Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14 (Analysis of Reports of Unidentified Aerial Objects)

Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14 is the largest statistical study the U.S. Air Force ever commissioned on UFO reports. This file is the copy kept by the CIA, with an agency cover sheet marking it the “Official Record Copy.” Apart from a handwritten note on the first page, its content has long been public on the CIA website, so its value here is mainly as a record of what the agency held.

What the report is

The study was carried out for the Air Force’s Project Blue Book by the Battelle Memorial Institute, a private research organization, under the code name Project Stork. Analysts coded thousands of sighting reports onto punched cards, rated each for the reliability of the observer and the report, sorted them into categories such as balloons, aircraft and astronomical objects, and left a residue of “unknowns.” They then compared the unknowns statistically with the identified cases.

The report’s official conclusion was that the data gave no evidence of technology beyond known science. Critics have since pointed to its own tables, which show that the better-rated reports were more likely to end up unknown, not less. An Australian defence paper in this collection makes exactly that argument (the Australian review).

Why the CIA had it

The agency followed Air Force UFO work closely in the 1950s; a CIA status memo describes the statistical study while it was still being finished (the CIA’s UFO status memo).