Talk:Condon Committee

message: I dont see anything about this article that is wildly anti-neutral?
:It's written as a condemnation. --InShaneee 15:51, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Comment

message: *Merge The content of the Orthoteny Principle article is thin, and it is a great fit for the other article which is more fully developed. CRKingston 08:57, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge article 

message: I've removed--until it can be properly sourced and cleared--the following paragraph:
: A few weeks later, Low himself left the UFO project. As Don Ecker writes, "Robert Low left the project officially on May 24, 1968. It was realized that in view of the 'trick memo' if Low had any part of the final report, it would not have any public credibility."
The sole reference given is: http://www.virtuallystrange.net/ufo/updates/2005/jul/m18-039.shtml
This page is only available by subscription, and as it's currently the sole source for the circumstances of Low's departure I'm reluctant to rely on it alone for such a very serious statement.
Another thing that concerns me is the editorial tone.  Don Ecker, as far as I'm aware, is a writer and researcher on UFO matters.   Quoting Ecker's opinion as fact doesn't seem appropriate to me, and certainly isn't suitable for an encyclopedia.   --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 11:34, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know how useful this is, but in Saunders and Harkin, p. 204: "Robert J. Low was relieved of 90 percent of his duties with the project on May 15 and returned to his previous job as special assistant to Thurston E. Manning." Per the same reference, pp. 22 and 192, Manning was Dean of Faculties and Vice-President for Academic Affairs, University of Colorado.  Germitage (talk) 20:42, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: Don Ecker on Robert J. Low

message: The article seems to contain several serious errors of fact.  I'm reviewing it alongside the content of the report and the various source materials.  This article seems to have turned into a hack job.  I'm fixing errors as I go along but this is turning into a total rewrite. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 13:36, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've trimmed six paragraphs from the lead, which is now about four paragraphs long.  Those six paragraphs constituted half the length of the article lead and were devoted to details discussion of various criticisms.  --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 14:36, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: The article

message: At this point in my investigation of the statements, sourcing and tone of this article, I can say that there are grave doubts about its factual accuracy and neutrality.  I'll summarise what I see as the worst problems when I've finished my investigation. Meanwhile I've tagged it.  --Jenny 17:59, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Tagged

message: The article writer didn't lack for good sources (Bryan, Sturrock, Jacobs, and Hynek all seem to be works with a good reputation), but this is not reflected in the balance of the article, which relies too often on obscure sources such as Clark and Saunders.
Of the 114 significant statements I listed in the above section, the sources of many are not given.  The following tabulation indicates the source citations I could find:
* Bryan 1
* Clark 20
* Hynek about 12 (some are vague attributions to Hynek)
* Jacobs 10
* Saunders 14
Hynek's and Sturrock's criticisms are covered in some depth, which is as it should be.  The trouble is that they're drowned out by all the historical stuff which seems to be sourced from Saunders and Clark and is, overall, given rather more prominence than it merits.  There was undoubtedly some adverse publicity, mainly due to the Look piece, but the Condon report is noted mainly for the air of finality with which it closed the Air Force's public involvement in investigating unidentified flying objects. --Jenny 06:53, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The types and number of sources unfortunately appear to be weighing down the article.  I agree that too much of the historical material is present here, as well.  I've tagged the page accordingly. --Several Times (talk) 16:03, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Sourcing and balance problems

message: Please note that User:ScienceApologist is enlisting support over at WP:FTN for remaking this article, see here: WP:FTN#UFOs!
 Artw (talk) 01:12, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Incoming

message: I decided to be bold and just go to work on this. There was an enormous amount of trivia (the administrative assistant's letter of resignation!) and a general inability to tell the story in a straightforward way. By that I mean that many statements of fact were qualified with "so and so later said that this..." or "it later turned out..." -- enough to get in the way of just setting out the basics and leaving debates for when they actually occur. Low's memo was called, tendentiously, the "Trick Memo". Etc. Citations are more consistent and at least not in the body of the article now. And I hope the writing style has been sufficiently wikified. There's still more to be done, but it's much shorter now and I hope more balanced. I've kept material of lesser interest in the citations, though more citations are needed for that material. I could sprinkle more "citation needed"'s around but what's the point? 
I'd still like to describe the Report itself at greater length and then organize the assessments into some categories: general press, technical journals, comments by participants, major critics. 
Another useful project would be to take all the citations to Hynek The UFO Experience: A Scientific Inquiry, 192-244, and have each one cite a specific page or pages, not just a range of 50+ pages. Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 00:34, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: My edits

