After December 1958, there was an attempt to transfer Blue Book to some other Air Force agency, specially, the Secretary of the Air Force, Office of Information (SAFOI).
On April 1, 1960, in a letter to Major General Dougher at the Pentagon, A. Francis Archer, a scientific advisor to Blue Book commented on a memo written by Colonel Evans, a ranking officer at ATIC. Archer said, "[I] have tried to get Bluebook out of ATIC for ten years… and do not agree that the loss of prestige to be a disadvantage."
In 1962, Lieutenant Colonel Robert Friend, who at one time headed Blue Book, wrote to his headquarters that the project should be handed over to a civilian agency that would word its report in such a way as to allow the Air Force to drop the study. At the same time, Edward Trapnell, an assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force, when talking to Dr. Robert Calkins of the Brookings Institution, said pretty much the same thing. Find a civilian committee to study the problem, then have them conclude it the way the Air Force wanted it. One of the stipulations was that this organization, no matter what it was, had to say some positive things about the Air Force handling of the UFO investigations.
Other government officials suggested closing Blue Book but realized that the public would have to be "educated to accept the closing." By 1966, the Air Force managed to get Blue Book press releases by SAFOI. Letters to the public no longer carried the prestigious ATIC or Foreign Technology Division letterhead but only the stamp of the Office of Information.
The major stumbling block was a new wave of sightings that were getting national attention. First, New Mexico police officer Lonnie Zamora reported an egg-shaped object on the ground near Socorro. He reported seeing two beings near it, and when it took off, it left landing gear markings and burned vegetation.
The public interest in UFOs began to rise. Network television paid attention and several prestigious magazines began to treat the subject with a little respect. Air Force explanation seemed tired, and even the most superficial investigations revealed flaws in their solutions. When Hynek, after hearing the sightings in Michigan in 1966 might be swamp gas, all credibility was lost.
Something had to be done because of the growing publicity. The Air Force was in a hole and no one was listening to its tired explanations. Someone decided that it was time for an independent study of the phenomena. The outgrowth of this was the Condon Committee, organized at the University of Colorado and funded by more than half a million dollars of taxpayer money funneled through the Air Force.
Scientific director of the project, the man who received the Air Force grant, was Dr. Edward U. Condon, who was a professor of Physics and Astrophysics, and a Fellow of the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics at the University of Colorado. As a career scientist, Condon had the sort of prestige the Air Force wanted.
As noted by the documentation that appeared after the declassification of the Project Blue Book files, and as noted here, the formation of the Condon Committee was part of an already existing plan. Find a university to study the problem (flying saucers) and then conclude it the way the Air Force wanted it concluded.
Jacques Vallee, writing about the Condon Committee in Dimensions, said "As early as 1967, members of the Condon Committee were privately approaching their scientific colleagues on other campuses, asking them how they would react if the committee's final report to the Air Force were to recommend closing down Project Blue Book." This tends to confirm the real mission of Condon was not to study the phenomenon but to study ways to end Air Force involvement in it.
Dr. Michael Swords has spent the last several years studying the history of the Condon Committee and confirms the view that the Air Force used Condon. But Condon was a willing participant in the deception. According to a letter discovered by Swords and written by Lieutenant Colonel Robert Hippler to Condon, the plan was laid out in no uncertain terms. Hippler told Condon that no one knew of any extraterrestrial visitation and therefore, there "has been no visitation."
Hippler also pointed out that Condon "must consider" the cost of the investigations of UFOs and to "determine if the taxpayer should support this" for the next ten years. Hippler warned that it would be another decade before another independent study could be mounted that might end the Air Force UFO project.
Condon understood what Hippler was trying to tell him. Three days later in Corning, New York; Condon, in a lecture to scientists including those members of the Corning Section of the American Chemical Society and the Corning Glass Works Chapter of Sigma XI, told them, "It is my inclination right now to recommend that the government get out of this business. My attitude right now is that there is nothing in it. But I am not supposed to reach a conclusion for another year."
Robert Low responded to Hippler's letter a day or so after Condon's Corning talk, telling him that they, the committee, are very happy that now know what they are supposed to do. Low wrote, "…you indicate what you believe the Air Force wants of us, and I am very glad to have your opinion." Low pointed out that Hippler had answered the questions about the study "quite directly."
In 1969, the Condon Committee released their findings. As had all of those who had passed before them, the Condon Committee found that UFOs posed no threat to the security of the United States. Edward U. Condon in Section I, Recommendations and Conclusions, wrote, "The history of the past 21 years has repeatedly led Air Force officers to the conclusion that none of the things seen, or thought to have been seen, which pass by the name UFO reports, constituted any hazard or threat to national security."
After suggesting that such a finding was "out of our province" to study, and if they did find any such evidence, they would pass it on to the Air Force, Condon wrote, "We know of no reason to question the finding of the Air Force that the whole class of UFO reports so far considered does not pose a defense problem."
Included in the Recommendations, was the idea that "It is our impression that the defense function could be performed within the framework established for intelligence and surveillance operations without the continuance of a special unit such as Project Blue Book, but this is a question for defense specialists rather than research scientists."
That seems to have taken care of most of the requirements. Condon had confirmed that national security wasn't an issue, had said some positive things about Air Force handling of the UFO phenomenon, and had recommended the end of Project Blue Book. He had done his job.
Finally, Condon wrote, "It has been contended that the subject has been shrouded in official secrecy. We conclude otherwise. We have no evidence of secrecy concerning UFO reports. What has been miscalled secrecy has been no more than an intelligent policy of delay in releasing data so that the public does not become confused by premature publication of incomplete studies or reports."
It is impossible to understand how Condon could write those words after being handed a stack of Blue Book files stamped secret that had been held by the Air Force for more than a decade. It is impossible to understand this, when, there was documentation that proves secrecy on the part of the Air Force. It was in 1969, before the official end of the Condon Committee, that Brigadier General C. H. Bolender wrote, "Moreover, reports of unidentified flying objects which could affect national security are made in accordance with JANAP 146 or Air Force Manual 55–11, and are not part of the Blue Book system."
In other words, documentation existed to support the claim there was secrecy. While a case can be made that the regulations and the secrecy are warranted by the circumstances, it can also be argued that the secrecy did exist, contrary to what Condon wrote.
What this does, is demonstrate that the Condon Committee was not an unbiased scientific study of UFOs, but a carefully designed project that had a single objective. End public Air Force involvement in the UFO phenomenon. After all, according the Hippler, should the taxpayers fund another ten years of UFO research?