 6-7 Aug 23) 7-8 Aug 24) 9 Aug 25) 8-19 Aug 26) 10-12 Aug 27) 13-14 Aug 28) 23 Aug 29) 24-31 Aug 30) mixed dates Aug 31) 2-13 Sept 32) 19 July 'The Project Sign case summaries were notable as well, due to the fact that CAUS had sought them for several years, getting nowhere even though we had microfilm numbers for the records. 'Now we know why they were unavailable - some of the reels had been given to Strentz, the rest may have been destroyed in simple house cleaning by the Air Force. 'A bonus was included with the microfilm release... 'Professor Strentz also added another clipping collection, one of a group of possession of the Condon Committee from a private collection, and used in Strentz's dissertation. This spread of 4,000 clips covers 1961-66. 'Government UFO records are not found in large quantities any more, particularly ones which had become separated from the owning company. We continue to seek and unearth these early materials.' Like archaeologists who stare in wonderment at a bygone era, the real research for Fawcett and Greenwood now begins in earnest. With each meticulous turn of every page, keen eyes will patiently sift through dates, places and names. Who knows? One of those dates, one of those places, one of those names, may shed new light on matters long since forgotten by the establishment. Be sure of one thing, these two gentlemen know what to look for, and a chance finding would open up a whole new ball game, courtesy of an ageing Professor, who dusted down some old papers, and unearthed a long forgotten chapter in his life, but a new chapter nonetheless in UFO history... C.A.U.S.E PO Box 218, Coventry CT., 06238 USA. UFO Magazine can be obtained from:- Quest International P.O. Box 2 Grassington Skipton North Yorkshire BD23 5UY England ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Note: Please take this information as is. None of the information above has been verified. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ =============================== [THE END] ====================================