The Condon Committee was the common name for the University of Colorado UFO Project, a group supported by the United States Air Force from 1966 to 1968 at the University of Colorado. The group studied unidentified flying objects under the leadership of physicist Edward Condon. Its findings were officially named Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects, and this document is also called the Condon Report. It was published in 1968.
The group reviewed hundreds of UFO records from the Air Force's Project Blue Book and from civilian organizations, the National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) and the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO). It also studied UFO sightings reported during the project's time. The Final Report stated that studying UFOs was unlikely to lead to important scientific discoveries.
Scientists and academic journals had mixed reactions to the report's conclusions. The report is often cited as a key reason for the generally low interest in UFO activity among academics since that time. A main critic of the report said it is "the most influential public document about the scientific status of the UFO problem. Hence, all current scientific work on the UFO problem must refer to the Condon Report."
Background
Beginning in 1947 with Project Sign, which later became Project Grudge and finally Project Blue Book, the U.S. Air Force officially studied UFOs, a topic that many people and some government officials were interested in. By the 1960s, Blue Book faced increasing criticism. Many people, including politicians, journalists, scientists, and members of the public, claimed that Blue Book’s research was not well-supported or that it was hiding information. The Air Force wanted to stop its studies but feared that ending them might lead to more accusations of hiding information. Because UFOs were so controversial, no other government group was willing to take over the studies.
After a large number of UFO sightings in 1965, astronomer and Blue Book advisor J. Allen Hynek wrote a letter to the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board (AFSAB) suggesting that a group meet to review Blue Book. The AFSAB agreed, and the committee it formed, led by Brian O’Brien, met for one day in February 1966. The committee suggested that UFO studies could be done more thoroughly and that the Air Force should work with a few universities to create scientific teams to study UFOs. The committee recommended studying about 100 carefully recorded UFO sightings each year, with about 10 days of work on each case.
At a Congressional UFO hearing on April 5, 1966, Air Force Secretary Harold Brown defended the Air Force’s UFO studies and repeated the O’Brien Committee’s suggestion for more research. Hynek again asked for a group of scientists to examine UFOs carefully to determine if a major problem existed. Soon after, the Air Force said it was looking for one or more universities to study UFOs. The Air Force wanted several groups, but it took time to find even one school willing to accept the offer. Hynek, James E. McDonald, and others suggested their universities—Northwestern University, the University of Arizona, and others—but all were seen as too closely connected to one side of the issue. Several universities, including Harvard, the University of California, Berkeley, MIT, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, refused to join. Walter Orr Roberts and Donald Menzel recommended physicist Edward Condon of the University of Colorado.
In the summer of 1966, Condon agreed to consider the Air Force’s offer. He was a well-known and respected scientist. His past conflicts with government loyalty boards in the 1940s and 1950s made him famous among scientists. Robert J. Low, an assistant dean at the University of Colorado, checked how faculty members felt about the project and found mixed and cautious reactions. He also tried to convince those who thought the project was not worth studying. Low told the Denver Post that the university barely met the requirements to accept the Air Force’s offer and agreed mainly because it was hard to refuse the Air Force. Some people said money was a reason for the university’s decision, as the Air Force offered $313,000 for the project. Condon disagreed, saying that amount was small for a project lasting over a year with a team of more than a dozen people. Funding later increased to over $500,000.
On October 6, 1966, the University of Colorado agreed to study UFOs, with Condon as director, Low as coordinator, and Stuart W. Cook, Franklin E. Roach, David R. Saunders, and William A. Scott as main researchers. The Air Force announced its choice of Condon and the University of Colorado in October 1966. Other members of the team included astronomer William K. Hartmann, psychologists Michael Wertheimer, Dan Culbertson, and graduate student James Wadsworth, chemist Roy Craig, electrical engineer Norman Levine, and physicist Frederick Ayer. Many other scientists worked part-time or as consultants. Most people responded positively to the announcement. Hynek said Condon’s view of UFOs was “basically negative” but thought Condon might change his mind after studying puzzling cases. NICAP’s Donald Keyhoe supported the project publicly but worried the Air Force might control it secretly. Some scientists, like James E. McDonald, were encouraged that a respected scientist like Condon was involved.
When the project was announced, The Nation magazine said, “If Dr. Condon and his team find anything less than aliens from Mars, they will be criticized heavily.”
