Transfer of the Blue Book files (1975)

Transfer of the Blue Book files (1975)

Date	April 1975
Topics	Government programs (topic)
People	Brad Sparks, J. Allen Hynek
Testimony	Shellenberger testimony, p. 80
Year	1975 in UFO history
Timeline	1975 on the UAP Timeline
Sources	8

The transfer of the Blue Book files moved the records of the Air Force's Project Blue Book from the Air Force Archives at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama to the National Archives in the mid-1970s.^[3][4][5] In April 1975 the Air Force withdrew the files from public access for a security and privacy review. Over the following months reviewers blacked out witnesses' names and, according to the researcher Brad Sparks, removed or destroyed some documents.^[3][8] The sanitised files were handed over to the National Archives and Records Service in December 1975. The paper files were opened to the public in May 1976 and a 94-roll microfilm edition followed in July.^[3][5] Researchers have since found gaps in the files, and in 1998 an unredacted copy, microfilmed at Maxwell just before the review, was found at the National Archives.^[3]

At Maxwell

• The files. Blue Book's closure was announced on 17 December 1969. Sparks says its last activity was actually on 30 January 1970.^[4][3] Its files, covering 12,618 reported sightings of which 701 were listed as "unidentified", went to the Air Force Archives at Maxwell.^[4][5]
• Why Maxwell. Major David Shea later said Maxwell was chosen because it was "accessible yet not too inviting".^[4]
• Gaining access. The researcher Kevin Randle, then a college student in Air Force ROTC, learned from an internal Air Force notice that the files could be seen at Maxwell. He went there with fellow researcher Robert Charles Cornett, armed with a letter of introduction from his detachment commander.^[2]
• Hesitant staff. At first the archivists hesitated and insisted on requests for specific cases, so Randle asked for files such as Kinross and Levelland.^[2]
• "Mr. Smith". After the staff spoke with a "Mr. Smith" in Washington, they became fully cooperative. Randle said he never learned whether they had called Smith, or whether Smith somehow knew the two men were there.^[2]
• The master index. The archivists then told them of a master index giving each sighting's date, location, witnesses' names and Air Force conclusion. Randle and Cornett copied the details of all the "unidentified" cases, most photo cases and landing-trace cases.^[2]
• Berliner's catalogue. Don Berliner of the Fund for UFO Research (FUFOR) had made a similar review of the files at Maxwell in January 1974. His catalogue of "Unknowns" kept many witness names later blacked out.^[3]

The earlier version of this article said access improved after Randle "contacted an official in Washington". In Randle's own account the archivists spoke to the Washington official, and he did not know who made the contact.^[2]

The 1975 review

According to Sparks's catalogue of Blue Book "Unknowns", the files were withdrawn from access at Maxwell by April 1975, when an Air Force security-classification and privacy review panel began work on them.^[3]

• Names removed. The panel "sanitized" witness names, blacking them out on the original paper files.^[3]
• Documents removed. Sparks says it also destroyed or removed certain documents "evidently thought embarrassing or incriminating to the AF". His example is the signature page on which the Lockheed designer Clarence "Kelly" Johnson concluded that the UFO he saw was an actual device. (See Lockheed/Kelly Johnson sighting.)^[3]
• Handover. The Air Force finished the review and turned the sanitised files over to the National Archives and Records Service in December 1975. The files apparently stayed physically at Maxwell for the time being.^[3]
• OSI files added. An extra set of Air Force Office of Special Investigations UFO files from 1948 to 1968 was added in December 1975.^[3]

The 2024 UFO timeline compiled by Michael Shellenberger and submitted to the House Oversight Committee dates the withdrawal to April 1975. It says some documents "deemed embarrassing to the USAF are allegedly destroyed, and redactions are made on the original paper files", citing Sparks.^[8]

Microfilming and release

• The first filming. Before the review, the files had been microfilmed at Maxwell around 10–28 February 1975 on 16 mm film.^[3]
• The second filming. On 19 February 1976 the National Archives placed an order with Fuller & Dees Marketing Group of Montgomery, Alabama, to microfilm the redacted files. Sparks takes this as a sign that the files were still in the Maxwell area.^[3]
• Public release. The National Archives opened the paper files in mid-May 1976 and released 94 reels of 35 mm microfilm on 12 July 1976.^[3]
• Jack Webb. Randle connects the move to the producer Jack Webb, who in the mid-1970s was preparing an NBC series called Project UFO. "To assist him", Randle wrote, the Air Force moved the files to the National Archives, where they were microfilmed, and Webb, "as I understand it", paid for the microfilming.^[2]
• Copies elsewhere. Randle owns a full set of the 94 rolls. He says the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies has one too, and he suspected MUFON did as well.^[2]

The earlier version of this article dated Project UFO to 1978–1979; those dates are not in the sources read here. Randle's account of Webb's role is his own understanding. Sparks's account of the 1976 microfilming order does not say who paid for it.^[2][3]

