◆ SpookStack

2001/04/02 : CIA-RDP81R00560R000100010002-9 Project Blue Book passed through several hands after the con- scientious direction of Ruppelit (later killed in an air crash). Today it is in the competent hands of Major Hector Quintanilla who, with the services of a small office staff, keeps track of UFO sight- ings that come into Project Blue Book headquarters at Wright- Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio. The number of reports has passed 11,000 and is growing at the rate of nearly 1000 per year. As public interest increases, the attacks on the Air Force. attitude grow apace, fostered by the sus- picion that Air Intelligence knows something it isn’t telling us. Are they prompted by the fear that to acknowledge the existence of such craft would generate public panic? Are we being over- protected? A sentiment voiced frequently by a curious and inter-. ested body of American UFOlogists is ‘‘panic-schmanic . . . we want to know!” It is with a feeling of relief that Project Blue Book turns over the major share of the responsibility for appraising UFO reports to the recently established research center at the University of Colorado, financed with a government grant of $313,000. To this group, under the supervision of Dr. Edward U. Condon,. professor of physics at the University, will fall the duties-that for so many years have been those of the sorely beset Project Blue Book. NICAP In addition to the government sponsored, Air Force directed Project Blue Book there have been several privately or- ganized investigative groups concerned with the examination of UFO reports and the intelligent dissemination of information on these findings. One of the best informed and intelligently operated of these non-profit organizations is NICAP (National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena), incorporated in 1956 under the direction of Major Donald E. Keyhole, USMC (Ret.) Dedicated to the scientific investigation and research of UFO reports, NICAP has been in the forefront of the battle to strip all secrecy from official reports released to the public and has pushed for Congressional hearings to help clarify the evidence and to encourage scientific review. . NICAP investigations are carried out by specially trained per- sonnel and assessed by special advisors, among whom are West H. Armistead, Jr., (electronics engineer); Dr. James C. Bartlett, Jr. (astronomy); Dr. Fred C. Fair (engineer); Dr. Robert L. Hall (social psychologist); Stanley Hryn (electronics); John F. McLeod (aviation); Max B. Miller (photography); David L. Morgan, Jr. (Physics); Ralph Rankow (photography); J. R. Reiss (electronics engineer); L. D. Sheridan (aviation); Walter N. Webb (astronomy); men of recognized ability and established reputations in their fields who have volunteered their servicés in the interests of in- telligent investigation of a challenging and unexplored area. The only salaried employees are the members of the small exe- cutive staff under the supervision of the dedicated and extremely well-informed acting director, Richard Hall. NICAP publishes a bi-monthly bulletin, The UFO Investigator, distributed to its members which now number in the high thou- sands in all states of the union and 25 foreign countries. An excellent contribution to the expanding body of solid and intelli- gently explored reports on aerial phenomena is the NICAP jour- nal, The UFO Evidence, published in 1964 and available from NICAP headquarters, 1536 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Washington 36, D.C. Indicative of the high regard in which this investigative body is held is the invitation extended by Dr. Edward Condon for NICAP to lend its knowledge of aerial phenomena and its extensive files and cooperation to thesrecently endowed research facilities at the. University of Colorado. continued on next page )4/02’: CIA-RDP81 R00560R000100010002-9