Project Blue Book File on Tremonton Film, Utah, 1952

Text

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UNCLASSIFIED
The Navy report says the objects are:
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a. Self-luminous or light sources
b. Could not be aircraft or balloons
ird is known is reflect enough light to cause the images
shown on the film,
It.can be noted that tbe Na:vy people deduced tbis from tbeir analysis
of the~or the image on each frame. This required about a 11 000
manhours. It was brought out by two astronomers who heard a Navy briefing
on the analysis of the movies that the method used to measure the brightness
of each spot was wrong, therefore, the results of the entire study were wrong.
4. The subject of the release was discussed with Lt Col Johnston and
Col McDuffy and it was decided that the movies would be released without com­
ment as to what they were and hope that no questions were asked about the
Navy report.
This is a "calculated" risk of another big "flap".
5. The other alternative is to quickly get more data on the subject.
Several things can be done and are listed below in the order of how soon they
DOWNGRADED AT o YEAR !NTJ!R
could be accomplished:
DECLASSIFIED AFTER l2
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a. As far as gulls are concerned the big question is, how much
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light will be reflected? Can you see a gull reflecting light and not recog­
nize that it is a gull? To check this it would be necessary to go to a loca­
tion where you have a lot of gulls and bright sunlight and talce movies with
a 3-inch lens. It would be necessary to know how far the gulls were away each
time a movie was taken. At this time of the year florid.a is the only place
where sunshine and gulls can be assured.
b. Using special funds, have General Mills release a group of
pillow balloons arranged in the same sequence as the objects are in the reovies
and measuring the distance at which
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DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 923007