message: "preposterous" , uncited
"preposterous", shouldn't of used. "seemingly preposterous", should have. "in a long, uncited", my bad, will correct. (some people refuse to face facts, or refuse to become aware of them ie: 'skeptics'. and this page WELL appears to be written by such. it does NOT take into account what was actually occurring during the project/60's that FORCED the airforce into assigning someone else to decide if "ufo's" were apparently interplanetary space vehicles. it was members of congress who were pushing for an open hearing/congressional probe on the subject due to the airforces' lies/misinforfation and/or apparent ineptitude that forced the airforce into hurriedly assigning an "unbiased investigation", with the work to be "conducted under condition of the strictest objectivity".
BUT.. that did not happen. The project head, mr Condon could not of been more biased!, and "unbiased objectivity" was directed NOT to be used, as implied by the Low memorandum to CU President Thurston Marshal and other university heads, stating that "Our studywould be constructed almost exclusively by non-believers... The trick would be, i think, to describe the project so that, to the public, it would appear to be a totally obbjectivestudy..".
FAR from being reprimanded for such a statement/recommendation, he was then made Project administator, AND, the two invetigators who released the memo to congress/public were fired!
now, as for mr condon -Oct 7, 1966 AF announcement that CU Study would be "a serious, objective, scientific investigation"... within 24 hours he stated "it is highly improbable they exist".
-oct 9, "air force had been doing a good job."
"about 95% of the ufo reports are relatively easily identified,
with more info others could probably be explained, (which) indicates an appalling lack of understanding."   
How would he know?!! leass than 48 hours in!
jan 1967- "ufo's were not the business of the air force and it did not take the matter seriously" "my attitude right now is that there's nothing to it" "anyone who believed the AF was concealing facts was suffering paranoia" (omg. they have been caught concealing facts/given false statement HUNDREADS of times!)
now, mr low.. -oct 9, "this project came close to being unacceptable. it will probably yeild more information about witnesses who report ufo's than evidence."
please, we all must ensure a correct description of the projects/events is viewable for the adults, and most importantly the children of this earth. IT WAS NOT AN UNBIASES STUDY, IT IT DID INDICATE "ALIEN" VEHICLES, AND THE WIKI PAGE SHOULD INFORM THE PUBLIC OF THAT. i look forward to someone more capable reworking this/these pages very soon, and i would be very very appreciative.
ref- aliens from space (donald keyhoe)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.105.78.200 (talk) 02:26, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  biased page, misinforming the public of known facts regarding project. please rectify. 

