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From: "Jerry Cohen" <rjcohen@li.net>
Date: Tue, 31 Dec 1996 11:22:50 -0500
Fwd Date: Tue, 31 Dec 1996 13:55:52 -0500
Subject: Re: Philosophy of Science and UFOs

To add my two-cents:
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Jan .. you wrote:

>Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1996 13:17:56 -0800
>From: jan@cyberzone.net (Jan Aldrich)
>To: updates@globalserve.net
>Subject: Philosophy of Science and UFOs
>
>........

>1.  LARGE NUMBER OF REPORTS:
>
..........

>The USAF data was bias because many
>of the reports were from official sources around military and official
>installations which were forced to report ufos by regulation while public
>reports were voluntary.  If the same analysis were done using clipping
>service reports, what patterns would appear?  (I think from the beginning
>the Air Force realized that they might be sitting on a volcano......

.......

JC:   Jan, I apologize for jumping ahead, yet, even in that biased military
data were tantalizing tidbits. We can peer a little into that volcano a few
years "down the road" by examining an excerpt from J. Allen Hynek's 1972
book (Hynek, J. Allen:  The UFO Experience,  Chicago:  Henry Regnery Co.,
1972 ). Located in appendix 4, in a letter he wrote to his boss, is an
example Hynek used to inform Colonel Sleeper of things he felt were "wrong"
with Project Blue Book, the main source of the Air Force's espoused data
regarding UFOs. (and Hynek had a "shopping list's" worth!) The following
case mentioned by Hynek occurred in 1965, as detailed in Oberg/Cooper.5. A
good portion of Hynek's "shopping list" is detailed therein as well.

COMMENTS FROM J. ALLEN HYNEK:
>[Extract from a
>classified document of reported sighting of 5 May, 1965, contents
>unclassified, classification refers to name, and location and
>mission of vessel.] " . . . leading signal man reported what he
>believed to be an aircraft. . . . When viewed through binoculars,
>three objects were sighted in close proximity to each other; one
>object was first magnitude, the other two were second magnitude.
>Objects were traveling at extremely high speeds, moving toward
>ship at undetermined altitude.  At . . . . four moving targets
>were detected on the . . . . air search radar at ranges up to
>twenty two miles and held up to six minutes.  When over the ship
>the objects spread to circular formation directly overhead and
>remained there for approximately three minutes.  This maneuver was
>observed both visually and by radar.  The bright object which
>hovered off the starboard quarter made the larger presentation on
>the radar scope.  The objects made several course changes during
>the sighting, confirmed visually and by radar, and were *tracked
>at speeds in excess of 3000 (three thousand) knots. * (J.C.
>Asterisks are mine.)  Challenges were made by IFF but not
>answered.  After the three minute hovering maneuver, the objects
>moved in a southeasterly direction at an extremely high rate of
>speed.  Above evolution observed by CO, all bridge personnel and
>numerous hands topside."

>        This report was summarily evaluated by Blue Book as
>"Aircraft," and to the best of my knowledge was never further
>investigated.  By what stretch of the imagination can we say that
>the sighting did not represent a "possible threat" to the United
>States?  Only because nothing happened.  Do we ascribe such
>incompetence to the officers of the ship, and to the CO, to have
>such a report submitted unless all witnesses were truly puzzled?
>Is it conceivable that these officers could not have recognized an
>aircraft had it had the trajectory, the apparent speed, and the
>maneuvers ascribable to aircraft?  No mention is made in the
>report of even the possibility that ordinary aircraft were being
>observed.  The very fact that IFF challenges went unanswered
>should have been a spur to further investigation.  This implies
>enemy craft.  But the report does not even suggest the possibility
>that these were ordinary enemy  aircraft.  The classified document
>in Blue Book files does not contain further technical data
>concerning the sighting itself.  Should not the director of Blue
>Book have exhibited at least SOME curiosity about this sighting?
>Yet when I brought it up on more than one occasion, it was
>dismissed with boredom. . . . . . * It is hard for the public to
>understand how a country whose military posture is so security
>geared could dismiss a case like this out-of-hand unless the
>military knew more than they were telling."


JC:   This came from the man who saw the actual data from the Air Force.
But even he was not exposed to it all.  He also writes:

>Appendix 4, Section A, Paragraph 9
>
>"It must be pointed out that neither of these cases were shown to
>me by Blue Book personnel.  I happened upon them by accident
>during one of my visits as I scanned through material lying on a
>desk, and not in the files; I am not permitted to peruse the files
>themselves.  I have access to the files only when I request a
>specific case.  But how can I request a specific case, to examine
>its possible scientific merits, if I don't know of its existence?"

JC:   Mind you, he is the chief consultant. Although there were security
items I am sure the Air Force did not want to give away, even to its #1
consultant, this informs us that he never saw some of the best cases that
we can plainly see obviously existed.

...............

JC:   Jan, then you mentioned statistics:

>3.  USAF, MOD, DND, ETC., STATISTICS
>
>   Just about everyone is impressed by statistic.  In the CIA analysis of
>the 1952 wave, they saw the AF claim of "only" 20% unexplained as
>evidence that the AF was on the right track.  The CIA thought however,
>that the AF did not pay enough attention to possible patterns in the ufo
>data.  The small percent of unidentifieds is always a reason to reject
>any further study.


JC:   And in Appendix 4, Section D, Paragraph 1 of his same book, Hynek
also comments on AF statistics some twenty years later:

>"The statistical methods employed by Blue Book are a travesty on
>the branch of mathematics known as Statistics.  A chapter in a
>doctoral dissertation at Northwestern University, soon to be
>published, deals specifically with this aspect, and I will later
>quote from it (Herbert Strentz, "A Study of Some Air Force
>Statistical Procedures in Recording and Reporting Data on UFO
>Investigations," included in "A SURVEY OF PRESS COVERAGE OF UFOs,
>1947-1967, a doctoral thesis at the Medill School of Journalism,
>Northwestern University") and preface it with my own observations
>which, incidentally, I have repeatedly brought to the attention of
>the Blue Book staff but to no avail."

JC:   And furthermore states in the same section:

>"There has been little dialogue between Blue Book and the outside
>scientific world or between Blue Book and the various scientific
>facilities within the Air Force itself."

>"I know of very little scientific correspondence in the blue book
>files; this is probably because scientists wish to correspond with
>persons of like training.  It would be pointless, for instance, to
>query Blue Book on the scientific reasons for evaluating a given
>case, say, as caused by a temperature inversion:  Blue Book has
>never availed itself of the meteorological know-how within the Air
>Force itself to determine just how much of an inversion is
>necessary to produce the effects reported by the witness, if at
>all."

JC:   And again:

>". . . . . many astronomical evaluations have been made by Blue
>Book without consulting their scientific consultant (who is, after
>all, an astronomer) which have brought ridicule in the press. The
>midwest flap of reports of July 31-August 1, 1965 can be cited as
>an example."

JC:   This message, from the official, civilian astronomical consultant to
the Air Force for twenty years, should have been a major "beacon" informing
scientists that something was dreadfully wrong with what the Air Force was
telling us. Unfortunately, these revelations came "after" the Condon Study
had passed its final verdict and Project Blue Book was terminated. And
mainstream Science turned its back on the data that continued to pour in.


Respectfully,
Jerry Cohen

E-mail:  rjcohen@li.net