Committee work
In November 1966, retired USMC Major Donald Keyhoe and Richard H. Hall, both members of NICAP, gave a report to a panel. They agreed to share NICAP's research files and improve the collection of UFO reports. The committee also got help from APRO, another civilian UFO research group. The committee worked slowly because of disagreements about how to use money and how to collect information. By hiring people who had no previous experience with UFOs, the committee lacked the skills needed for the work. One member suggested using stereo cameras with special tools called diffraction gratings to study the light from UFOs. This idea had been tried about fifteen years earlier after a suggestion by Joseph Kaplan in 1954, but it was stopped quickly because it was not useful. As the committee started its work, members often worked alone without talking to each other. People used different methods, especially when considering the idea that UFOs might come from space.
In late January 1967, Condon said in a speech that the government should not study UFOs because the topic was "nonsense." He added, "but I'm not supposed to reach that conclusion for another year." A NICAP member left NICAP in protest, and Saunders talked to Condon about his worry that NICAP leaving would take away valuable records and cause bad publicity.
In July 1967, James E. McDonald, who believed UFO sightings were real, learned from a committee member about a memo Low wrote on August 9, 1966. In the memo, Low told two University of Colorado leaders that the study would show UFO sightings had no real basis. He said the study would be done mostly by people who did not believe in UFOs. These people could not prove that UFOs did not exist, but they could gather a lot of evidence showing that UFO sightings were not real. Low said the goal was to make the study look fair to the public but seem like a group of non-believers trying hard to be fair to scientists. McDonald found a copy of the memo in the project's public files and wrote to Condon, quoting parts of it.
After the memo was shared, on April 30, 1968, NICAP ended its connection with the committee. Keyhoe shared copies of Low's memo with others. A newspaper article titled "Flying Saucer Fiasco" by John G. Fuller in the May 1968 issue of Look included interviews with Saunders and Levine. The article described the controversy and called the project a "$500,000 trick." Fuller was a journalist who believed UFO sightings were real and had written a book about a UFO sighting in 1966. Condon said the article had "falsehoods and misrepresentations." Scientific and technical journals reported the controversy. A publication called Industrial Research printed Low's memo, while Scientific Research interviewed Saunders and Levine, who said they were thinking about suing Condon for firing them unfairly. They claimed Condon used an "unscientific approach." Condon said calling his methods "unscientific" was itself a lie and threatened to sue Saunders and Levine. When the American Association for the Advancement of Science covered the committee's work in Science, Condon first said he would talk to reporters but later refused. He quit the AAAS in protest when the article was published without his input. Congressional Representative J. Edward Roush said the Look article raised "grave doubts" about the project's scientific quality and fairness. He asked the General Accounting Office to investigate the study, but the GAO refused. He held a hearing with critics of the project. Roush later joined NICAP's board. Low left the project in May 1968.
Some later critics said the memo was not important. Committee member David Saunders said calling Low a "plotter or conspirator" was unfair. Hynek said Low wanted his university to get the contract and convince leaders to accept it. Project investigator Roy Craig said the memo did not bother him because Condon had not known about it for eighteen months and it did not reflect Condon's views. Condon wrote in the project's Final Report that the memo's focus on the "psychology and sociology" of UFO witnesses showed Low did not understand the project's goals when he wrote it.
Even after NICAP left the project, members of its Early Warning Network kept reporting sightings to investigators, as did journalists. Scientists who expected the committee to stop government UFO research quickly published their own reports before the committee's Final Report. One such report, UFO's? Yes!, written by Saunders, questioned whether the CIA wanted to distract people from UFOs. It used three cases to support the idea that UFOs might come from space. Project investigator Roy Craig later said each case was "utter nonsense," "highly suspect," or "unexplained but very weak."
Committee Report
The committee gave its report to the Air Force in November 1968. The Air Force shared the report with the public in January 1969. The report had 1,485 pages in hardcover and 965 pages in paperback. It grouped UFO cases into five categories: old UFO reports before the committee met, new reports, cases with photographs, cases with radar and visual sightings, and UFOs seen by astronauts. Some cases fit into more than one category. Condon wrote 6 pages of "conclusions and recommendations," a 43-page "summary," and a 50-page history of UFO research over the past 20 years.
In the "Conclusions and Recommendations" section, Condon stated that no scientific discoveries had come from studying UFOs in the past 21 years. He said that further study of UFOs likely would not help science. He also suggested that the government should not create a program to investigate UFO reports. He explained that scientists must evaluate UFO evidence on their own. He noted that the report’s recommendation against further research "may not be true for all time." He advised that government agencies and private groups should consider UFO research proposals carefully and fairly. The report mentioned that gaps in scientific knowledge about atmospheric optics, radio wave propagation, and atmospheric electricity might benefit from UFO research.
The report included 59 case studies, but the locations were changed for legal reasons. Walter Sullivan, a science editor for the New York Times, wrote that the cases "read like a modern, real-life collection of Sherlock Holmes episodes." He said the cases ranged from very puzzling to clearly not serious. The report described how scientists use the scientific method, even though some cases are hard to explain. Six chapters discussed physical evidence like electromagnetic effects, visual and radar images. One chapter covered observations made by U.S. astronauts.
