3. A panel of military and civilian experts in all branches of science and technology.
4. The scientific and technical laboratories (photographic, ballistic, chemical, etc.) of all branches of the Air Force and of other government agencies.
5. The meteorological records of the United States Weather Bureau, the United States Coast Guard, and other government agencies.
6. Commercial laboratories under contract to carry out special work.
With the best scientific resources of the nation available, the Air Force can make sure that a puzzling UFO phenomenon will undergo study by an expert. Reports involving radar sightings are analyzed by the research scientists who know most about the behavior of radar. If satellites or astronomical objects might be involved, astronomers study the evidence. If the report includes photographs or physical evidence, experts provide the appropriate laboratory analysis. If a UFO still proves difficult to explain, the complete facts are laid before a panel of experts for discussion. When a sighting has been completely analyzed, the conclusions—known or unknown—are filed with the record of the case. If the newspapers have publicized the incident, a summary of the analysis is given to SAFIS (Office of Information Services, Office of the Secretary of the Air Force) for release to the press.
In the early years of the flying-saucer saga, almost none of the men assigned to investigate UFOs had any special training in the optical and astronomical sciences or in investigative techniques. Since the specific facts of so many cases were classified, civilian scientists who might have helped explain the UFO puzzles were not able to get the necessary information. Unsurprisingly, the percentage of unexplained cases sometimes reached as high as 5 to 10 per cent, and once reached the staggering peak of 20 per cent! In recent years the techniques of collection, investigation, and analysis of the facts have greatly improved. Air Force investigators not only have excellent training, they also have a solid body of experience behind them. In later reviews they have found the answers to many, but not to all, of the backlog of “Unknown” cases which, if reported today, would probably cause no problem. Some of the old cases will probably never be solved because the men in charge at the time did not always know what questions to ask. Essential information was not obtained and can never be obtained now.
The Air Force never closes an unsolved case. Reports that have been listed as Unidentified or Insufficient Evidence are reanalyzed when new evidence becomes available. Occasionally new evidence produces a more complete or even a different explanation for a case that was previously considered probably solved.
Statistical summaries of the UFO sightings for each month and for each period of six months are forwarded to SAFIS for release. In recent years ATIC has been receiving fewer than 600 reports per year and solving about 98 per cent. In 1961, 578 UFOs were reported. Of those in which all the necessary information was available, all but thirteen—about two per cent—were completely explained.
Believers in flying saucers tend to ignore the 98 per cent of cases fully explained by the Air Force, and to focus attention on the 2 per cent that remain puzzling. Yet no distinguishable difference exists between the types of observation described in solved and in unsolved cases. From considering the original reports, the competence of the witnesses, and the appearance and movements of the various UFOs, no analyst could predict in advance which will be fully accounted for and which will not. The witnesses (often technically trained observers or experienced airmen) in the cases that are solved are just as reliable as—and no less so than—the witnesses in the unexplained cases. They report the same classes of phenomena—glowing UFOs, hovering UFOs, UFOs moving at high velocities, making incredible maneuvers, and behaving as though under intelligent control.
The Air Force has accounted for nearly all of these flying saucers. The various causes included aircraft, balloons, satellites, mirages, inversions, hoaxes, delusions, reflections, birds, lenticular clouds, ball lightning, radar anomalies, sundogs, meteors, planets, stars, the Aurora, and other astronomical phenomena. The few remaining cases report similar observations and undoubtedly have one of these causes—which cannot be proved because some essential fact is missing. No data in these unsolved cases suggest that the UFOs had an interplanetary origin or that they constituted a threat to the security of the United States.