Detailed instructions for studying UFOs have been published on the website of the US Central Intelligence Agency.
The instruction is preceded by a story about the famous case in Soccoro, when policeman Lonnie Zamora, chasing an overspeeding car of the intruder, drove onto highway 85. Suddenly he heard a loud roar and saw a flash of flame. The policeman thought the dynamite warehouse had exploded. According to him, the blast flame was bluish, with orange flashes, and slowly descended to the ground. It seemed to flow downward and looked like a bell, the upper part was narrower than the lower one.
Zamora turned off the highway onto the dirt road leading to the warehouse. When he climbed the hill on the third attempt, the sound became low-frequency and subsided. Zamora noticed, 150 meters from the highway, between two hills, what looked like a silver car. Next to the "car" were two humanoid figures, as if dressed in white overalls.
It seemed that the creatures were frightened by the policeman: one of them "turned to the car and flinched in surprise."
Assuming there was a plane crash, Lonnie called for help over the radio. After driving around the hill, he approached the object 100 feet away and noticed that what he mistook for a car was an ovoid object no more than 15 feet in length, connected to the ground by what looked like props. No more creatures were observed. The object had a red pattern ("sign") measuring 2 feet by 2.5 feet: an arc, below an "arrow" pointing upward, and below it a horizontal bar.
Pops were heard two or three times, separated by an interval of one or two seconds. From below, the object became brightly lit, from its lower part blue, with an orange border, fire escaped. An increasing roar was heard, and Zamora, frightened of a possible explosion, fell to the ground behind his car and covered himself with his hands. When the noise stopped, he looked out and saw that the object was no longer on the ground.
According to Zamora, he looked up and saw the object move away from him. The object moved in a straight line at a low altitude, approximately 15 feet above the ground, making sounds as if bombs of dynamite were exploding.
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Together with the arriving chief of Zamora, Sergeant Samuel Chavez, a police officer examined the scene. Four dents several inches deep were found where the object touched the ground. These dents were positioned as if they were the tops of a quadrangle made up of two isosceles triangles with a common base. Also on the ground were found four areas with traces of soot, three of which were within the imaginary quadrilateral, and one outside it. At this place, the bush was burning down, when they touched it, they did not feel the heat.
The case was investigated by an Air Force UFO consultant, ufologist J. Allen Hynek. Following along with the chronometer for Zamora, reproducing all his actions on April 24, he did not find any contradictions with his story.
After interviewing the owner of a nearby gas station, Hynek found out that he was talking to a client who said he saw a strange "helicopter" that "nearly knocked him off the road on the southern outskirts." This "helicopter" "landed right on the hill, and a patrol car was hurrying towards it."
The Soccoro accident is considered the best documented UFO encounter in human history. Numerous researchers could not find contradictions in the story of Zamora and the tracks found.
10 CIA tips for studying UFOs:
1. Establish a team to investigate and evaluate observations
Until December 1947, there were no specific organizations that were responsible for investigating and evaluating UFO sightings. Moreover, there were no standards for how to evaluate the incoming information.
To end the confusion, US Air Force Command Representative Nathan Twinning formed a team to collect, collate, evaluate, and disseminate all UFO information to government officials. He proceeded from the premise that UFOs could be real and pose a threat to national security. In 1952 the group was named Project Blue Book.
2. Define the objectives of your research
The US CIA began to oversee a UFO study project due to a potential threat to national security. Blue Book members have identified three main objectives for their research:
- whether UFOs pose a threat to national security;
- whether UFOs demonstrate any technological advances that can be directed to the development of earth science and technology;
- determination of the stimuli that are available to the observer reporting the appearance of a UFO.
Note that the Blue Book project, although it did not exclude the possibility of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations and UFOs, was aimed primarily at solving national security issues associated with the probable actions of the USSR under the guise of UFOs.
3. Consult with experts
In 1953, the CIA created a scientific council for UFO research called the Robertson Group. In addition, Project Blue Book members regularly consult with external experts on the UFO issue, such as astrophysicists, pilots, the Weather Bureau, the Center for Atmospheric Research, NASA, Kodak (for photo analysis) and various laboratories (for sample research).