message: It surprises me that neither the introduction nor the body of the article makes reference to the notable inconsistency between Condon's "summary" of the detailed report (and the Conclusions he drew from it), and the contents of the report itself.
There are in effect three reports, not one:
# A set of disconnected reports from consultant authorities who were not involved in any phase of the Committee's investigations;
# Reports from Committee members who actually investigated UFO cases
# The "report" ("Conclusions and Recommendations" and "Summary of the Study") by Condon.
For the most part the contributions in (1) are interesting but only indirectly relevant to the Committee's work.  They provide some good background information, but mostly (with some exceptions) avoid the subject of UFOs.
The contributions in (2) are mixed, but most notable are the chapters "Optical and Radar Analysis of Field Cases" and "Photographic Case Studies", both of which include analyses of "high strangeness" events for which, implicitly or explicitly, the ETH hypothesis is seen as the most likely explanation.  Several cases in the "Case Studies" section also represent occurrences in which "relatively incredible things were reported by relatively credible observers".
Contribution (3) from Condon is notable for being almost entirely unrelated to the material in (2), and utterly failing to reflect any of its "high strangeness" conclusions.  Condon almost completely avoided quoting the material, except misleadingly.  However, it appears that it was from Condon's material, and his material alone, that scientists and the media took their own conclusions.
For example, with respect to radar-visual cases, Condon wrote in the "Summary of the Study":
---<quote>---
Studies of specific UFO radar reports and their interpretation are presented in Section III, Chapter 5 by Gordon Thayer. Thayer is a radio propagation specialist on the staff of the Environmental Science Services Administration in Boulder. In his chapter, Thayer presents a detailed analysis of some 35 cases, some of which are visual, others radar, and some are both. Both optical and radar phenomena are treated together because of the similarity in the wave propagation problems involved.
In his summary of results he says: " . . . there was no case where the meteorological data available tended to negate the anomalous propagation hypothesis. . ." However, Thayer points out that adequate meteorological data for a thorough interpretation is often lacking so that a great deal more observational material of this kind would be needed in order to deal with a larger proportion of all of the reported UFO radar cases.
In view of the importance of radar to the safe operation of all aircraft, it is essential that further research be done leading to the more precise knowledge possible of anomalous propagation of radar signals.
---<end quote>---
Thus, Condon appeared to represent all radar cases as being entirely concerned with anomalous propagation phenomena.  (He ignored the non-radar visual sightings in the same section of the report, which were the majority.)  However, the quote he took from Thayer is actually relevant only to one category of radar reports.  Thayer identified two such categories:
* "AP-like Cases where the radar scopes showed a confused or random distribution of images, blips that showed erratic or discontinuous motion, or other patterns bearing a general similarity to anomalous propagation (AP) returns."
* "Blip-like Cases where the radar target (or targets) showed characteristics similar to the return from a solid object (such as an aircraft, etc.), and where the target did not display erratic or discontinuous behavior. Acceleration or velocity in excess of known aircraft capabilities, or periods of immobility, were not considered to be contrary to normal target behavior."
Looking at Condon's sole quotation from Thayer's report in its original context, it is clear that the words refer only to the first category:
---<quote>---
The reader should note that the assignment of cases into the probable AP cause category could have been made on the basis of the observational testimony alone. That is to say, there was no case where the meteorological data available tended to negate the anomalous propagation hypothesis, thereby causing that case to be assigned to some other category. Therefore, a review of the meteorological data available for the 19 probable-AP cases is in order.
---<end quote>---
In a summarising table, Thayer indicated that, of the 15 radar cases, ten fell into the "probable AP" category.  together with nine of the "visual" cases. Two radar reports were analysed as (probable) man-made devices, and one as "No UFO".  The remaining two were categorised as "Unknown" (along with five of the 19 "visual" sightings).
The implications of the "Unknown" category are well-exemplified by comments regarding the well-known radar-visual case from Lakenheath AFB (England) in 1956.  Thayer wrote of this: "The apparently rational, intelligent behavior of the UFO suggests a mechanical device of unknown origin as the most probable explanation of this sighting."
The other "Unknown" radar case came from Colorado Springs in 1967.  Thayer wrote, "This must remain as one of the most puzzling radar cases on record, and no conclusion is possible at this time. It seems inconceivable that an anomalous propagation echo would behave in the manner described ...", thereby directly contradicting Condon's partial quote.
