They Doth Protest Too Much

From my "Smoking Gun" files come these intriguing quotes from 1952 and report concerning Project Blue Book. In a file with the name 'Ruppelt' penciled on it, and some handwritten notes, assumedly by Ruppelt, the topic was a report hurriedly submitted summer of 1952 about needed revisions to the project's methodology and the not too subtle suggestion that, since no proof of threat had been found, the project had achieved its Project Sign, Grudge and Blue Book objective and should be dismantled. Dates within the report indicate the process began prior to the notorious Washington D.C. Capitol sightings and other strange lights in and around the area. Lights eventually laid at the feet of radar angels and temperature inversions officially. Oddly, the decision was made to not close the work of Project Blue Book due to what would be known as the '1952 Flap.

"...only as a last resort do we use the report of an untrained non-technical person's visual observation of a complicated aerial object, especially if the information is volunteered."
 

"ATIC proposes that the receipt and analysis of such reports by the USAF be discontinued in the future..."

"Basically, any moving light is either the result of (1) air expenditure of energy, e.g., an aircraft, a missile, meteor, ionized clouds, etc. or (2) the reflection of light from another source, e.g., the sun, moon, etc. In the past, objects reflecting lights from another source have been identified and eliminated from consideration only by tedious and expensive investigation and analysis by ATIC and other Defense Depart. agencies."

Note that final line of the last quote. The AF could only fulfill its tasked mission through 'tedious and expensive investigation and analysis'.  The proudly vaunted 'two pronged' purpose of the project according to several documents and regulations was to determine if they represented a threat and to discover if there was any technology to be mined from the craft or the phenomena.

A report alleged to be from those early years and found at  http://www.roswellfiles.com/FOIA/AFIntellRpt.htm, contains this phrase :

"5. In addition to the collection, analysis and investigation activities directed by the project personnel at Hq, Air Material Command, Air Intelligence Memorandum dated 6 August 1948, (sic really 27 July, 1948"

This appears to indicate that those were the very activities the project(s) were tasked to undertake.