27242. Civilians, Not Military Investigate UFOs

By Linda D. Kozaryn

American Forces Press Service



	WASHINGTON -- Mass suicide in San Diego has rekindled

interest in UFOs, but people should not look to the Pentagon

for answers. The military no longer serves as the nation's

UFO-busters.

	Thirty-nine Heaven's Gate cult members reportedly

believed they were leaving their earthly bodies to reawaken

aboard a UFO traveling in the Hale-Bopp comet's wake. In the

past, investigating UFOs was up to the U.S. Air Force.

From 1947 to 1969, Project Blue Book at Wright-

Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, investigated 12,618

sightings. All but 701 were explained. The reminder were

categorized as "unidentified" because they involved sketchy

reports that could not be nailed down, said Pentagon

spokesman Ken Bacon.

	The public was often skeptical of Air Force

explanations attributing UFO sightings to swamp gas, weather

balloons or other natural phenomena. Pentagon officials

repeatedly denied allegations the military had evidence of

extraterrestrial visits. A 1950s report from Roswell, N.M.,

for example, claimed military officials had recovered alien

corpses from a UFO crash site.

	These allegations simply are not true, Bacon said at a

recent Pentagon press briefing. "We cannot substantiate the

existence of UFOs, and we are not harboring the remains of

UFOs," he said. "I can't be more clear about it than that."

	After investigating UFO reports for more than two

decades, Air Force officials reached three conclusions: No

UFO reported, investigated or evaluated was ever a threat to

national security; none of the unidentified sightings

represented technological developments or principles beyond

the range of modern scientific knowledge; and there was no

evidence unidentified sightings were extraterrestrial

vehicles.

	Finding no national security threat and no evidence of

extraterrestrial visits, Air Force officials terminated

Project Blue Book. "It just was not a good way to use

taxpayers' money," Bacon said. UFO reports are now routed to

private organizations, he said.



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