The Robertson Panel was a committee
commissioned by the Central Intelligence Agency in 1952 in responses to
widespread Unidentified Flying Object reports, especially in the
Washington DC area. The panel was briefed on U.S. military activities
and intelligence, hence the report was originally classified Secret.
Later declassified, the Robertson Panel's
report concluded that most UFO reports could be explained as
misidentification of mundane aerial objects, and the remaining minority
could, in all likelihood, be similarly explained with further study.
The Robertson Panel concluded that a
public relations campaign should be undertaken in order to "debunk"
UFOs, and reduce public interest in the subject, and that civial UFO
groups should be monitored. There is evidence this was carried out more
than two decades after the Panel's conclusion.
Critics (including a few panel members)
would later lament the Robertson Panel's role in making UFO's a
somewhat disreputable field of study.
In 1952, so many civilians contacted
various government agencies regarding UFO reports that daily
governmental duties were impacted; the New York Times reported on
August 1, 1952 that the many UFO reports had "regular intelligence work
has been affected." Various newspapers, such as the Baltimore Sun,
Washington Star, Denver Post, and Los Angeles Times, reported on July
31 that Air Force Chief of Staff Hoyt S. Vandenberg’s views that the
recent spate of UFO sightings and reports had generated “mass
hysteria”. [1] There was a general concern among the military that the
hysteria and confusion generated by UFO reports could be utilized by
the United States’ enemies, primarily the Soviet Union.
The Air Force had earlier commissioned the Battelle Memorial Institute to scientifically study the various UFO reports collected by Project Sign, Project Grudge and Project Blue Book, but Battelle insisted they needed more time to conduct a proper study. The CIA thought the question so pressing that they authorized an ad hoc committee in late 1952.
The ‘’’Robertson Panel’’ first met formally on January 14, 1953 under the direction of Howard Percy Robertson. He was a physicist, a CIA employee and director of the Defense Department Weapons Evaluation Group.
Other panel members were respected
scientists and military personnel who had worked on other classified
military projects or studies. All were then skeptical of UFO reports,
though to varying degrees:
Louis Alvarez, physicist (and later, a Nobel Prize winner)
Frederick C. Durant, missile expert
Samuel A. Goudsmit, Brookhaven National Laboratories physicist
Thornton Page, astrophysicist, deputy director of Johns Hopkins’ Operations Research Office.
Lloyd Berkner, physicist and J. Allen Hynek, astronomer, were associate panel members.
The Panel had four consecutive days of formal meetings.
The first day, they viewed two amateur
motion pictures of UFO’s: the 1950 Montana UFO Film and 1952 Utah UFO
Film (the latter was taken by Navy Chief Petty Officer Delbert C.
Newhouse, who had extensive experience with aerial photography). Two
Navy photograph and film analysts (Lieutenants R.S. Neasham and Harry
Woo) then reported their conclusions: the two films depicted objects
that were not any known aircraft, creature or weather phenomena. Air
Force Captain Edward J. Ruppelt then began a summary of Air Force
efforts regarding UFO studies.
The second day, Ruppelt finished his
presentation. Hynek then discussed the Battelle study, and the panel
discussed with Air Force personnel the problems inherent in monitoring
UFO sightings. (For more on the results of the Battelle study, see
Project Blue Book)
The third day, Dewey J. Fournet spoke to
the panel; for over a year he had coordinated UFO affairs for The
Pentagon. Fournett supported the extraterrestrial hypothesis as the
best explanation for some puzzling UFO reports. For the remainder of
the third day, the panel discussed their conclusions, and Robertson
agreed to draft a preliminary report.
The fourth and final day, the panel rewrote and finalized their report.
The Robertson Panel's official report
concluded that 90 percent of UFO sightings could be readily identified
with meteorological, astronomical, or natural phenomena, and that the
remaining 10 percent of UFO reports could, in all likelyhood, be
similarly explained with detailed study. It was suggested that
witnesses had misidentified bright stars and planets, meteors, auroras,
mirages, atmospheric temperature inversions, and lenticular clouds;
other sightings were judged as likely misinterpretation of conventional
aircraft, weather balloons, birds, searchlights, kites, and other
phenomena.
Furthermore, the Panel suggested the Air
Force should begin a "debunking" effort to reduce "public gullibility"
and demystify UFO reports. The panel suggested a public relations
campaign, using psychiatrists, astronomers and assorted celebrities to
significantly reduce public interest in UFO’s. It was also recommended
that the mass media be used for the debunking, including influential
media giants like Walt Disney Corporation.
Their formal recommendation stated "That
the national security agencies take immediate steps to strip the
Unidentified Flying Objects of the special status they have been given
and the aura of mystery they have unfortunately acquired.
Also recommended was that the government
monitor civilian groups studying or researching UFO’s "because of their
potentially great influence on mass thinking ... the apparent
irresponsibility and possible use of such groups for subversive
purposes should be kept in mind.'
The Robertson Panel’s conclusions and
recommendations had a great influence on official United States policy
regarding UFO’s for many decades.
The Robertson Panel’s study was classified
for five years. In 1956, however, Ruppelt made the first public
statements regarding the panel, when he offered a brief summary of its
proceedings. Ruppelt did not, however, note the panel members’ names,
nor the government agencies represented.
