December 18, 2019

Yesterday, December 17, marked 50 years since the United States Air Force ended Project Blue Book in 1969. The project, which began in 1952, was an official research study of UFO’s (unidentified flying objects). A UFO is a light or object spotted in the air that has no obvious explanation. Some people believe UFO’s are spaceships from other planets.

Four unidentified objects appear as bright lights in the sky in this 1952 photograph taken in Salem, Massachusetts. Credit: © Popperfoto/Alamy Images

Project Blue Book began in part because of widespread public interest in UFO’s. Reports of UFO’s were increasingly occurring in the United States and around the world in the 1940′s and 1950′s. Officials in the U.S. Air Force felt obliged to investigate the phenomenon. Their reasoning was that they needed to determine where UFO’s came from and whether they posed a threat to national security. Investigators with the project collected thousands of reports and conducted many interviews with civilians and military personnel who claimed they had interactions with UFO’s in some form.

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A “flying disc” UFO was said to have crashed near Roswell, in southeastern New Mexico, in 1947. The Air Force said the mysterious craft was a weather balloon. Credit: WORLD BOOK map

Project Blue Book followed an earlier government project investigating UFO’s called Project Sign. This project began in 1947, following widespread media coverage of a UFO sighting reported by Kenneth Arnold, a civilian pilot. Arnold claimed to have seen a group of silvery, crescent-shaped craft flying at high speed near Mount Rainier, Washington, on June 24, 1947. His sighting led the press to coin the term flying saucer for UFO’s. A mysterious crash of what some people believed was a UFO near Roswell, New Mexico, was also reported that same year.

Project Sign was disbanded after one year of investigations that found little of interest. However, one member of the project, Air Force Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, argued that UFO’s were real and extraterrestrial in origin. Ruppelt is credited with coining the term UFO. Project Sign was shut down and the staff were reassigned. It was later reconstituted as Project Grudge. The investigators of this project produced a report that concluded that UFO’s were not real. However, by 1952, Ruppelt was once again asked to lead Project Blue Book, the final official government investigation of UFO’s. He was joined by the noted American astronomer J. Allen Hynek. The Project Blue Book team amassed a great number of UFO reports and sightings from many witnesses.

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was tasked with evaluating the large volume of information collected during Project Blue Book. In 1953, the CIA organized a panel of scientific experts led by the physicist Howard Percy Robertson to review the material. The Robertson Panel concluded that most reported UFO sightings were worthless and declared that reasonable explanations could be suggested for most, if not all, sightings. Therefore, the panel said, the government should work to debunk (prove false) UFO sightings. However, critics argue that the panel obscured those reported UFO sightings that might have some validity.

In the years following the Robertson Panel, the directors of Project Blue Book were dismissive of most UFO reports and sightings. Publicly, the government saw UFO investigations as a waste of time. In the 1960’s, Congress established another committee to study the evidence for UFO’s. The physicist Edward Condon served as chairman of this committee. The Condon Committee issued a report in 1968 that concluded there was no genuine evidence for extraterrestrial UFO’s. The government used the report to justify ending Project Blue Book. The government took the position that UFO’s were misidentifications of known phenomena, hoaxes, or products of mass hysteria. The official records of Project Blue Book are kept at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. The records are available to the public.

December 20, 2013

New Mexico’s Supreme Court yesterday declared same-sex marriage legal in that state. The court ruled that it is unconstitutional to deny a marriage license to same-sex couples: “Barring individuals from marrying and depriving them of the rights, protections and responsibilities of civil marriage solely because of their sexual orientation violates the Equal Protection Clause under Article II, Section 18 of the New Mexico Constitution,” wrote Justice Edward Chavez in the unanimous decision.

Prior to the ruling, county clerks in eight New Mexico counties had issued marriage licenses to hundreds of same-sex couples. The ruling specified that that the state must respect the marriages of all same-sex couples, including those who wed before the court’s decision. New Mexico is the 17th state to legalize same-sex marriage. Same-sex couples can also wed in the District of Columbia.

On June 26, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on a highly anticipated case affecting same-sex couples. In a 5-to-4 vote, the court declared that the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)–which defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman–was unconstitutional. Passed by Congress in 1996,  DOMA barred federal recognition of same-sex marriages for such purposes as Social Security survivors’ benefits, insurance benefits, immigration, and the filing of joint tax returns. The Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional because it denied same-sex couples the “equal liberty” guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment. The court’s ruling meant that same-sex couples that marry in the states where gay marriage is legal are entitled to the same federal benefits as married opposite-sex couples. However, the Supreme Court’s ruling did not have broader implications for the legality of same-sex marriages nationwide and did not affect the laws and amendments banning same-sex marriage in more than 30 U.S. states.

Two men exchange vows in Connecticut, one of the first states to legalize same-sex marriage. (© Chip East, Reuters/Landov)

On Aug. 14, 2013, the Department of Defense responded to the court’s DOMA decision with the announcement that it would extend spousal and family benefits to same-sex spouses of uniformed service members and to Department of Defense civilian employees. The Department of Defense declared that it remained committed to ensuring that all men and women who serve in the U.S. military, and their families, are treated fairly and equally as the law directs.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced on December 13 that all state national guards were now in compliance with the Defense Department’s directive to provide benefits to same-sex spouses. Texas and several other states had initially refused to comply.

Additional World Book articles:

• Civil unions
• Civil rights 2010 (a Back in Time article)
• Civil rights 2012 (a Back in Time article)