Saucers Over Washington

On July 19, 1952, air traffic controllers at Washington National Airport spotted several radar "blips" over Washington, DC. In addition, an airline pilot reported a fast-moving bright light. These series of multiple sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) were documented in a later comic strip. 

The comic strip gives an insight into the growing interest in UFOs during the 1950s. This craze was further fuelled by the Cold War tensions between the US and the USSR. The Federal Government established Project Blue Book in 1952 to collect and evaluate UFO data. Project Blue Book was actually the third in a series of studies on UFOs conducted by the Air Force, preceded by Project Sign (1947–49) and Project Grudge (1949–52).

The primary purpose of Project Blue Book was to keep track of reports of UFO sightings. Although officials most often were confident that the objects were simply known objects they could not 100-percent identify, they did not rule out the possibility of extraterrestrial phenomena. This omission led some members of the public to believe UFOs were signs of extraterrestrial life. As a result, civilians made tens of thousands of reports to Project Blue Book personnel claiming to have seen a UFO.

Upon further inspection, the majority of these reports turned out to be misidentified flying objects, such as a weather balloon or an aircraft. As Cold War tensions were high, the U.S. took defense very seriously and wanted to stave off paranoia that the Soviet Union could launch an unknown air attack.

In 1968, the University of Colorado UFO Project, better known as the Condon Committee, released a report claiming that very little of substance had come from the Air Force’s study of UFOs. The committee argued that continued study of UFO sightings was unwarranted and called for Project Blue Book to be discontinued. The Air Force issued a termination order for the study in December 1969, and all activity officially ceased in January 1970.