Robertson Panel
Encyclopedia
The Robertson Panel was a committee commissioned by the Central Intelligence Agency
in 1952 in response to widespread reports of unidentified flying object
s, especially in the Washington, D.C.
area. The panel was briefed on U.S. military activities and intelligence; hence the report was originally classified Secret.
Later declassified, the Robertson Panel's report concluded that UFOs were not a direct threat to national security, but could pose an indirect threat by overwhelming standard military communications due to public interest in the subject. Most UFO reports, they concluded, could be explained as misidentification of mundane aerial objects, and the remaining minority could, in all likelihood, be similarly explained with further study.
The Robertson Panel concluded that a public relations
campaign should be undertaken in order to "debunk
" UFOs, and reduce public interest in the subject, and that civilian UFO groups should be monitored. There is evidence this was carried out more than two decades after the Panel's conclusion; see "publicity and responses" below.
Critics (including a few panel members) would later lament the Robertson Panel's role in making UFOs a somewhat disreputable field of study.
. So many civilians contacted various government agencies regarding UFO's that daily governmental duties were impacted; the New York Times reported on August 1, 1952, "regular intelligence
work has been affected." Various newspapers, such as the Baltimore Sun, Washington Star
, Denver Post, and Los Angeles Times
, reported on July 31 that Air Force Chief of Staff Hoyt S. Vandenberg thought that the recent spate of UFO sightings and reports had generated "mass hysteria". http://roswellproof.homestead.com/Vandenberg_July30_1952.html There was a general concern among the military that the hysteria and confusion generated by UFO reports could be utilized by the United States' enemies, primarily the Soviet Union
.
Documents indicate that the CIA became involved at the request of the National Security Council
after President Truman personally expressed concern over UFOs at a July 28, 1952, NSC meeting. (However, there was no formal NSC meeting on that date). The CIA's study was largely conducted by the CIA's Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI). The CIA thought the question so pressing that they authorized an ad hoc
committee in late 1952.
The Robertson Panel first met formally on January 14, 1953 under the direction of Howard Percy Robertson
. He was a physicist
, a CIA employee, and the director of the Defense Department Weapons Evaluation Group. He was instructed by OSI to assemble a group of prominent scientists to review the Air Force's UFO files.
In preparation for this, Robertson first personally reviewed Air Force files and procedures. The Air Force had recently commissioned the Battelle Memorial Institute
to scientifically study all of the UFO reports collected by Project Sign
, Project Grudge
and Project Blue Book
. Robertson hoped to draw on their statistical results, but Battelle insisted that they needed much more time to conduct a proper study. (For more, see below).
Other panel members were respected scientists and military personnel who had worked on other classified military projects or studies. All were then skeptical of UFO reports, though to varying degrees. Apart from Robertson, the panel included:
Most of what is known about the actual proceedings of the meetings comes from sketchy minutes kept by Durant, later submitted as a memo to the NSC. It is the only declassified document to date that details the panel's discussions. In addition, various participants would later comment on what transpired from their perspective. Ed Ruppelt
, then head of Project Blue Book
, first revealed the existence of the secret panel in his 1956 insider book, but without revealing names of panel members.
Of the Panel members, Ruppelt would write in his private papers that Goudsmit was exceptionally hostile to the subject: "Goudsmit was probably the most violent anti-saucer man at the panel meeting. Everything was a big joke to him which brought down the wrath of the other panel members on numerous occasions." Goudsmit even stated later that reporters of UFOs were as dangerous to society as drug addicts.
Alvarez was also extremely skeptical but more professional in his conduct. Page at the time was likewise hostile, later recalling that he made a statement during the meeting that UFOs were "nonsense", bringing about a reprimand from Robertson, despite their good friendship. Ruppelt, however, felt that Page was more open-minded, and although he obviously did not know much about UFOs, he tended to line up with Hynek against Alvarez and Goudsmit in their adamancy that UFOs could not exist.
In contrast, Robertson, Berkner, and Durant seemed to have a personal interest in the subject. It was noted, for example, in a CIA memo that although Berkner was not keen to participate, he "felt strongly that the saucer problem should be thoroughly investigated from a scientific point of view." Another CIA memo produced after the completion of the panel's work indicates that Durant, despite the panel's negative conclusions, thought that materials on flying saucers should continue to be maintained by a major division of OSI, such as Physics and Electronics.
The first day, the panel viewed two amateur motion pictures of UFOs: the Mariana UFO Incident footage and 1952 Utah UFO Film (the latter was taken by Navy Chief Petty Officer Delbert C. Newhouse, who had extensive experience with aerial photography). Two Navy photograph and film analysts (Lieutenants R.S. Neasham and Harry Woo) then reported their conclusions: based on more than 1,000 man hour
s of detailed analysis, the two films depicted objects that were not any known aircraft, creature or weather
phenomena. Air Force Captain Edward J. Ruppelt
then began a summary of Air Force efforts regarding UFO studies.
The second day, Ruppelt finished his presentation. Hynek then discussed the Battelle study, and the panel discussed with Air Force personnel the problems inherent in monitoring UFO sightings.
