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what I could call 'irrefutable proof."' [20] Dr. Hynek recommended that a congressional UFO scientific board of inquiry set up a mechanism for the proper study of UFOs, "using all methods available to modern science," and that international cooperation be sought through the United Nations. [21] the tumultuous process which eventually produced the Condon committee report, "Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects," released in 1968. The approximately 1,000-page tome begins with the conclusions and recommendations by Condon himself. He declared that further scientific erm . aa down Project Blue Book. Nothing should be done with UFO reports submitted to the federal government from then on, he believed. He wrote that no UFO has posed a national security or defense problem, and that there was no official secrecy concerning UFO reports. Condon's two-page summary of the report, released to the press and public, actually contradicted the findings contained within the body of the volume, which most people did not bother to read. In fact, Condon himself did not participate in the analysis of the carefully researched case studies that made up the bulk of the study, and it appears he also didn't bother to read the finished product. The lengthy study did provide some excellent scientific analysis by other members of the committee, buried among many tedious case analyses of marginal importance which dragged on, page after page. Other key cases were left out altogether. Some reports actually verified the reality of still unsolved and highly perplexing UFO phenomena. For example, investigator William K. Hartman, astronomer from the University of Arizona, researched two extraordinary photographs from McMinnville, Oregon, and stated that "this is one of the few UFO reports in which all factors investigated, geometric, psychological, and physical, appear to be consistent with the assertion that an extraordinary flying object, silvery, metallic, disc-shaped, tens of meters in diameter, and evidently artificial, flew within the sight of two witnesses." [22] Regardless, Condon's summary stated, "Nothing has come from the study of UFOs in the past twenty years that has added to scientific knowledge." And the National Academy of Sciences endorsed Condon's recommendations. "A study of UFOs in general is not a promising way to expand scientific understanding of the phenomena," it concluded seven weeks later. [23] Condon added insult to injury by telling the New York Times that his investigation "was a bunch of damn nonsense” and he was sorry he "got involved in such foolishness." [24] The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) was among those registering objections after its panel spent over a year studying the actual i,ooo-page text of the Condon report. The AIAA stated that Condon's summary did not reflect the report's conclusions but instead Extensive research has been done and books have been written on studv of UFOs was unwarranted and recommended that the Air Force shut