MUFOB ARCHIVE/01 Chaos at Colorado
John Harney
Merseyside UFO Bulletin, Volume 1, number 3. May-June, 1968.
More details of the by now notorious troubles of the Condon Committee have recently been published. The May 14th, 1968, issue of the American _Look_ magazine contains an article on the subject by John G. Fuller, entitled ‘Flying Saucer Fiasco.’ It seems that the root of the trouble is the peculiar attitudes adopted by Condon and his project co-ordinator, Robert J. Low.
One particular matter which caused a great row in the project was the discovery by a staff member, while looking through the files, of a memo written by Robert Low, entitled ‘Some Thoughts on the UFO Project.” In this memo Low said:
> “…Our study would be conducted almost exclusively by non-believers who, although they couldn’t possibly prove a negative result, could and probably would add an impressive body of evidence that there is no reality to the observations. 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 non-believers trying their best to be objective, but-having an almost zero expectation of finding a saucer. One way to do this would be to stress investigation, not of the physical phenomena, but rather of the people who do the observing – the psychology and sociology of persons and groups who report seeing UFOs. If the emphasis were put here rather than on examination of the old question of the physical reality of the saucer, I think the scientific community would quickly get the message.
> “There is another reason, it seems to me, to do this. Except possibly in a field like optical meteorology, I can’t imagine a paper coming out of the study that would be publishable in a prestigious physical science journal. I can quite easily imagine, however, that psychologists, sociologists and psychiatrists might well generate scholarly publications as a result of their investigations of the saucer observers. It is premature to have much of an opinion, but I’m inclined to feel at this early stage that, if we set up the thing right and take pains to get the proper people involved and have success in presenting the image we want to present to the scientific community, we could carry the job off to our benefit. At least, it ought not be rejected out of hand.”
Members of the Project were naturally very disturbed by the general tone of this memo and also by public speeches and statements made by Dr Condon which appeared to indicate that his attitude to the study of UFOs was not only biased, but downright frivolous. After a particularly hilarious speech on the “crackpot fringe” of ufology, delivered by Dr Condon at a scientific gathering on September 13th, 1967, Donald Keyhoe announced that NICAP would no longer supply the project with reports and information,.
A public statement by Keyhoe was published in _Look_ alongside Fuller’s article. The first paragraph reads:
> “At first, NICAP was dubious about an Air-Force financed project. After Dr Condon pledged a fair study, we briefed scientists, trained field teams, loaned verified reports by pilots, aerospace engineers and other capable observers. Later, news stories quoted Condon as strongly biased, rejecting all evidence. When we found that barely one half of one percent of NICAP’s cases were investigated (and none by Condon himself), we stopped transmitting. Administrator Low’s disturbing proposals and the firing of Drs Saunders and Levine led to our final break.”
Whatever the outcome of the Colorado Project, it now seems unlikely that much weight will be attached to their findings by anyone with any knowledge of the subject. The misgivings expressed by experienced ufologists when the Project was announced appear to have been well justified.
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