The third day, Air Force Major Dewey J. Fournet spoke to the panel. For over a year he had coordinated UFO affairs for the Pentagon
. Fournett supported the extraterrestrial hypothesis
as the best explanation for some puzzling UFO reports. For the remainder of the third day, the panel discussed their conclusions, and Robertson agreed to draft a preliminary report.
The fourth and final day, the panel rewrote and finalized their report.
s and planet
s, meteor
s, aurora
s, mirage
s, atmospheric temperature inversions, and lenticular cloud
s; other sightings were judged as likely misinterpretation of conventional aircraft
, weather balloon
s, bird
s, searchlights, kites, and other phenomena.
None of the Panel's members was formally trained in motion picture or photographic analysis, and only one had any experience with photography (astronomic still photography and not motion picture film). After screening the films a few times, they dismissed the idea that either the 1950 Montana UFO Film or the 1952 Utah UFO Film showed "genuine" UFOs. The Panel's members instead argued that the "UFOs" in the Montana film were actually the reflections of two jet fighters alleged to be in the area at the time and that those in the Utah film were actually seagulls flying near the Great Salt Lake
. However, the Panel's conclusions contradicted U.S. Air Force photo analysts who had earlier specifically ruled out birds as an explanation for the Utah film and had thought that jets were a highly unlikely, but remotely plausible, explanation for the Montana film (Clark, 1998). The Panel's conclusions also seemingly ignored eyewitness testimony in both film cases that the objects, while closer to the camera operators, were clearly defined metallic flying saucers, not the rather indistinct lights seen on the films.
Furthermore, the Panel suggested the Air Force should begin a "debunking
" effort to reduce "public gullibility" and demystify UFO reports, partly via a public relations
campaign, using psychiatrist
s, astronomer
s and assorted celebrities to significantly reduce public interest in UFOs. It was also recommended that the mass media be used for the debunking, including influential media giants like the Walt Disney Corporation. The primary reasoning for this recommendation lay in the belief that the Soviets might try to "mask" an actual invasion of the USA by causing a wave of false "UFO" reports to swamp the Pentagon and other military agencies, thus temporarily blinding the US government to the impending Communist invasion.
Their formal recommendation stated "That the national security agencies take immediate steps to strip the Unidentified Flying Objects of the special status they have been given and the aura of mystery they have unfortunately acquired."
Also recommended was government monitoring of civilian groups studying or researching UFOs "because of their potentially great influence on mass thinking... the apparent irresponsibility and possible use of such groups for subversive purposes should be kept in mind." Two UFO groups in particular were singled out: APRO and Civilian Saucer Investigations (CSI).
The recommendations of the Robertson Panel were implemented by a series of special military regulations. Joint-Army-Navy-Air Force Publication 147 (JANAP 146) of December 1953 made reprinting of any UFO sighting to the public a crime under the Espionage Act, with fines of up to ten thousand dollars and imprisonment ranging from one to ten years. This act was considered binding on all who knew of the act's existence, including commercial airline pilots. A 1954 revision of Air Force Regulation 200-2 (AFR 200-2) made all sighting reports submitted to the air force classified material and prohibited the release of any information about UFO sightings unless the sighting was able to be positively identified. In February 1958 a revision of AFR 200-2 allowed the military to give the FBI the names of people who were "illegally or deceptively bringing the subject [of UFOs] to public attention". Because of the Robertson Panel the Air Force's Project Blue Book
's procedures of investigating UFOs also changed, attempting to find a quick explanation and then file them away. Project Blue Book
was a successor of Project Grudge
.
In 1956 retired Marine Major Donald Keyhoe
founded the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena
(NICAP), a UFO investigations organization. By 1969 Keyhoe turned his focus on the CIA as the source of the UFO cover up. NICAP's board, headed by Colonel Jospeph Bryan III, forced Keyhoe to retire as NICAP chief. Bryan was actually a former covert CIA agent who had served the agency as founder and head of its psychological warfare division. Under Bryan's leadership, the NICAP disbanded its local and state affiliate groups, and by 1973 it had been completely closed.
In 1958, the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena
(NICAP), a civilian UFO research group, requested that the Air Force release the panel's report. The Air Force released three summary paragraphs and the names of the panel's members. In 1966 a nearly full-length version of the report was printed in the science column of the Saturday Review.
Panel member Thornton Page would later change some of his more stridently skeptical conclusions regarding the Panel's report, and regarding UFOs in general. In his 1969 critique of the Condon Report, Page would lament the "excessive levity" he brought to the Panel's proceeding, detailing how he later thought the UFO subject deserved serious scrutiny.
