University of Colorado Notice

 

FINAL REPORT
Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects
Conducted by the University of Colorado
Under contract to the United States Air Force
Dr. Edward U. Condon, Scientific Director
Daniel S. Gillmor, Editor
Copyright © 1968 by The Regents of The University of Colorado
Electronic edition © 1999 by National Capital Area Skeptics (NCAS)
 

 

The Final Report of the Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects was originally copyrighted in 1968 by the Regents of the University of Colorado, a body corporate. It was subsequently published in reports of the United States Air Force and other governmental agencies and was published commercially by Bantam Books (currently out of print).

 

Permission is granted for non-commercial use of this electronic document, to link to it, mirror it on an Internet site, or reproduce it electronically in whole or in part without modification, provided that this notice is included.

Any other use requires advance written permission from The Regents of the University of Colorado.

 

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INTRODUCTION TO THE NCAS EDITION
Paul Jaffe

1998-99
President, National Capital Area Skeptics

 

The Colorado Project

The Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects was performed at the University of Colorado between 1966 and 1968, with physics Professor Edward U. Condon as its scientific director. It is frequently referred to as the "Condon Report" or the "Colorado Project Report". To this day, the work carried out under Dr. Condon’s direction represents the largest single scientific project ever undertaken in relation to the UFO problem. In the opinion of a sizeable majority of mainstream scientists, its principal conclusion has stood the test of time:

Careful consideration of the record as it is available to us leads us to conclude that further extensive study of UFOs probably cannot be justified in the expectation that science will be advanced thereby.

It has been argued that this lack of contribution to science is due to the fact that very little scientific effort has been put on the subject. We do not agree. We feel that the reason that there has been very little scientific study of the subject is that those scientists who are most directly concerned, astronomers, atmospheric physicists, chemists, and psychologists, having had ample opportunity to look into the matter, have individually decided that UFO phenomena do not offer a fruitful field in which to look for major scientific discoveries. (From section I of the report)

Anyone familiar with the popular media and the Internet is likely aware that a very substantial fraction of the general public would disagree with this conclusion. Unfortunately, the virtual disappearance of the Condon Report from general circulation makes it practically impossible for the public to evaluate the evidence that supports it, or to weigh the Colorado work against the claims of its critics.

To remedy this situation, the National Capital Area Skeptics is pleased to present, with the permission of the Regents of the University of Colorado, the NCAS Internet edition of Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects. Our volunteer group, under the tireless direction of Jim Giglio, has worked for more than a year to bring this document to the web. We are confident that the effort will prove worthwhile, and that the document will prove useful in the rational evaluation of many aspects of the UFO issue.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
 Jim Giglio

January 1999
NCAS Working Group Coordinator
 

 

1. Brief History of the NCAS Project

This project began when I carried out a series of web searches for an on-line copy of the Condon Report during 1996. I had read the report when it was first published commercially, and considering the amount of UFO material on the net, I was confident that it would be easy to locate. It was not. In fact, it was simply nowhere to be found. A visit to a used book dealer, who searched for three months, finally turned up a copy of the Bantam paperback for $35.

Reading the Condon report again after nearly three decades convinced me of two things:

(1)  that I should have held on to my copy from 1969, as it would have been an excellent investment, and

(2)  that it deserved to be more readily available.

Accordingly, I wrote to the Regents of the University of Colorado (the copyright holder) and requested permission to place the report on the web. The regents granted the request in short order.

The next step was to find a group of volunteers to do the actual work, which would include scanning, spell-checking/proofing, and HTML coding. That’s where NCAS came in. I had been recently elected to the NCAS board, so I suggested that NCAS make this an official organizational project. The board accepted that suggestion and quickly assembled the volunteer group. Actual work started in October of 1997, and this version of the report was ready for public release in January of 1999, following a review by the University of Colorado Board of Regents.
 


2. Acknowledgements

Bob Keefer, PhD, of the Psychology Department at Mount St Mary’s College, Emmitsburg, MD, obtained a copy of the report as submitted to the Air Force from the University of Colorado Library. He then coordinated the work of photocopying the text and getting it processed by Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software into electronic form.

Gloria Balsley, Secretary to the Mount St Mary’s Psychology Department at the time, supervised the work of student aides in carrying out the mechanics of photocopying and OCR scanning.

Melinda Hatcher and Joanne Moses were the Mount St Marys students who assisted Ms Balsley with copying and scanning.

These NCAS members proofread and spell-checked the electronic text, comparing it with the photocopied pages. Each processed about 150 pages of material, adding internal flags to items that needed attention when the HTML coding started. Several members of this group also did the HTML coding of their own sections, and/or assisted in coding particularly troublesome segments of other sections:

  • Jim Hebblethwaite

  • John Pezzullo, PhD

  • John Varela

  • Lynne Francis

  • Jonathan Boswell, PhD

  • Mary Pastel Anderson

  • ZoAnn Lapinsky

  • Tom Kirby

Mike Koller joined the group after work was underway; he helped with scanning of the photographic plates, and with re-scanning pages that had been skipped the first time around.

Marvin Zelkowitz oversees the NCAS web page, and made sure that the files were uploaded properly.

Grace Denman was president of NCAS when the project got underway; both Grace and her successor, Paul Jaffe have supported the work enthusiastically.

I did the spell-checking and proofing of the report’s index, and carried out the final round of HTML coding on all sections. The final design implemented in that code owes much to the suggestions of Bob Keefer, Jonathan Boswell, and John Pezzullo.

 

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Dedicated To The Work and Achievements
of PHILIP J. KLASS
Engineer, Journalist, Author, Investigator
Founding Member of NCAS

Phil’s tireless work in support of rationality and critical thinking has earned him the admiration and respect of all who share his vision. With this dedication, we in NCAS express our gratitude for his continuing efforts.

 

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