The Impact News

Issue date: 12/15/07 Section: Weird Science

Someone call Mulder and Scully - the "X-Files" need to be reopened.
That's what an international group of former pilots and government officials are suggesting, at least, as they called for a new investigation into reports of unidentified flying objects by the United States government last month.
The group of almost two dozen, which is backed by the Coalition for Freedom of Information, released an "International Declaration to the United States Government" after holding a panel at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
"We believe that for reasons of both national security and flight safety, every country should make an effort to identify any object in its airspace," they said.
"Especially after the attacks of 9/11 it is no longer satisfactory to ignore radar returns for which no transponder data are available and/or which cannot be associated with performances of existing aircraft and helicopters."

The statement also went on to issue a "call-to-action" to the U.S. government. "Following in the footsteps of its now defunct Project Blue Book, we propose that the United States Air Force reopen its research effort, or that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration initiate such a research effort, to address the international concerns stated herein, provide needed reassurance and increased scientific understanding," the group said.

The aforementioned Project Blue Book was a government undertaking that was started in 1952 with the intent to study the UFO phenomenon (an upgrade to the earlier, similarly-purposed Project Grudge).

Based out of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, the goal of Project Blue Book was to collect and analyze all UFO sighting reports to determine scientifically whether there was any credibility to them - that they were, in fact, unidentifiable - and to find out if they might be a possible threat to national security.

Project Blue Book was shut down in December of 1969 when the government concluded that funding for the project would not be continued as there was no known threat to the country from UFOs. It was the last known government project devoted to the UFO phenomenon.

The files of Project Blue Book have since become public, and in a file detailing the results found from reports collected by those working on the study, there were a total of 12,618 UFO sightings reported in the United States from 1947 (the year a UFO supposedly crashed in Roswell, New Mexico) to 1969.

Continued...

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