Hynek's opinions changed in later years as well, so much that he became, to many, the scientifically respectable voice of Ufology
. He would lament that the Robertson Panel had "made the subject of UFOs scientifically unrespectable, and for nearly 20 years not enough attention was paid to the subject to acquire the kind of data
needed even to decide the nature of the UFO phenomenon."
were quashed; and Project Blue Book's hopes to establish a scientific advisory board were dashed. Blue Book was also downgraded in status and stripped of most responsibility for investigating serious, well-attested UFO cases, which were instead secretly turned over to a newly formed division of the Air Defense Command. Directives were also issued not to discuss the unexplainable cases with the public and to reduce the percentage of "unknowns"
Though the CIA's official history suggests that the Robertson Panel's conclusions were never carried out, there is evidence that contradicts this. Perhaps the most unambiguous evidence for the Robertson Panel's covert impact on news media reporting about UFOs is a personal letter by Dr. Thornton Page, discovered in the Smithsonian archives by biochemist Michael D. Swords
. The 1966 letter, addressed to former Robertson Panel Secretary Frederick C. Durant, confides that Page "helped organize the CBS TV show around the Robertson Panel conclusions." Page was no doubt referring to the CBS Reports TV broadcast of the same year, "UFOs: Friend, Foe, or Fantasy?" narrated by Walter Cronkite
. (Incidentally, this program was criticized for inaccurate and misleading presentations.) Page's letter indicates that the Robertson Panel was still putting a negative spin on UFO news at least 13 years after the panel met.
Furthermore, according to Swords, there is ample evidence to prove that CSI was pressured to disband by the U.S. Government. FBI documents indicate that noted engineer Walther Riedel was pressured to resign from CSI, and not long afterwards, the group disbanded; in response, Robertson wrote to Marshall Chadwell, stating "[t]hat ought to fix the Forteans." (Robertson was referring to the devotees of American writer Charles Fort
(1874–1932), whose books argued in favor of the reality of extraterrestrial on Earth.) APRO was active through the late 1980s. There has also been speculation that UFO group NICAP was infiltrated by CIA operatives.
Even later, Randles and Hough note that there was a "CIA memo from 1976" which "tells how the agency is still having to 'keep in touch with reporting channels' in ufology
(in other words, to spy
on UFO groups." (Randles and Hough, 103)).
Some scholars investigators have suggested that the Robertson Panel's true objective was to justify a CIA domestic propaganda-and-surveillance campaign, rather than to investigate UFOs. For example, journalist Howard Blum writes that it is difficult to accept any argument that the Robertson Panel was ever intended as a serious scientific analysis: Blum argues that the Panel's perfunctory rejection of the U.S. Navy's detailed examination of the UFO films is all but impossible to justify on scientific grounds. Similarly, Swords has argued that the Panel seems to have been designed as an elaborate theater exercise instead of a serious attempt to get to the bottom of the UFO issue. Although the Panel put on a show of evaluating some UFO evidence, its scientific analysis was cursory and its conclusions mostly likely pre-ordained. Also, the Panel only looked only at evidence in the public domain, not higher-quality classified military evidence. Psychologist David R. Saunders, a member of the University of Colorado's UFO study (the Condon Committee
), had earlier expressed similar conclusions. Given that Robertson had worked as a high-level scientific-intelligence officer during World War II, he would have been familiar with the use of such tactics to hide a sensitive national-security problem from scrutiny by outsiders.
It is a widely held conclusion amongst UFO investigators that the Robertson Panel's conclusions and recommendations had a great influence on official United States policy regarding UFOs for many decades.
finally finished their massive review of Air Force UFO cases in 1954 (called "Project Blue Book
Special Report No. 14"), their results were markedly different from those of the Robertson Panel. Whereas the Robertson Panel spent only twelve hours reviewing a limited number of cases, the Battelle Institute had four full-time scientific analysts working for over two years analyzing 3201 reports. Classifying a case as "unknown" required agreement among all four analysts, whereas a "known" or conventional classification required agreement by only two analysts. Still they concluded 22% of the cases remained unsolvable. The percentage climbed to 35% when considering only the best cases and fell to 18% for the worst cases. Not only are the percentages of unknowns much higher than those for the Robertson Panel, but the higher percentages for the better cases are directly opposite one conclusion of the panel that their remaining 10% of unknowns would disappear if further investigated and more information was available. Furthermore, the Battelle study had already thrown out cases they deemed to have insufficient information to make a determination (9% of all cases). Thus, the fact that a case was classified as "unknown" had nothing to do with lack of information or investigation.
The study also looked at six characteristics of the sightings: duration, speed, number, brightness, color, and shape. For all characteristics, the knowns and unknowns differed at a highly statistically significant level, further indicating that the knowns and unknowns were distinctly different classes of phenomena.
Despite this, the summary section of the final report declared it was "highly improbable that any of the reports of unidentified aerial objects... represent observations of technological developments outside the range of present-day knowledge."
(For more statistical results of the Battelle study see Identified Flying Objects.)
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
in 1952 in response to widespread reports of unidentified flying object
Unidentified flying object
A term originally coined by the military, an unidentified flying object is an unusual apparent anomaly in the sky that is not readily identifiable to the observer as any known object...
s, especially in the Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
area. The panel was briefed on U.S. military activities and intelligence; hence the report was originally classified Secret.
Later declassified, the Robertson Panel's report concluded that UFOs were not a direct threat to national security, but could pose an indirect threat by overwhelming standard military communications due to public interest in the subject. Most UFO reports, they concluded, could be explained as misidentification of mundane aerial objects, and the remaining minority could, in all likelihood, be similarly explained with further study.
The Robertson Panel concluded that a public relations
Public relations
Public relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....
campaign should be undertaken in order to "debunk
Debunker
A debunker is an individual who attempts to discredit and contradict claims as being false, exaggerated or pretentious. The term is closely associated with skeptical investigation of, or in some cases irrational resistance to, controversial topics such as U.F.O.s, claimed paranormal phenomena,...
