The Mid-Sixties Wave
The wave that broke the Air Force. Blackout-night sightings over the Northeast (1965), the Exeter close encounters, police chases in Ohio, a schoolyard mass sighting in Melbourne (Westall), and a documented 'crash-dive'…
- Region
- United States (nationwide), with strong echoes in South America and Australia
- Approx. reports
- Blue Book logged 887 reports in 1965, 1,112 in 1966, 937 in 1967 — its last great surge
Historical context
The wave that broke the Air Force. Blackout-night sightings over the Northeast (1965), the Exeter close encounters, police chases in Ohio, a schoolyard mass sighting in Melbourne (Westall), and a documented 'crash-dive' into Nova Scotia waters (Shag Harbour, Canada's premier case). Hynek's 'swamp gas' quip for Michigan 1966 backfired into national ridicule of the Air Force, congressman Gerald Ford demanded hearings, and the result was the Condon Committee (1966-68) — whose negative conclusion closed Blue Book in 1969.
Skeptical note
Condon's staff explained most cases to its own satisfaction; a third of its case studies nonetheless ended 'unexplained', a fact critics of the report never let die.
Anchor cases
- exeter-1965
- kecksburg-1965
- valensole-1965
- westall-1966
- portage-county-1966
- michigan-swamp-gas-1966
- shag-harbour-1967
- cussac-1967
- betty-andreasson-1967
- schirmer-ashland-1967