The Condon Study and Report

"The Condon Committee was the informal name of the University of Colorado UFO Project, a group funded by the United States Air Force from 1966 to 1968 at the University of Colorado to study unidentified flying objects under the direction of physicist Edward Condon. The result of its work, formally titled Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects, and known as the Condon Report, appeared in 1968. After examining hundreds of UFO files from the Air Force's Project Blue Book and from the civilian UFO groups National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) and Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO), and investigating sightings reported during the life of the Project, the Committee produced a Final Report that said the study of UFOs was unlikely to yield major scientific discoveries. The Report's conclusions were generally welcomed by the scientific community and have been cited as a decisive factor in the generally low level of interest in UFO activity among academics since that time. According to a principal critic of the Report, it is "the most influential public document concerning the scientific status of this UFO problem. Hence, all current scientific work on the UFO problem must make reference to the Condon Report."

The final version of this collaborative study with the USAF and the National Academy of Sciences (who funded it) was The Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects  published as a massive 957 page hardback from E.P. Dutton and a paperback from Bantam Books (both in 1969).  






Cited as being the objective and scientific study the subject had long demanded, it was clear that many of the same problems plagued it as the early Robertson Panel and the entire Air Force project from Sign to Blue Book.  

Cherry picked cases that fulfilled the requirement that the Air Force only acknowledge those they had an explanation for (re AFR 200-2) and those that suited the need to reinforce the ability of science to provide answers, it fell short of expectations.

The leaked communication between Condon and others about how best to "tweak" the process and to do the trick of making it look like they were being objective while driving toward a predetermined conclusion would seriously taint the study.

The Machiavellian machinations of the government and such studies served to merely turn eyes away from traditional forms of authority and engender a growing mistrust in such institutions.

An increasingly educated populace, growing up with new frames of scientific references, did not appreciate the tactics of the post-war world: patronizing, condescending, attitudes slapping labels of drunk, crazy, and unbalanced on anyone who saw something strange or disagreed with official stories/explanations. 

Many of the people, remember, who were seeing and reporting these odd things in the skies were trained pilots, observers, educators, control tower personnel, scientists, and law enforcement. All the cream of society in matters of reputation and skills. The poor uneducated farmers. miners, truck drivers, and housewives of an earlier time that could be accused of drinking too much and seeing pink saucers - were not as easily silenced.

What could have been a truly balanced, objective and valuable tool was compromised by the cases fed it, the attitudes and prejudices of those investigating it and the predetermined goals behind the collaboration in the first place. This study became the tool that finally disbanded the Air Force public participation in investigations of things in the skies known as "U.F.O.'s"

Man had reached the moon, the nation was the master of the space race, and the heady euphoria of such success must have felt like the 1947-1969 era was truly behind them. 

Then the seventies appeared...