Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) phenomenon of the 1960s

One of the great mysteries of the space age. More popularly referred to as “flying saucers,” unidentified flying objects (UFOs) excited the public imagination with visions of extraterrestrial visitors.

Origins and History

The appearance of “foo fighters” in the skies of Europe during World War II proved to be a precursor of Kenneth Arnold’s famous sighting of a formation of “flying saucers” near Mount Rainier in 1947. Thousands of additional sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) were reported over the years to the U.S. Air Force’s investigating project, which was called, in turn, “Sign,” “Grudge,” and, in the 1950’s and 1960’s, “Blue Book.” From the outset, attention focused on the merits of the extraterrestrial explanation, which was attacked by scientists but vocally supported in the 1950’s by so-called “contactees” who claimed to have met the occupants of the flying saucers and found them to be quite human and benevolent ambassadors to earth from distant planetary systems. Civilian groups such as the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) and the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomenon (NICAP) sprang up to support the extraterrestrial theory and, especially in the case of NICAP, to charge that the Air Force was involved in a cover-up of the truth.

The UFO phenomenon reached a new height in the 1960’s with a series of dramatic incidents, one of the most famous of which took place on the night of September 19-20, 1961, when Betty and Barney Hill saw a strange object approach their car while driving on U.S. Route 3 in New Hampshire. Unable to account for two and a half hours of their time and experiencing repeated nightmares, the couple sought the help of a Boston psychiatrist and, while under hypnosis, appeared to relive the trauma of being abducted and examined by space aliens. Although the psychiatrist concluded that their story was a fantasy, it made them nationally famous and lent a threatening air to the UFO phenomenon. Whereas the popular view of UFO occupants in the 1950’s had been one of benevolent humans, the Hills were among the first of many “abductees” who would depict UFO occupants as menacing and decidedly nonhuman. The second most famous UFO sighting of the decade, which also involved a close encounter with occupants, took place at Socorro, New Mexico, on April 24, 1964, when police officer Lonnie Zamora reported seeing a car-sized elliptical object on legs sitting in a remote patch of desert with two figures in overalls standing nearby. As Zamora drove closer, the figures got in the object, and it took off, leaving imprints and scorched foliage behind. Zamora’s standing as a police officer lent credibility to his story, and the Air Force concluded that his sighting was unexplained. Later, two corroborating witnesses were found who lent additional weight to Zamora’s report.

The Scientific Reaction

Although most scientists chose to ignore UFOs in the 1960’s, a few took them seriously. James McDonald, a physicist at the University of Arizona, became prominent in the mid-1960’s as the leading scientific advocate of the extraterrestrial theory of UFO’s, a view he held until his tragic death by suicide in 1971. In 1965, Jacques Vallee, a French-born computer scientist, published the first of his many books on UFOs, in which he developed the theory that UFOs are electromagnetic manifestations with the ability to control human perceptions. On the other side of the fence, the principal scientific “debunkers” of UFOs in the 1960’s were Donald Menzel, a Harvard Universityastronomer who attributed UFO sightings to hoaxes and miragelike atmospheric conditions, and Philip Klass, a science reporter whose favorite explanation was a plasmalike electrical phenomena. Other common “scientific” explanations for UFOs were misidentified balloons, birds, aircraft, and celestial bodies.

The UFO phenomenon reached its peak in 1966, when the number of sightings reported to the Air Force exceeded a thousand for the first time since the “flap” years of 1952 and 1957. Of these sightings, however, only thirty-two were officially classified as unexplained. One set of sightings that yielded a controversial explanation took place at Dexter and Hillsdale, Michigan, on March 20-21, 1966. Police officers, a civil defense director, a college dean, and dozens of college students were among the witnesses to UFOs that hovered and maneuvered on two successive nights, attracting such attention that the Air Force sent its scientific consultant, J. Allen Hynek, to the scene. Hynek gave a famous press conference in which he suggested that the Hillsdale sighting was caused by “swamp gas,” an explanation that was widely scoffed at by UFO advocates and that inspired jokes and cartoons in the media.

UFOs Go Hollywood

A public opinion survey conducted in 1966 showed that 5 percent of the American public had seen a UFO, a percentage that equated to five million adults. Quick to take advantage of the public fascination with the subject, the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) television network put its series The Invaders on the air in the fall of 1966, featuring Roy Thinnes as an architect who discovers the presence of aliens disguised as earthlings. The Air Force, tired of being burdened for more than twenty years with the thankless task of investigating UFO reports, contracted in October, 1966, with the University of Colorado for an eighteen-month scientific study of UFOs. Dubbed the Condon committee after its scientific director, Edward U. Condon, the project spent more than a half-million dollars and investigated dozens of prominent UFO cases before finally concluding, in December, 1968, that there was no evidence for the extraterrestrial origin of UFOs and “no scientific or military justification for further study of UFOs.” However, a 1966 memo from the project’s coordinator, Robert Low, was leaked to the press and seized upon by UFO advocates as evidence of bad faith on the part of researchers because Low had stated that “The trick would be, I think, to describe the project so that, to the public, it would appear a totally objective study but, to the scientific community, would present the image of a group of nonbelievers trying their best to be objective but having an almost zero expectation of finding a saucer.” UFO believers also pointed out that despite the project’s conclusions, its final report failed to conclusively explain a fourth of the sightings studied. The Air Force was quick to accept the Condon committee’s finding that further scientific study of UFOs was not justified, and Project Blue Book was terminated on December 17, 1969.

Impact

From the Bay of the Pigs to Vietnam, the 1960’s witnessed a growing credibility gap between Americans and their government. To suspect the government of a cover-up of UFOs was not a stretch to many Americans, and the UFO phenomenon probably incrementally increased the credibility gap, especially when explanations such as swamp gas were offered. Perhaps it was also natural that in a decade of great social upheaval and political strife, many Americans would find either solace or uneasiness in the thought that UFOs represented an alien presence in the skies. Also, even if the vast majority of UFO reports could be explained away, a residual core of unexplained sightings remained, and as one Air Force officer told the press in 1968, “Some reports you can’t exactly ignore.” This unexplained core was sufficient to give the entire UFO phenomenon a lasting air of mystery and fascination and to make it a permanent fixture in American popular culture.

Subsequent Events

UFO sightings continued for decades, and with the Air Force out of the picture, the job of investigating them fell entirely to private groups. Hynek, the erstwhile Air Force consultant, emerged in the 1970’s as the leading scientific proponent of the view that UFOs should receive serious study, and he authored a series of books on the subject and founded the influential Center for UFO Studies. The phenomenon of animal mutilations began to attract widespread attention in the 1970’s and was quickly linked to UFOs, just as it had been in 1967 when the death of “Snippy,” a horse in Colorado, inspired similar speculation. Abduction cases became a more established part of UFO lore, and by the 1990’s, the ultimate UFO case emerged in the form of stories about a supposed UFO crash at Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947, thus bringing things full circle.

Additional Information

The final report of the Condon committee was published as Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects (1969). The most vigorous critique of the committee’s work was UFOs? Yes! Where the Condon Committee Went Wrong (1968), by David Saunders and R. Roger Harkins. Vallee’s first book on UFOs was Anatomy of a Phenomenon (1965), and “debunker” Klass’s first book was UFOs Identified (1968). A skeptical overview of the UFO phenomenon may be found in Watch the Skies! A Chronicle of the Flying Saucer Myth (1994), by Curtis Peebles.