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Between January 14th and 18th
1953, a remarkable secret UFO conference took place in Washington. Led by
physicist Dr H P Robertson, five top scientists studied the best evidence
available from the Blue Book files. The team included weapons experts and relativity
specialists, but no psychologists. The US government clearly regarded the UFO
problem as a physical mystery - not one involving hallucinations.
Although the Blue Book team gave evidence, they were not allowed to
attend all of the sessions or be there when the panel made its
recommendations. Ruppelt was told that Blue Book was to be upgraded, but
whenever he or Hynek asked for help they were ignored. As the year progressed,
they had to fund investigations into major cases which the Pentagon told them
to drop by using their own money. Their official instructions were to only
discuss in public the cases they could solve. Hynek later admitted that he had
played a double bluff. He appeared to tow the line so as to retain his job with
the US Government, since if he had spoken out and been fired, the best evidence
may have been swallowed up by a cover-up. In April, he took a risk by publishing
the first important pro-UFO article within the scientific press, but generally
Hynek kept out of the firing line.
Sadly, Ruppelt quit the Air Force, obviously a very disappointed man. By
changing the way sightings were evaluated, Blue Book's 'success rate'
dramatically improved. In effect, the project was ordered to cook the Blue
Book.
Only in 1976, via the Freedom of Information Act, did the full truth
about the Robertson panel become public. It turned out that the conference was
set up by the CIA. They had never tried to judge what UFOs were or how Blue
Book should study them. Quite the opposite, top secret recommendations
involved finding ways to debunk sightings and defuse all interest.
Amongst the CIA's plans were the use of cartoonists like Walt Disney to
create silly UFO pictures that would make the subject seem frivolous. They also ordered the
monitoring of civilian UFO groups and researchers as they were considered too
influential on public thinking.
Unaware of the true agenda and baffled by the
Pentagon's attitude towards his work, Ruppelt planned a fight back - a book
that would tell the story of the UFO mystery from the inside.
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