With respect to photographic cases, Condon's "Summary of the Study" examined the Zanesville, Ohio case, and two photographs in "the Look Special on 'Flying Saucers'".  The conclusions presented were entirely, and quite properly, negative; but none of those photos formed part of the official project study that Condon was supposedly summarising.  He also mentioned the McMinnville, Ohio, photos, but said that they "turned out to be too fuzzy to allow worthwhile photogrammetric analysis".
In his next sentence, he mentioned almost in passing that "Other photographic studies were made for the Colorado project by Dr. William K. Hartmann", who "made a detailed study of 35 photographic cases".  This study, he said, "led to the identification of a number of widely publicized photographs as being ordinary objects, others as fabrications, and others as innocent misidentifications of things photographed under unusual conditions".
What he didn't mention was that the McMinnville photos, though "too fuzzy" in his estimation, actually received nineteen pages of detailed "photogrammetric analysis" from Hartmann, who arrived at the conclusion that "all factors investigated, geometric, psychological, and physical appear to be consistent with the assertion that an extraordinary flying object, silvery, metallic, disk-shaped, tens of meters in diameter, and evidently artificial, flew within sight of two witnesses".  This was emphatically not an identification of an "ordinary object", nor a "misidentification of something photographed under unusual conditions".  With regard to Condon's third choice (fakery), Hartmann considered that "the accuracy of certain photometric measures of the original negatives ... argue against a fabrication".
Cases such as the above seem greatly at odds with Condon's claim, "that the existing record and the results of the Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects of the University of Colorado ... support the conclusions and recommendations" he presented.  Overall, of the 35 radar and visual sightings Thayer examined, seven were placed in the "Unknown" category.  This is a proportion of 20%, ten times higher than the proportion of "unknowns" left at the end of the Blue Book project.  (An even higher proportion of the Case Studies remained "unidentified" after detailed analysis.)  Thayer described this category of explanation as being either " caused by a mechanical or other device designed for transportation, surveillance, or other related objectives, and which may or may not have been controlled by extraterrestrial beings", or "an unknown natural phenomenon".  
Either "explanation" ought to be eminently worthy of further scientific investigation.  The conclusions that his own project staff arrived at seem incompatible with Condon's personal conclusion, that "further extensive study of UFOs probably cannot be justified in the expectation that science will be advanced thereby".
It would be nice if the article could be amended to reflect the situation above.  At the minimum, I should like to see something like the following bold text inserted into the introductory material:
---<quote>---
After examining hundreds of UFO files from the Air Force's Project Blue Book and from the civilian UFO groups National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) and Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO), and investigating sightings reported during the life of the Project, the Committee produced a Final Report in which the Project Director wrote that the study of UFOs was unlikely to yield major scientific discoveries.
However, Dr Condon's summary and conclusions were strongly at variance with material and conclusions provided by his investigative staff in the body of the report.  Overall, more than 30% of the cases studied remained "unidentified" (a far higher proportion than in the Air Force projects that led to the study).  Some individual case studies included strong statements concerning the probability that the reports were of "mechanical devices" with extraordinary flight characteristics and unknown motive power, "which may or may not have been controlled by extraterrestrial beings".  Other cases, less dramatically, were referred to possibly novel atmospheric phenomena (with possible implications for flight safety).  Condon either avoided all mention of these conclusions and the associated evidence, or obfuscated them by using misleading partial quotations.
Nevertheless, it was Condon's conclusions that were generally welcomed by the scientific community ... (etc.)
---<unquote>---
If nobody objects within a few weeks of this posting, I shall undertake to make those changes myself.
I further submit that some of the more detailed material above should be included in the section summarising the report.  Despite an isolated reference to the Lakenheath case, the current summary is strongly biased towards Condon's idiosyncratic personal conclusions, and away from the evidence-based conclusions of his investigation team.
The reference to the NAS study appears to show either bias, or a lack of awareness that the report was based solely on Condon's personal opinions, and not on the evidence actually presented in the report.  This is sufficiently important for an additional topic below.
Donmillion (talk) 22:58, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Internal Inconsistencies in the Report 

