Many, perhaps most, of the documents are marked by physical redactions: black bars designed to obscure certain words, phrases, and sections. The documents have been declassified for a long time because declassification posed no general danger. But even declassified government papers may contain information that, even many years later, should not be released. In 1995, an executive order established the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel (ISCAP), to codify classification systems of government documents and provide redaction codes (justification and reasoning) for removal of information “contained in records under 25 years old”; and “contained in records over 25 years old.”
Redaction codes pertinent to older documents provide for protection of intelligence sources; removal of information useful for the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction; information that could compromise the security and efficacy of cryptologic systems and weapons systems; information posing potential harm to the president and vice president; information likely to embarrass or harm foreign governments; information whose release is in defiance of international treaties or other official agreements; removal of tactical and operational details of U.S. war plans with application to present-day plans; and information related to U.S. plans for civil defense.
Redacted portions of Blue Book documents appear to relate mainly to changes from CONFIDENTIAL to DECLASSIFIED. Names, addresses, telephone numbers, and other personal information about long-ago witnesses are left intact.
Particularly intriguing redactions suggest investigators’ willingness to alter their initial findings. MISC-PBB2-339, for example, has a black bar redacting what was a few words, or a brief sentence in the “Conclusion” box of a 1965 report. Immediately below, handwritten in capital letters, is this: “UNIDENTIFIED.”
Of course, information that is not redacted is generally far more illuminating than what has been excised. The summary page of Blue Book’s further investigation (1956) of the 1947 Kenneth Arnold sighting (document MAXW- PBB2-750), for instance, practically vibrates with official disinterest, reading: The report cannot bear even superficial examination, therefore, must be disregarded. There are strong indications that this report and its attendant publicity is largely responsible for subsequent reports [made by others].
Another page from the Arnold document, MAXW-PBB2-756, has no typescript, only mathematical computations scribbled by UFOlogist/USAF consultant J. Allen Hynek—computations that led Hynek to declare Arnold’s statements about the objects’ speed and size “mutually contradictory.” So although Blue Book’s Arnold documents bring no revelations, and no firm evidence of cover-up, we nevertheless begin to grasp that even in its early days, Blue Book moved beyond the objectively scientific and into issues of culture and opinion.
The USAF closed Project Blue Book because 1) the project had not demonstrated that unidentified flying objects posed a threat to the United States, and 2) Blue Book had outlived its usefulness as a public relations tool designed to assuage American unease about “flying saucers.” As we’ve seen in chapter nine, interludes of conscientious work done by Blue Book uncovered many spurious accounts, and many innocent misapprehensions. Good investigation also confirmed incidents that defied understanding. But in the end, of course, the pretense of the government’s willingness to pursue the facts was allowed to dissolve. Blue Book went away.