" UFOs, and reduce public interest in the subject, and that civilian UFO groups should be monitored. There is evidence this was carried out more than two decades after the Panel's conclusion; see "publicity and responses" below.
Critics (including a few panel members) would later lament the Robertson Panel's role in making UFOs a somewhat disreputable field of study.
History
In 1952, a wave of UFO reports in the United States centered around Washington DC1952 Washington D.C. UFO incident
The 1952 Washington D.C. UFO incident, also known as the Washington flap or the Washington National Airport Sightings, was a series of unidentified flying object reports from July 12 to July 29, 1952, over Washington D.C. The most publicized sightings took place on consecutive weekends, July 19–20...
. So many civilians contacted various government agencies regarding UFO's that daily governmental duties were impacted; the New York Times reported on August 1, 1952, "regular intelligence
Military intelligence
Military intelligence is a military discipline that exploits a number of information collection and analysis approaches to provide guidance and direction to commanders in support of their decisions....
work has been affected." Various newspapers, such as the Baltimore Sun, Washington Star
Washington Star
The Washington Star, previously known as the Washington Star-News and the Washington Evening Star, was a daily afternoon newspaper published in Washington, D.C. between 1852 and 1981. For most of that time, it was the city's newspaper of record, and the longtime home to columnist Mary McGrory and...
, Denver Post, and Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
, reported on July 31 that Air Force Chief of Staff Hoyt S. Vandenberg thought that the recent spate of UFO sightings and reports had generated "mass hysteria". http://roswellproof.homestead.com/Vandenberg_July30_1952.html There was a general concern among the military that the hysteria and confusion generated by UFO reports could be utilized by the United States' enemies, primarily the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
.
Documents indicate that the CIA became involved at the request of the National Security Council
United States National Security Council
The White House National Security Council in the United States is the principal forum used by the President of the United States for considering national security and foreign policy matters with his senior national security advisors and Cabinet officials and is part of the Executive Office of the...
after President Truman personally expressed concern over UFOs at a July 28, 1952, NSC meeting. (However, there was no formal NSC meeting on that date). The CIA's study was largely conducted by the CIA's Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI). The CIA thought the question so pressing that they authorized an ad hoc
Ad hoc
Ad hoc is a Latin phrase meaning "for this". It generally signifies a solution designed for a specific problem or task, non-generalizable, and not intended to be able to be adapted to other purposes. Compare A priori....
committee in late 1952.
The Robertson Panel first met formally on January 14, 1953 under the direction of Howard Percy Robertson
Howard Percy Robertson
Howard Percy Robertson was an American mathematician and physicist known for contributions related to physical cosmology and the uncertainty principle...
. He was a physicist
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
, a CIA employee, and the director of the Defense Department Weapons Evaluation Group. He was instructed by OSI to assemble a group of prominent scientists to review the Air Force's UFO files.
In preparation for this, Robertson first personally reviewed Air Force files and procedures. The Air Force had recently commissioned the Battelle Memorial Institute
Battelle Memorial Institute
Battelle Memorial Institute is a private nonprofit applied science and technology development company headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. Battelle is a charitable trust organized as a nonprofit corporation under the laws of the State of Ohio and is exempt from taxation under Section 501 of the...
to scientifically study all of the UFO reports collected by Project Sign
Project Sign
Project Sign was an official U.S. government study of unidentified flying objects undertaken by the United States Air Force and active for most of 1948....
, Project Grudge
Project Grudge
Project Grudge was a short-lived project by the U.S. Air Force to investigate unidentified flying objects . Grudge succeeded Project Sign in February, 1949, and was then followed by Project Blue Book. The project formally ended in December 1949, but actually continued on in a very minimal capacity...
and Project Blue Book
Project Blue Book
Project Blue Book was one of a series of systematic studies of unidentified flying objects conducted by the United States Air Force. Started in 1952, it was the second revival of such a study...
. Robertson hoped to draw on their statistical results, but Battelle insisted that they needed much more time to conduct a proper study. (For more, see below).
Other panel members were respected scientists and military personnel who had worked on other classified military projects or studies. All were then skeptical of UFO reports, though to varying degrees. Apart from Robertson, the panel included:
- Luis AlvarezLuis AlvarezLuis W. Alvarez was an American experimental physicist and inventor, who spent nearly all of his long professional career on the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley...
, physicist, radar expert (and later, a Nobel PrizeNobel PrizeThe Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
recipient); - Frederick C. Durant, missileMissileThough a missile may be any thrown or launched object, it colloquially almost always refers to a self-propelled guided weapon system.-Etymology:The word missile comes from the Latin verb mittere, meaning "to send"...
expert; - Samuel Abraham GoudsmitSamuel Abraham GoudsmitSamuel Abraham Goudsmit was a Dutch-American physicist famous for jointly proposing the concept of electron spin with George Eugene Uhlenbeck in 1925.-Biography:...
, Brookhaven National Laboratories nuclear physicist - Thornton Page, astrophysicistAstrophysicsAstrophysics is the branch of astronomy that deals with the physics of the universe, including the physical properties of celestial objects, as well as their interactions and behavior...
