United States: Air Force plays down UFO interest, announces spectrograph tower cameras
On December 8, 1953, Air Force spokesmen played down the service's interest in UFOs, explaining most sightings as balloons, meteors, Venus or radar effects, and described a plan for diffraction-grid cameras in airport control towers.
Background
On December 8, 1953, the US Air Force publicly downplayed its interest in UFOs, suggesting that most sightings were explainable as weather balloons, meteors and Venus, and radar reports as temperature inversions, “ionized clouds” and ground reflections. Project Blue Book was not mentioned; the Air Technical Information Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base was credited with “regular investigations of reports of flying saucers.” Air Force spokesmen described a plan to install special cameras with a diffraction grid in airport control towers to serve as a makeshift spectrometer for identifying unknown lights. The plan went back to a 1952 suggestion by physicist Joseph Kaplan for the green fireballs, and cameras were said to be in place already in Washington, D.C., California and Texas. The Baltimore Sun reported the statements. The account follows the entry in George M. Eberhart's chronology UFOs and Intelligence (CUFOS) and the sources cited there; it is not an independent determination by From Beyond Space.