It is curious that in the mid-60s, experts revised the results of the Blue Book project and came to the conclusion that in the entire history of conscious sighting of UFOs, not a single phenomenon was noted beyond the scope of earthly technological or scientific knowledge.
4. Create a system for reporting and organizing incoming cases
Aeronautical analysts at the United States Air Force Research Center (ATIC) have developed a questionnaire that will be used in accepting reports of possible UFOs. These questionnaires have been used throughout the entire existence of the Blue Book project.
The duration of the observation, date, time, location, position of the object in the sky, weather conditions, the way UFOs appeared or disappeared are the most important facts for researchers assessing the reliability of UFO sightings.
The Blue Book project classified observations into: astronomical (bright stars, comets, fireballs), aviation (aircraft, helicopters and their parts), space (missiles and their parts), military (operational-tactical, cruise and ballistic missiles), and others. (reflections, mirages, spotlights, birds, balloons, kites, radar pickups, hoaxes, jokes, fireworks), observations with insufficient data and unknowns. It is to the last, very rarely observed category that UFOs can theoretically belong.
5. Eliminate false positives
It is necessary to eliminate all probable and known UFO-like phenomena in order to focus on truly unexplained cases.
Some common erroneous sightings of alleged UFOs included sightings of the Lockheed U-2, Lockheed A-12, and Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance aircraft. The futuristic design of the last two models and their incredible speed (the SR-71 is capable of reaching 4 thousand kilometers per hour) literally caused a crash in UFO reports.
It should be noted that even before the appearance of the Blue Book project, during the Second World War, military pilots repeatedly noted strange glowing balls flying next to aircraft. These phenomena were observed in both the European and the Far Eastern theater of operations, and disappeared with the end of the war. Scientists cautiously suggest that the pilots observed some kind of electrostatic phenomenon like the lights of St. Elmo, but the disappearance of these balls with the end of the war is inexplicable.
6. Develop a methodology for detecting airplanes, spacecraft, weather balloons and other air phenomena often mistaken for UFOs
Due to the significant likelihood, the aircraft (or some secret aerial object) could be mistaken for a UFO. It is important for the researcher to know the characteristics of various types of aircraft and spacecraft in order to assess the reliability of each observation.
Participants in the Blue Book project, for example, described each type of aircraft under different conditions. The same descriptions were made for all astronomical phenomena.
7. Examine the visual documentation
Any photo, video or audio can be extremely helpful in assessing the fact of a UFO sighting.
The famous case was reviewed by the Robertson group in 1952. In Tremonton, Utah, a professional naval photographer Delbert Newhouse, while moving to a new duty station, noticed about a dozen flying discs in the sky at an altitude of about 3 km, the size of a four-engined B-29 bomber, the color of blued steel. Newhouse hastily activated the movie camera and filmed 1,600 color shots.
A careful analysis of the frames showed that it was not the planes that were filmed. not probes or birds. The Blue Book officials said they didn’t know what Newhouse had rented.
8. Conduct controlled experiments
Supervised experiments may be required to try and replicate unknown phenomena. In particular, during the investigation of the case described above in Tremonton, it was proposed to photograph balloons at different distances under similar weather conditions. However, the cost of doing such a study made it unfeasible.
9. Collect results from physical tests and forensic examinations
In the story with Zamora, according to the management of the Blue Book, everything that was in human power was tested. In particular, soil analyzes were carried out, and studies for residual radiation were carried out. Laboratory analysis of the burned branches showed no unusual chemicals.
10. Prevent fraud and good faith
Robertson's group, literally inundated by UFO reports by the early 60s, declared the need to separate the "useful signal" from the noise. With an abundance of false or falsified observations, it becomes increasingly difficult to find cases worth investigating.
In order to reduce the number of false reports, Robertson's group proposed to begin training the military, researchers and even the public in the methods of identifying objects often mistaken for UFOs. First of all, this concerns unusually illuminated balloons, probes, reflections from aircraft.
Dmitry Taevsky