Australian Dept of Defense Scientific and Intel Aspects of the UFO Problem

This 19-page paper comes from the National Archives of Australia and was written inside the Australian defence establishment around 1971. It reviews how the United States had handled UFOs since 1947 and then asks what Australia, whose air force was handling reports, should do. The author takes a strong, often critical line, and many of its claims are interpretations rather than established facts.

The paper’s account of U.S. policy

It traces the U.S. effort from the Air Technical Intelligence Center’s first work in 1947 through Project Sign, Project Grudge, which it says tried to “destroy” public acceptance of UFOs, and Project Blue Book. It describes the 1952 surge in reports, the CIA’s 1953 scientific panel chaired by H. P. Robertson, and says Blue Book was cut to a single airman by late 1953 while real investigations moved elsewhere. It cites military reporting rules carrying heavy penalties and lists retired officers who publicly said the government was withholding the truth.

Its sharpest point uses Blue Book Special Report No. 14 (CIA-UAP-015): in that study’s table, the better a report’s rated reliability, the larger the share left “unknown,” which the author says contradicts official claims that more data would shrink the unknowns.

What it recommended

Noting that Blue Book had closed after the Condon report, the paper argues Australia lacked intelligence, scientific and public-relations viewpoints on the problem and backs an air force suggestion that another government department take over the investigation of reports.