ng up the telephone, we could get the details about the flight
of any other research balloon or regularly scheduled weather balloon
in the United States. The location of aircraft in an area where a UFO
had been reported was usually checked by the intelligence officer who
made the report, but we double-checked his findings by requesting the
location of flights from CAA and military air bases. Astronomical
almanacs and journals, star charts, and data that we got from
observatories furnished us with clues to UFO's that might be
astronomical bodies. All of our investigations in this category of
report were double-checked by Project Bear's astronomer.

Then we had our newspaper clipping file, which gave us many clues.
Hydrographic bulletins and Notams (notices to airmen), published by
the government, sometimes gave us other clues. Every six hours we
received a complete set of weather data. A dozen or more other
sources of data that might shed some light on a reported UFO were
continually being studied.

To get all this information on balloons, aircraft, astronomical
bodies, and what have you, I had to co-ordinate Project Blue Book's
operational plan with the Air Force's Air Weather Service, Flight
Service, Research and Development Command, and Air Defense Command
with the Navy's Office of Naval Research, and the aerology branch of
the Bureau of Aeronautics; and with the Civil Aeronautics
Administration, Bureau of Standards, several astronomical
observatories, and our own Project Bear. Our entire operational plan
was similar to a Model A Ford I had while I was in high school--just
about the time you would get one part working, another part would
break down.

When a report came through our screening process and still had the
"Unknown" tag on it, it went to the MO file, where we checked its
characteristics against other reports. For example, on May 25 we had
a report from Randolph AFB, Texas. It went through the screening
process and came out "Unknown"; it wasn't a balloon, airplane, or
astronomical body. So then it went to the MO file. It was a flock of
ducks reflecting the city lights. We knew that the Texas UFO's were
ducks because our MO file showed that we had an identical report from
Moorhead, Minnesota, and the UFO's at Moorhead were ducks.

Radar reports that came into Blue Book went to the radar specialists
of ATIC's electronics branch.

Sifting through reams of data in search of the answers to the many
reports