, radar expert, deputy director of Johns HopkinsJohns Hopkins UniversityThe Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
Operations Research Office; - Lloyd BerknerLloyd BerknerLloyd Viel Berkner was an American physicist and engineer. He is notable as the first person to measure the height and density of the ionosphere. This permitted the first complete theory of short wave radio propagation.Later he investigated the development of the Earth's atmosphere...
, physicist, and J. Allen HynekJ. Allen HynekDr. Josef Allen Hynek was a United States astronomer, professor, and ufologist. He is perhaps best remembered for his UFO research. Hynek acted as scientific adviser to UFO studies undertaken by the U.S. Air Force under three consecutive names: Project Sign , Project Grudge , and Project Blue Book...
, astronomer, were associate panel members.
Most of what is known about the actual proceedings of the meetings comes from sketchy minutes kept by Durant, later submitted as a memo to the NSC. It is the only declassified document to date that details the panel's discussions. In addition, various participants would later comment on what transpired from their perspective. Ed Ruppelt
Edward J. Ruppelt
Edward J. Ruppelt was a United States Air Force officer probably best-known for his involvement in Project Blue Book, a formal governmental study of unidentified flying objects...
, then head of Project Blue Book
Project Blue Book
Project Blue Book was one of a series of systematic studies of unidentified flying objects conducted by the United States Air Force. Started in 1952, it was the second revival of such a study...
, first revealed the existence of the secret panel in his 1956 insider book, but without revealing names of panel members.
Formal meetings
The Panel had four consecutive days of formal meetings. In total, they met for only 12 hours. Only 23 cases out of 2,331 Air Force UFO cases on record (or about 1%) were reviewed. Although Ruppelt wrote that the Panel studied their best cases, Hynek would opine that the panel in fact seemed to have neither the time nor the desire to study the more puzzling ones. For example, the radar experts on the panel ( Alvarez and Page) seemed to show little interest in reports of radar UFO cases, which they dismissed as "anxiety over fast radar tracks" by the Air Defense Command.Of the Panel members, Ruppelt would write in his private papers that Goudsmit was exceptionally hostile to the subject: "Goudsmit was probably the most violent anti-saucer man at the panel meeting. Everything was a big joke to him which brought down the wrath of the other panel members on numerous occasions." Goudsmit even stated later that reporters of UFOs were as dangerous to society as drug addicts.
Alvarez was also extremely skeptical but more professional in his conduct. Page at the time was likewise hostile, later recalling that he made a statement during the meeting that UFOs were "nonsense", bringing about a reprimand from Robertson, despite their good friendship. Ruppelt, however, felt that Page was more open-minded, and although he obviously did not know much about UFOs, he tended to line up with Hynek against Alvarez and Goudsmit in their adamancy that UFOs could not exist.
In contrast, Robertson, Berkner, and Durant seemed to have a personal interest in the subject. It was noted, for example, in a CIA memo that although Berkner was not keen to participate, he "felt strongly that the saucer problem should be thoroughly investigated from a scientific point of view." Another CIA memo produced after the completion of the panel's work indicates that Durant, despite the panel's negative conclusions, thought that materials on flying saucers should continue to be maintained by a major division of OSI, such as Physics and Electronics.
The first day, the panel viewed two amateur motion pictures of UFOs: the Mariana UFO Incident footage and 1952 Utah UFO Film (the latter was taken by Navy Chief Petty Officer Delbert C. Newhouse, who had extensive experience with aerial photography). Two Navy photograph and film analysts (Lieutenants R.S. Neasham and Harry Woo) then reported their conclusions: based on more than 1,000 man hour
Man hour
A man-hour or person-hour is the amount of work performed by an average worker in one hour. It is used in written "estimates" for estimation of the total amount of uninterrupted labour required to perform a task. For example, researching and writing a college paper might require twenty man-hours...
s of detailed analysis, the two films depicted objects that were not any known aircraft, creature or weather
Weather
Weather is the state of the atmosphere, to the degree that it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloudy. Most weather phenomena occur in the troposphere, just below the stratosphere. Weather refers, generally, to day-to-day temperature and precipitation activity, whereas climate...
phenomena. Air Force Captain Edward J. Ruppelt
Edward J. Ruppelt
Edward J. Ruppelt was a United States Air Force officer probably best-known for his involvement in Project Blue Book, a formal governmental study of unidentified flying objects...
then began a summary of Air Force efforts regarding UFO studies.
The second day, Ruppelt finished his presentation. Hynek then discussed the Battelle study, and the panel discussed with Air Force personnel the problems inherent in monitoring UFO sightings.
The third day, Air Force Major Dewey J. Fournet spoke to the panel. For over a year he had coordinated UFO affairs for the Pentagon
The Pentagon
The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...
. Fournett supported the extraterrestrial hypothesis
Extraterrestrial hypothesis
The extraterrestrial hypothesis is the hypothesis that some unidentified flying objects are best explained as being extraterrestrial life or non-human aliens from other planets occupying physical spacecraft visiting Earth.-Etymology:...
as the best explanation for some puzzling UFO reports. For the remainder of the third day, the panel discussed their conclusions, and Robertson agreed to draft a preliminary report.
