Blue Book Project: Mandates and Activities
A Grudge recommendation that was not shared with the public was that copies of the December 27, 1949, report be put on the reading list of U.S. military personnel studying psychological warfare. The intelligence community was apprehensive about Soviet exploitation of American fears of UFOs, and keen to devise ways to combat it. Increased UFO activity two years later spurred interest in psychological warfare: if Washington was to have a firm grasp of possible Soviet mischief, Washington had to have the best possible understanding of unidentified flying objects.
Capt. Edward J. Ruppelt, formerly of Air Technical Intelligence Center, Air Force, at Wright-Patterson AFB, headed Project Blue Book from September 1951 to September 1953. His tenure was marked by what NICAP described as “the great UFO sighting wave of summer 1952” (some of those sightings are described later in this chapter), and a largely successful effort to rectify the sins of the past. New sightings interested Blue Book, but Ruppelt also directed project energy to fresh study of UFO reports from 1947 to the establishment of Blue Book—reports that had been investigated inadequately by Sign and Grudge.
Ruppelt’s instincts and intentions were good, but as soon as Blue Book reports suggested that UFOs might encompass more than Soviet activity, the Air Force —which had never desired that point of view—grew wary of Blue Book.