In Case 2 of Section IV, Chapter 2, the report discussed the 1956 Lakenheath-Bentwaters incident. It said that while natural explanations are possible, the chance of them being correct is low. It also said the chance that at least one real UFO was involved seems high.
Before the report was finished, the Air Force asked the National Academy of Sciences to review the report’s scope, methods, and findings. A group led by Yale astronomer Gerald M. Clemence studied the report for six weeks. They concluded that the least likely explanation for UFOs is that they are from intelligent beings on other planets. They also said that UFO investigations do not need high priority based on the past 20 years of data.
Because of the report’s findings, the Air Force closed Project Blue Book, which started in March 1952, on December 17, 1969.
Assessments
The Report received different opinions from scientists and academic journals, while most news media gave it strong approval. Many newspapers, magazines, and journals published reviews or editorials that supported the Condon Report. Some compared continuing belief in UFOs to believing the Earth is flat. Others believed interest in UFOs would decrease and become barely remembered in a few generations. Science, the official publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, stated, "The Colorado Study is unquestionably the most thorough and sophisticated investigation of the unclear UFO phenomenon ever conducted."
The March 8, 1969 issue of Nature gave the Condon Report a generally positive review but questioned why so much effort was spent on such a topic: "The Colorado project is a monumental achievement, but one of perhaps misapplied ingenuity. It would doubtless be inapt to compare it with earlier centuries' attempts to calculate how many angels could balance on the point of a pin; it is more like taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut, except that the nuts will be quite immune to its impact." On January 8, 1969, the New York Times headlined its coverage: "U.F.O. Finding: No Visits From Afar." The article stated the project's final report on U.F.O.s "has uncovered no evidence that they are intelligently guided spacecraft from beyond the Earth."
Critics repeatedly argued their points without receiving the government support they wanted. One described the Report as "a rather unorganized compilation of independent articles on disparate subjects, a minority of which dealt with UFOs." Hynek described the Report as "a voluminous, rambling, poorly organized" and wrote that "less than half…was addressed to the investigation of UFO reports." In the April 14, 1969 issue of Scientific Research, Robert L. M. Baker, Jr. wrote that the Condon Committee's Report "seems to justify scientific investigation along many general and specialized frontiers." In the December 1969 issue of Physics Today, committee consultant Gerald Rothberg wrote that he had thoroughly investigated about 100 UFO cases, three or four of which left him puzzled. He thought that this "residue of unexplained reports [indicated a] legitimate scientific controversy." Critics charged that Condon's case summaries were inaccurate or misleading with enigmatic reports "buried" among the confirmed cases.
In December 1969, physicist James E. McDonald called the Report "inadequate" and said "it represents an examination of only a tiny fraction of the most puzzling UFO reports of the past two decades, and that its level of scientific argumentation is wholly unsatisfactory." In a 1969 issue of the American Journal of Physics, astronomer Thornton Page (who thought the phenomenon had a sociological basis) wrote of the report: "Intelligent laymen can (and do) point out the logical flaw in Condon's conclusion based on a statistically small (and selected) sample. Even in this sample a consistent pattern can be recognized; it is ignored by the 'authorities,' who then compound their 'felony' by recommending that no further observational data be collected." Page had been a member of the Robertson Panel which suggested UFOs should be debunked to reduce public interest.
In November 1970, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics generally agreed with Condon's suggestion that little of value had been uncovered by scientific UFO studies, but "did not find a basis in the report for [Condon's] prediction that nothing of scientific value will come of further studies."
Astronomer J. Allen Hynek wrote that "The Condon Report settled nothing." He called Condon's introduction "singularly slanted" and wrote that it "avoided mentioning that there was embedded within the bowels of the report a remaining mystery; that the committee had been unable to furnish adequate explanations for more than a quarter of the cases examined." Hynek contended that "Condon did not understand the nature and scope of the problem" he was studying and objected to the idea that only extraterrestrial life could explain UFO activity. By focusing on this hypothesis, he wrote, the Report "did not try to establish whether UFOs really constituted a problem for the scientist, whether physical or social."
Astrophysicist Peter A. Sturrock wrote that "critical reviews…came from scientists who had actually carried out research in the UFO area, while the laudatory reviews came from scientists who had not carried out such research." As an example, Sturrock noted a case in which an allegedly supersonic UFO did not produce a sonic boom. He notes that "we should not assume that a more advanced civilization could not find some way at traveling with supersonic speeds without producing a sonic boom."