The fourth and final day, the panel rewrote and finalized their report.
Conclusions and the Robertson Panel Report
The Robertson Panel's official report concluded that 90 percent of UFO sightings could be readily identified with meteorological, astronomical, or natural phenomena, and that the remaining 10 percent of UFO reports could, in all likelihood, be similarly explained with detailed study. It was suggested that witnesses had misidentified bright starStar
A star is a massive, luminous sphere of plasma held together by gravity. At the end of its lifetime, a star can also contain a proportion of degenerate matter. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth...
s and planet
Planet
A planet is a celestial body orbiting a star or stellar remnant that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, is not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion, and has cleared its neighbouring region of planetesimals.The term planet is ancient, with ties to history, science,...
s, meteor
METEOR
METEOR is a metric for the evaluation of machine translation output. The metric is based on the harmonic mean of unigram precision and recall, with recall weighted higher than precision...
s, aurora
Aurora (astronomy)
An aurora is a natural light display in the sky particularly in the high latitude regions, caused by the collision of energetic charged particles with atoms in the high altitude atmosphere...
s, mirage
Mirage
A mirage is a naturally occurring optical phenomenon in which light rays are bent to produce a displaced image of distant objects or the sky. The word comes to English via the French mirage, from the Latin mirare, meaning "to look at, to wonder at"...
s, atmospheric temperature inversions, and lenticular cloud
Lenticular cloud
Lenticular clouds are stationary lens-shaped clouds that form at high altitudes, normally aligned perpendicular to the wind direction. Lenticular clouds can be separated into altocumulus standing lenticularis , stratocumulus standing lenticular , and cirrocumulus standing lenticular...
s; other sightings were judged as likely misinterpretation of conventional aircraft
Aircraft
An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air, or, in general, the atmosphere of a planet. An aircraft counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines.Although...
, weather balloon
Weather balloon
A weather or sounding balloon is a balloon which carries instruments aloft to send back information on atmospheric pressure, temperature, humidity and wind speed by means of a small, expendable measuring device called a radiosonde...
s, bird
Bird
Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...
s, searchlights, kites, and other phenomena.
None of the Panel's members was formally trained in motion picture or photographic analysis, and only one had any experience with photography (astronomic still photography and not motion picture film). After screening the films a few times, they dismissed the idea that either the 1950 Montana UFO Film or the 1952 Utah UFO Film showed "genuine" UFOs. The Panel's members instead argued that the "UFOs" in the Montana film were actually the reflections of two jet fighters alleged to be in the area at the time and that those in the Utah film were actually seagulls flying near the Great Salt Lake
Great Salt Lake
The Great Salt Lake, located in the northern part of the U.S. state of Utah, is the largest salt water lake in the western hemisphere, the fourth-largest terminal lake in the world. In an average year the lake covers an area of around , but the lake's size fluctuates substantially due to its...
. However, the Panel's conclusions contradicted U.S. Air Force photo analysts who had earlier specifically ruled out birds as an explanation for the Utah film and had thought that jets were a highly unlikely, but remotely plausible, explanation for the Montana film (Clark, 1998). The Panel's conclusions also seemingly ignored eyewitness testimony in both film cases that the objects, while closer to the camera operators, were clearly defined metallic flying saucers, not the rather indistinct lights seen on the films.
Furthermore, the Panel suggested the Air Force should begin a "debunking
Debunker
A debunker is an individual who attempts to discredit and contradict claims as being false, exaggerated or pretentious. The term is closely associated with skeptical investigation of, or in some cases irrational resistance to, controversial topics such as U.F.O.s, claimed paranormal phenomena,...
" effort to reduce "public gullibility" and demystify UFO reports, partly via a public relations
Public relations
Public relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....
campaign, using psychiatrist
Psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...
s, astronomer
Astronomer
An astronomer is a scientist who studies celestial bodies such as planets, stars and galaxies.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using...
s and assorted celebrities to significantly reduce public interest in UFOs. It was also recommended that the mass media be used for the debunking, including influential media giants like the Walt Disney Corporation. The primary reasoning for this recommendation lay in the belief that the Soviets might try to "mask" an actual invasion of the USA by causing a wave of false "UFO" reports to swamp the Pentagon and other military agencies, thus temporarily blinding the US government to the impending Communist invasion.
Their formal recommendation stated "That the national security agencies take immediate steps to strip the Unidentified Flying Objects of the special status they have been given and the aura of mystery they have unfortunately acquired."
Also recommended was government monitoring of civilian groups studying or researching UFOs "because of their potentially great influence on mass thinking... the apparent irresponsibility and possible use of such groups for subversive purposes should be kept in mind." Two UFO groups in particular were singled out: APRO and Civilian Saucer Investigations (CSI).
