Project Blue Book

The Blue Book Project is an American television series that premiered on January 8, 2019 on the History Channel. The series focuses on a secret US Air Force project to investigate alleged UFO sightings in the 1950s and 1960s. The episodes were based on real cases that were considered in the framework of the project "Blue Book".

A little history. Project "Blue Book", or "Blue Book", is the third (after "Sign" ("Sign", 1947) and "Discontent" ("Grudge", 1949)) of a series of projects for systematic research of reports of unidentified flying objects (UFOs), conducted by the US Air Force in the middle of the XX century. Work on the project began with the order of its establishment in October 1951. Edward Ruppelt was appointed the first project manager. In March 1952, the name of the project was approved. Ruppelt noted the similarity of the cases studied with the tests that are conducted in colleges (known as the "blue book exam"):"both the tests and the project are equally replete with unexplained and confusing questions."

Later, a team of scientists led by Dr. H. P. Robertson, a physicist at the California Institute of Technology, was involved in the project. Other physicists, meteorologists, engineers, and an astronomer (Joseph Allen Hynek) also joined the working group. The project lasted until the end of 1969.

Scientists first met on January 14, 1953, to formulate an official response to the great public interest in UFOs. The most reliable evidence, including video materials collected during all three projects, was reviewed. For 12 hours, scientists studied materials for 6 years, after which they unanimously came to the conclusion that most reports of UFOs have obvious prosaic explanations. The rest can be found in the course of the investigation, but its result, if it is carried out, according to scientists, will not be worth the effort.

Nevertheless, the project was continued. Its objectives were announced as the scientific analysis of UFO reports and the determination of whether UFOs (if they exist) are a threat to national security.

By the time the Blue Book project closed, 12,618 UFO reports had been collected. Most of these reports can be explained by known phenomena (stars. clouds, astronomical phenomena, etc.), as well as flights of reconnaissance aircraft, information about which was classified at that time. After the closure of the project, these reports were archived and are now freely available, although, in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act, the names and other personal data of all witnesses were changed.

According to the results of watching the first season of the series, I would like to note that its plot is devoted more to the confrontation between the United States and the USSR in the Cold War than to the investigation of those real cases on which it is based. Often, articles about these incidents are more interesting and more eventful and detailed than the episodes of the series based on them.

The central idea of the plot remains unclear. None of the mysteries shown in the course of the story is explained: we do not know the nature of the lights in the sky, nor the purpose of the mysterious objects shown, nor the goals of the "men in black" and the generals who lead the "Blue Book" project. The question of the existence of aliens also remains unsolved.

The meaning of the work of the employees of the project "Blue Book" is also not clear. Unlike the real USAF project, which involved dozens of people, only two people work here, and one of them is a civilian. The role of Hynek is very strange: at first, the military is trying their best to lure the scientist into this project, but since the second series they are trying in every possible way to shut him up.

If you add to this the bad special effects and completely unnecessary plot lines of Hynek's wife and Russian spies, the conclusion becomes obvious. The series had a very great potential: it could have become the "X-Files" (with which the "Blue Book" Project is often compared) in the entourage of the 50s, if the authors had turned it into a procedural and paid more attention to the investigation of UFO sightings and related phenomena in the era of the birth of this cultural phenomenon. However, filmed more than 20 years ago, "The X-Files" not only has a more dynamic and logical plot and interesting characters, but also looks better.

The series takes place in the fifties of the last century. Astronomer Joseph Allen Hynek and US Air Force Captain Michael Quinn study the evidence of UFO sightings. In the course of their investigation, they uncover a government plot to hide the truth about UFOs from the US population.