The United States Air Force in discharging it's responsibilility for the aerospace defense of nation was called upon to investigate reports of unidentified flying objects. Two airforce officers have over the years been very closely associated with this activity. Lt Colonel Laurence Tacker was formerly the chief spokesman for the Air Force on the matter and Major Hector Quintanilla who is now the chief of Project Blue Book Major Quintanilla, what are the objectives of Project Blue Book? The objectives of the program are two fold they are the same as they have been since 1953 when the regulation was written First of all to try to determine if UFO phenomena presents a threat to the security of the United States and second to determine if UFO phenomena exhibits any technological advances which could be turned into research and development What is the record so far? Today we have over 10,000 cases at Wright-Patterson Airforce Base, of which 646 of these remain unidentified that's not to say that we could not
have identified more cases if we had gotten to the observer quickly and checked for local activity The Air Force has been accused from time to time of hiding information about UFO What do you have to say to that?
These charges are absolutely untrue Actually the United States Air Force
releases statistics on the UFO phenomena Through the Department of Defense press desk periodically and we've always honored accredited media when they want to investigate a given specific sighting.
There is nothing to hide There is nothing to hide at all.
Is there anything in the files, either classified or unclassified that would indicate that there may be extra terrestrial visitors? First of all, the project is completely unclassified and there is nothing in the record that would indicate that we have been visited by alien civilization How does the Air Force look upon people who make reports of UFO? Do they look upon them as qualified observers? Yes, they do look upon them as qualified observers. actually most people who report a UFO sighting are patriotic citizens who have been
mystified by something that they've seen. And through a patriotic sense, report it to the local law
enforcement officials or to the United States Air Force base near them What would you consider as a person qualified to interpret what he sees?
Well I would consider astronomers a genuinely expert in their field. First of all they have a tremendous
advantage over the other physical scientists and that is that they have powerful telescopes and photographic equipment to confirm their interpretations. Do astronomical laboratories make any contribution to the UFO program? In a negative way they do we because I have never seen a UFO report from an observatory.
Not a one.
Not a single one. well how about the tracking and detective abilities of the Air Force itself? How does this fit into the program? Well actually, to begin with, the United States Air Force is charged by an act of Congress to be in defense of the United States and the North American air defense command and the Air Defense command have space tracking facilities which are constantly on the alert 24 hours a day.
We're interested in anything that flies in our atmosphere.
Well how about UFO reports in other countries? How are they handled? UFOs actually occur world wide however the United States is the only country in the world that places as much emphasis on the phenomena Other countries place the burden of proof on the observer, not on the Air Force that would make your job a lot easier if they did that here. Yes it would.
Thank you, Colonel Tacker, Major Quintanilla I would like to close by reading a very brief
excerpt from the report of the Air Forces scientific advisory board which they made recently upon completing a
detailed review of the subject of UFO This is the statement. The committee concluded that in the nineteen years since the first UFO was sighted there has been no evidence that
unidentified flying objects are a threat to our national security.
