Condon Report

The Condon Report is the outcome of a study conducted by physicist Edward U. Condon and his team at the University of Colorado, chosen for their presumed impartiality, which concluded that no evidence existed for the reality of UFOs.¹ The team, the University of Colorado Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) Project, was recruited by the United States Air Force (USAF) to conduct an objective and independent investigation into Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP).² Condon, a former Director of the National Bureau of Standards, served as scientific director of the resulting 18-month study, undertaken under a US$325,000 USAF contract to the USA, Colorado, University of Colorado.³ According to the book In Plain Sight, in August 1966 Robert Low wrote a memorandum to two senior university officials setting out a proposed strategy for the institution’s role in the study.⁴

According to the Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), Volume I, the Condon Report’s remit centred on whether UFO phenomena merited formal scientific research - whether through academic or US government-sponsored research, or in secondary education - and did not extend to assessing UFOs as a potential risk to US national security.⁵ The same source states that the panel closely examined 59 specific case studies,⁶ and that it cautioned against support for scientific papers on UFOs, recommending that teachers should not give students credit for reading UFO literature.⁷ The same source further states that, among a small number of alleged physical-evidence incidents examined - ground imprints, residue such as white powder and strands dubbed “angel hair”, and metallic debris - the panel found ordinary explanations in each case,⁸ with some of these cases originating in Brazil, Norway, and Washington, D.C.⁹ It also describes the panel’s investigation of Frank Edwards’s 1966 claim of a UFO fragment recovered near Washington, D.C. in the summer of 1952, reporting that Project Blue Book had no record of the claim, that neither the USAF nor the United States Navy (USN) found any incident report of a weapons engagement with a UFO that summer, that no USN aircraft were present, and that the retired officer cited as the claim’s original source had left service before the alleged event.¹⁰ The same source states that the panel judged Edwards’s claim, together with the alleged involvement of Vannevar Bush, to be most likely false.¹¹

According to the book In Plain Sight, the Condon Report’s final conclusions held that nothing had come from twenty-one years of UFO study that had added to scientific knowledge,¹² and that further study could not be justified.¹³ The same source states that the report rejected the extra-terrestrial hypothesis for UAP,¹⁴ while nonetheless acknowledging the 1956 RAF Bentwaters-Lakenheath UAP incident in the United Kingdom as very likely a “genuine UFO”.¹⁵ The same source further states that the report gave the USAF the justification it was seeking to end Project Blue Book.¹⁶

After the report was criticised by some scientists, including Project Blue Book’s J. Allen Hynek, a panel of the National Academy of Sciences was tasked in late 1968, as part of what became the National Academy of Sciences Assessment of the Condon Report, with examining its rigour, methodology, and conclusions.¹⁷ In November 1968 the Academy reviewed and endorsed the report’s conclusions.¹⁸ According to the Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), Volume I, the review concluded that it was unanimous in the opinion that the Condon Report had been “a very credible effort to apply techniques of science to the solution of the UFO problem”.¹⁹

The report also drew sustained criticism in the years that followed. It took nearly ten years for serious researchers to begin challenging the Condon Report.²⁰ Harry Turner’s 1968 paper criticised the Condon Committee report, describing it as the USAF-funded study of UFOs directed by physicist Condon.²¹ Turner considered that the report’s conclusions conflicted with its own contents and had been discredited by many reputable scientists.²² Ross Coulthart has said he finds it difficult to escape the impression that the true purpose of Project Blue Book and the Condon Report was to shut down public interest in and scrutiny of UAP sightings.²³ Jacques Vallée has said that the National Academy of Sciences’ approval of the report left the field of UFO research open to charlatans and hoaxers.²⁴

On 1977-07-21, Frank Press, Science Advisor to President Jimmy Carter, wrote to Robert Frosch, Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), suggesting that NASA form a panel to examine whether there had been any new significant findings on UFOs since the Condon Report - the exchange recorded as the Carter Administration Tasking to National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).²⁵