What was released

According to the National Archives, the textual records were released "excluding names of people involved in the sightings".^[5]

• Size. They comprise about 2 cubic feet of project and administrative files, 37 cubic feet of case files arranged by date, and 3 cubic feet of Office of Special Investigations records. A cubic foot is about 2,000 pages.^[5]
• Finding aids. Researchers use them through 94 rolls of microfilm (publication T-1206). The first roll lists the contents and finding aids, and the last two rolls hold photographs.^[5]
• The Air Force's position. The Air Force's own fact sheet, as reproduced by the National Archives, says the documentation "has been permanently transferred" to the National Archives and "is available for public review and analysis".^[5] A 1985 version of the fact sheet adds that "nothing has happened to indicate that the Air Force ought to resume investigating UFOS".^[5] An archived copy of the Air Force's online fact sheet is also listed but yielded no text.^[1]

The redactions

Randle wrote that Air Force officers spent weeks removing witnesses' names before release, but "did a terrible job of it".^[2]

• Kenneth Arnold. In the Kenneth Arnold file, reviewers removed Arnold's initials from an interview transcript but left "Arnold Sighting" scrawled in large letters on another page.^[2]
• Newspaper clippings. In other files, names were removed from Air Force reports but left in newspaper clippings filed with them.^[2]
• Restoring names. Because Randle and Cornett had copied names from the unredacted index at Maxwell, Randle could restore many of them. He published them in an appendix to his 1997 book Project Blue Book – Exposed.^[2][3]

The unredacted microfilm

In early March 1998, William Weitzel and FUFOR found that the National Archives' College Park facility held the unsanitised 16 mm microfilm made at Maxwell in February 1975. It ran to 70 films, which the Archives had made available "inadvertently". FUFOR obtained copies. Sparks calls the discovery "the tremendous intelligence coup" that preserved the pre-redaction record.^[3]

Gaps in the files

Researchers have long argued that the released files are incomplete.^[3]

• Lost unknowns. The Air Force's final count was 701 "unidentified" cases. But J. Allen Hynek and his Center for UFO Studies staff, reviewing the released microfilm and Hynek's own papers, found only about 587 in the files, so about 114 "Unknowns" had "been lost somehow". Berliner had counted 585 in 1974.^[3]
• Missing 1952 letters. Nearly 500 sighting letters sent by civilians directly to the Air Technical Intelligence Center in 1952, including about 95 "Unknowns", are missing from the files.^[3]
• Muddled totals. Sparks argues that the official total of 12,618 cases is unreliable. The files hold about 13,134 cases by the Hynek–CUFOS count, and one "catchall" Houston file numbered as a single case held reports from around the world.^[3]
• Disorganisation. He says the disorder of the files makes it "impossible to know whether a case isn't tucked into some other case file or misdated". He cites as an example the March 1967 Malmstrom missile-shutdown case, which appears to be missing.^[3]

Whether the gaps reflect deliberate removal or ordinary disorder remains debated. Sparks describes both: documents he says were destroyed in the 1975 review, and files so disorganised that cases may simply be misfiled.^[3] The earlier version of this article said Hynek "often complained" about the disorganisation; that is not stated in the sources read here.

The files today

• Online scans. By 2007 the National Archives had put the Blue Book files online through the Footnote website, free to search at the time.^[2] Scans are now on the Fold3 website, whose search Sparks calls "poor", since it struggles to read text on the grey scanned pages.^[3]
• Internet Archive. The NOUFORS website links to some 10,808 Blue Book files uploaded to the Internet Archive by Emma Best, credited to FOIA work by John Greenewald of The Black Vault.^[6]
• Names today. The Wikipedia account notes that the files are available under the Freedom of Information Act but with witnesses' names and personal information redacted.^[4]
• A dead link. A direct page link to Sparks's catalogue listed for this article no longer resolves.^[7]

People and topics

• Project Blue Book — The Air Force's public UFO investigation from 1952 until its closure in December 1969.
• U.S. Air Force — The U.S. military service that ran the official UFO projects from 1947 to 1969.
• Brad Sparks — UFO analyst known for his catalogue of Blue Book unknowns and work on the CIA lawsuit.
• J. Allen Hynek — Astronomer and Air Force UFO consultant from 1948 to 1969 who later founded the Center for UFO Studies.

On the Timeline

• Goldwater letter to Shlomo Arnon (1975) (28 March 1975) — Goldwater writes that UAP information is classified above Top Secret.
• Rumsfeld's "no need to know" remark (13 April 1975) — Hynek says Donald Rumsfeld told him he had no need to know about any secret UAP study.

See every 1975 event on the UAP Timeline →

Further reading

References

Facts in this article are drawn in part from the Wikipedia article “Project Blue Book”, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.