message: The Introduction makes what appears to me to be a thoroughly misleading claim:
---<quote>---
After examining hundreds of UFO files from the Air Force's Project Blue Book and from the civilian UFO groups ... (NICAP) and ... (APRO) ...  the Committee produced a Final Report
---<unquote>---
Am I the only person who initially read this as a claim that the "committee" examined hundreds of USAF files?  And even if, on re-reading, it means that hundreds of files were "examined" by the project staff--is that a true claim?
Donmillion (talk) 14:08, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Use of Project Blue Book 

message: The article summarises the latter review as follows:
---<quote>---
Even before its completion, the Air Force had asked the National Academy of Sciences to "provide an independent assessment of the scope, the methodology, and the findings" of the Committee. A panel chaired by Yale astronomer Gerald M. Clemence studied the Report for six weeks and concluded that "on the basis of present knowledge the least likely explanation of UFOs is the hypothesis of extraterrestrial visitations by intelligent beings" and that "no high priority in UFO investigations is warranted by data of the past two decades."
---<unquote>---
These statements conceal the fact that the "Review" conclusions (see http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/688541.pdf) were based only on Condon's "Recommendations" and "Summary", with no consideration of any of the evidential material.  The editor summarised the case studies generally with the words, "It was found that nearly all cases could be classified in such categories as pranks, hoaxes, naive interpretations, and various types of misinterpretations".  The Review also admitted that "A few events, which did-not fit these categories, [were] left unexplained", but made no other reference to those cases.  It quoted (without attribution) Condon's somewhat inaccurate and highly misleading statements about the photographic cases, concluding that "none proved to be 'real objects with high strangeness'".  This shows that the panel cannot have read the photographic case studies themselves, where at least one was concluded as being a "real object with high strangeness" [Condon Report, p. 118], while another was "either a fabrication or an extraordinary object ('flying saucer')" (ibid.. loc. cit.), but most probably "an extraordinary flying object, silvery, metallic, disk-shaped, tens of meters in diameter, and evidently artificial" (ibid., p. 625).
The review repeated Condon's references to the use of "Stanford Research Institute on radar anomalies and a subsidiary of the Raytheon Corporation for photogrammetric analyses", apparently with no awareness that the actual case studies in the body of the report were not performed by persons from either group, but by project staff.  It also failed to consider that some of the radar cases were also of "high strangeness" as well as high credibility.
The report "paraphrased and summarised" Condon's specific "findings and evaluations", and approved every one, again without making any reference to the contradictory material in the body of the report.  It denied the existence of "high strangeness" reports such as those found in the case studies, while making no attempt to challenge any of the evidence or conclusions presented by the project staff.
In short, the NAS Review, while not a whitewash, was a rushed job which relied solely on the conclusions of one man who had not been involved in any of the field investigations or data analyses, and who only quoted the results of those investigations and analyses, if at all, in utterly misleading terms.  It was, sadly, a blot on the landscape of science.
I propose that the relevant paragraph should be rewritten as follows (new/revised material in boldface):
---<proposed rewrite>---
Even before its completion, the Air Force had asked the National Academy of Sciences to "provide an independent assessment of the scope, the methodology, and the findings" of the Committee. A panel chaired by Yale astronomer Gerald M. Clemence studied the Report for six weeks and concluded that "on the basis of present knowledge the least likely explanation of UFOs is the hypothesis of extraterrestrial visitations by intelligent beings" and that "no high priority in UFO investigations is warranted by data of the past two decades."
However, the Review shows no awareness of any material in the Report, other than the Director's idiosyncratic "Summary" and "Recommendaions" (all of which were approved).  It not only ignores the high-quality evidence of "high strangeness" events contained in a few case studies and associated expert summaries, but (quoting Condon's own words) flatly denies the existence of such evidence.
Swords and Powell comment (UFOs and Government: A Historical Inquiry, p. 345): "The only thing that saves these admiring scientists any face at all is that almost certainly they had no idea what had been going on [within the Condon Committee] and generally did not know what they were talking about.  But are scientists supposed to be making strong comments about things they know nothing about?"
Sadly, the uncritical NAS Review (which made not a single adverse comment about the Report) is typical of the latter's reception by both the media, and the scientific community.
---<end proposed rewrite>---
Donmillion (talk) 15:58, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  The NAS Review of the Condon Report 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified (January 2018) 

message: It was previously linked to wertheimer the mathematician, has now been properly linked to wertheimer the psychologistChantern15 (talk) 06:08, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Linked to proper Michael Wertheimer 

message: Much of this article seems to lean toward a fringe viewpoint. The list of references is almost entirely populated by "true believers", who put stock into conspiracy theories about government cover-up of ETs. Riffraff913 (talk) 16:56, 30 July 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fringe viewpoint 

message: My apologies if these are somewhere else in this extensive talk page, but for those who can't get enough of this, the entire content of the "Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects" (the "Condon Report") from 1968 can be viewed online. 
A better formatted for the web version with table of contents can be found (as of today) at NCAS presents the Condon Report on UFOs
The Black Vault has a PDF'd version of the original 1496 page document at /raid/vol6/convert/442748/00001.tif (theblackvault.com) Germitage (talk) 21:05, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Links added to the article, many thanks! Feoffer (talk) 03:23, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Online versions of the "Condon Report"