Ruppelt, 'The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects'
Memoir by Captain Edward Ruppelt, the first head of Project Blue Book, describing the Air Force's UFO investigations from the inside.
1956 CE · 39.82, -84.05 · status: account
The account
Ruppelt, who is credited with coining the term 'unidentified flying object', describes the internal fights between officers who favoured the interplanetary hypothesis and those who wanted to debunk, and covers the 1952 Lubbock Lights and Washington D.C. radar-visual flap. It remains one of the most-cited insider sources because its author ran the program and was candid about both good cases and sloppy investigation.
The sceptical view
Ruppelt was writing from memory after leaving the service, and a revised 1960 edition took a more dismissive tone; critics on both sides cite whichever version suits them.
Connections in the atlas
- Lubbock Lights
- Edward J. Ruppelt
- The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects
- Mantell incident
- Washington D.C. flap
- Project Blue Book closes