The recommendations of the Robertson Panel were implemented by a series of special military regulations. Joint-Army-Navy-Air Force Publication 147 (JANAP 146) of December 1953 made reprinting of any UFO sighting to the public a crime under the Espionage Act, with fines of up to ten thousand dollars and imprisonment ranging from one to ten years. This act was considered binding on all who knew of the act's existence, including commercial airline pilots. A 1954 revision of Air Force Regulation 200-2 (AFR 200-2) made all sighting reports submitted to the air force classified material and prohibited the release of any information about UFO sightings unless the sighting was able to be positively identified. In February 1958 a revision of AFR 200-2 allowed the military to give the FBI the names of people who were "illegally or deceptively bringing the subject [of UFOs] to public attention". Because of the Robertson Panel the Air Force's Project Blue Book
Project Blue Book
Project Blue Book was one of a series of systematic studies of unidentified flying objects conducted by the United States Air Force. Started in 1952, it was the second revival of such a study...
's procedures of investigating UFOs also changed, attempting to find a quick explanation and then file them away. Project Blue Book
Project Blue Book
Project Blue Book was one of a series of systematic studies of unidentified flying objects conducted by the United States Air Force. Started in 1952, it was the second revival of such a study...
was a successor of Project Grudge
Project Grudge
Project Grudge was a short-lived project by the U.S. Air Force to investigate unidentified flying objects . Grudge succeeded Project Sign in February, 1949, and was then followed by Project Blue Book. The project formally ended in December 1949, but actually continued on in a very minimal capacity...
.
In 1956 retired Marine Major Donald Keyhoe
Donald Keyhoe
Donald Edward Keyhoe was an American Marine Corps naval aviator, writer of many aviation articles and stories in a variety of leading publications, and manager of the promotional tours of aviation pioneers, especially of Charles Lindbergh.In the 1950s he became well-known as an UFO researcher,...
founded the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena
National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena
The National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena was a civilian unidentified flying object research group active in the United States from the 1950s to the 1980s.-Overview:...
(NICAP), a UFO investigations organization. By 1969 Keyhoe turned his focus on the CIA as the source of the UFO cover up. NICAP's board, headed by Colonel Jospeph Bryan III, forced Keyhoe to retire as NICAP chief. Bryan was actually a former covert CIA agent who had served the agency as founder and head of its psychological warfare division. Under Bryan's leadership, the NICAP disbanded its local and state affiliate groups, and by 1973 it had been completely closed.
Publicity and responses
Ruppelt's 1956 book The Report On unidentified Flying Objects contained the first publicly released information about the Robertson Panel, with a summary of their proceedings and conclusions. Ruppelt's book did not include the names of the Panel members, nor any institutional or governmental affiliations.In 1958, the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena
National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena
The National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena was a civilian unidentified flying object research group active in the United States from the 1950s to the 1980s.-Overview:...
(NICAP), a civilian UFO research group, requested that the Air Force release the panel's report. The Air Force released three summary paragraphs and the names of the panel's members. In 1966 a nearly full-length version of the report was printed in the science column of the Saturday Review.
Panel member Thornton Page would later change some of his more stridently skeptical conclusions regarding the Panel's report, and regarding UFOs in general. In his 1969 critique of the Condon Report, Page would lament the "excessive levity" he brought to the Panel's proceeding, detailing how he later thought the UFO subject deserved serious scrutiny.
Hynek's opinions changed in later years as well, so much that he became, to many, the scientifically respectable voice of Ufology
Ufology
Ufology is a neologism coined to describe the collective efforts of those who study reports and associated evidence of unidentified flying objects . UFOs have been subject to various investigations over the years by governments, independent groups, and scientists...
. He would lament that the Robertson Panel had "made the subject of UFOs scientifically unrespectable, and for nearly 20 years not enough attention was paid to the subject to acquire the kind of data
Data
The term data refers to qualitative or quantitative attributes of a variable or set of variables. Data are typically the results of measurements and can be the basis of graphs, images, or observations of a set of variables. Data are often viewed as the lowest level of abstraction from which...
needed even to decide the nature of the UFO phenomenon."
Effects of the Robertson Panel report
According to Swords, the Robertson Panel's report had an "enormous" impact throughout the U.S. Government: the CIA abandoned a "major high level [UFO] investigation" planned in conjunction with the National Security Council; UFO research projects by personnel in The PentagonThe Pentagon
The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...
were quashed; and Project Blue Book's hopes to establish a scientific advisory board were dashed. Blue Book was also downgraded in status and stripped of most responsibility for investigating serious, well-attested UFO cases, which were instead secretly turned over to a newly formed division of the Air Defense Command. Directives were also issued not to discuss the unexplainable cases with the public and to reduce the percentage of "unknowns"
Though the CIA's official history suggests that the Robertson Panel's conclusions were never carried out, there is evidence that contradicts this. Perhaps the most unambiguous evidence for the Robertson Panel's covert impact on news media reporting about UFOs is a personal letter by Dr. Thornton Page, discovered in the Smithsonian archives by biochemist Michael D. Swords
Michael D. Swords
Michael D. Swords is an American scientist.In 1962 Swords graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a B.S.. He studied biochemistry at Iowa State University , and at Case Western Reserve University Michael D. Swords is an American scientist.In 1962 Swords graduated from the University of...
. The 1966 letter, addressed to former Robertson Panel Secretary Frederick C. Durant, confides that Page "helped organize the CBS TV show around the Robertson Panel conclusions." Page was no doubt referring to the CBS Reports TV broadcast of the same year, "UFOs: Friend, Foe, or Fantasy?" narrated by Walter Cronkite
Walter Cronkite
Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr. was an American broadcast journalist, best known as anchorman for the CBS Evening News for 19 years . During the heyday of CBS News in the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as "the most trusted man in America" after being so named in an opinion poll...
. (Incidentally, this program was criticized for inaccurate and misleading presentations.) Page's letter indicates that the Robertson Panel was still putting a negative spin on UFO news at least 13 years after the panel met.
Furthermore, according to Swords, there is ample evidence to prove that CSI was pressured to disband by the U.S. Government. FBI documents indicate that noted engineer Walther Riedel was pressured to resign from CSI, and not long afterwards, the group disbanded; in response, Robertson wrote to Marshall Chadwell, stating "[t]hat ought to fix the Forteans." (Robertson was referring to the devotees of American writer Charles Fort
Charles Fort
Charles Hoy Fort was an American writer and researcher into anomalous phenomena. Today, the terms Fortean and Forteana are used to characterize various such phenomena. Fort's books sold well and are still in print today.-Biography:Charles Hoy Fort was born in 1874 in Albany, New York, of Dutch...
(1874–1932), whose books argued in favor of the reality of extraterrestrial on Earth.) APRO was active through the late 1980s. There has also been speculation that UFO group NICAP was infiltrated by CIA operatives.
Even later, Randles and Hough note that there was a "CIA memo from 1976" which "tells how the agency is still having to 'keep in touch with reporting channels' in ufology
Ufology
Ufology is a neologism coined to describe the collective efforts of those who study reports and associated evidence of unidentified flying objects . UFOs have been subject to various investigations over the years by governments, independent groups, and scientists...
(in other words, to spy
SPY
SPY is a three-letter acronym that may refer to:* SPY , ticker symbol for Standard & Poor's Depositary Receipts* SPY , a satirical monthly, trademarked all-caps* SPY , airport code for San Pédro, Côte d'Ivoire...
on UFO groups." (Randles and Hough, 103)).
Some scholars investigators have suggested that the Robertson Panel's true objective was to justify a CIA domestic propaganda-and-surveillance campaign, rather than to investigate UFOs. For example, journalist Howard Blum writes that it is difficult to accept any argument that the Robertson Panel was ever intended as a serious scientific analysis: Blum argues that the Panel's perfunctory rejection of the U.S. Navy's detailed examination of the UFO films is all but impossible to justify on scientific grounds. Similarly, Swords has argued that the Panel seems to have been designed as an elaborate theater exercise instead of a serious attempt to get to the bottom of the UFO issue. Although the Panel put on a show of evaluating some UFO evidence, its scientific analysis was cursory and its conclusions mostly likely pre-ordained. Also, the Panel only looked only at evidence in the public domain, not higher-quality classified military evidence. Psychologist David R. Saunders, a member of the University of Colorado's UFO study (the Condon Committee
Condon Committee
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...
), had earlier expressed similar conclusions. Given that Robertson had worked as a high-level scientific-intelligence officer during World War II, he would have been familiar with the use of such tactics to hide a sensitive national-security problem from scrutiny by outsiders.
It is a widely held conclusion amongst UFO investigators that the Robertson Panel's conclusions and recommendations had a great influence on official United States policy regarding UFOs for many decades.
Contrast with Battelle Memorial Institute study results
When the Battelle Memorial InstituteBattelle Memorial Institute
Battelle Memorial Institute is a private nonprofit applied science and technology development company headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. Battelle is a charitable trust organized as a nonprofit corporation under the laws of the State of Ohio and is exempt from taxation under Section 501 of the...
finally finished their massive review of Air Force UFO cases in 1954 (called "Project Blue Book
Project Blue Book
Project Blue Book was one of a series of systematic studies of unidentified flying objects conducted by the United States Air Force. Started in 1952, it was the second revival of such a study...
Special Report No. 14"), their results were markedly different from those of the Robertson Panel. Whereas the Robertson Panel spent only twelve hours reviewing a limited number of cases, the Battelle Institute had four full-time scientific analysts working for over two years analyzing 3201 reports. Classifying a case as "unknown" required agreement among all four analysts, whereas a "known" or conventional classification required agreement by only two analysts. Still they concluded 22% of the cases remained unsolvable. The percentage climbed to 35% when considering only the best cases and fell to 18% for the worst cases. Not only are the percentages of unknowns much higher than those for the Robertson Panel, but the higher percentages for the better cases are directly opposite one conclusion of the panel that their remaining 10% of unknowns would disappear if further investigated and more information was available. Furthermore, the Battelle study had already thrown out cases they deemed to have insufficient information to make a determination (9% of all cases). Thus, the fact that a case was classified as "unknown" had nothing to do with lack of information or investigation.
The study also looked at six characteristics of the sightings: duration, speed, number, brightness, color, and shape. For all characteristics, the knowns and unknowns differed at a highly statistically significant level, further indicating that the knowns and unknowns were distinctly different classes of phenomena.
Despite this, the summary section of the final report declared it was "highly improbable that any of the reports of unidentified aerial objects... represent observations of technological developments outside the range of present-day knowledge."
(For more statistical results of the Battelle study see Identified Flying Objects.)