1960–1969 · 7 events in the archive
The decade Project Blue Book ends. The Air Force commissioned the University of Colorado UFO Project — the 'Condon Report' — in 1966 to provide the scientific cover for closing Blue Book. The report was delivered in January 1969 and Blue Book was terminated on 17 December 1969.
Anchor cases of the 1960s include the 24 April 1964 Socorro landing-trace case (police officer Lonnie Zamora's first-person report), the September 1965 Exeter, New Hampshire incident, the 1966 Westall school encounter in Australia, and the August 1967 Cussac case in France — a case that GEIPAN's predecessor Bureau d'Enquêtes considered formally unexplained.
The CIA's institutional role in the decade is most legible in the 1953 Robertson Panel's downstream effects — but the 1966 release of a redacted version of the panel's report (under FOIA pressure from amateur researcher Donald Keyhoe) is itself part of the 1960s record.
Why this matters. The Condon Report's recommendation against further USAF UFO study, and Blue Book's closure on 17 December 1969, opened the institutional gap that would persist until AATIP in 2007. The 1960s is when the modern public record narrows.
Anchor moments
7 entries · sorted newest first
Five NASA-archived photographs (VM1–VM5) and the Apollo 12 mission transcript released as part of PURSUE Release 01 (May 2026). The first public release of these specific images.
NASA technical crew debriefing transcript from Apollo 11 (July 1969), released by the Department of War as part of PURSUE Release 01. Contains crew references to in-flight observations of unidentified objects.
U.S. Information Agency policy paper considering whether UFO phenomena required structured national-defense preparation. A rare late-Cold-War USIA contribution to the UAP question.
More than two hundred students and staff at Westall High School in suburban Melbourne report observing a low, disc-shaped object descend behind a stand of pine trees, then ascend rapidly. The case is widely cited as Australia's most-witnessed UAP event.
December 1965 NASA Gemini 7 air-to-ground transcripts in which crew Frank Borman and Jim Lovell report tracking an unidentified 'bogey' in orbit. Released by the Department of War in PURSUE Release 01.
A New Hampshire teenager and two Exeter, New Hampshire, police officers report a large, silent, brightly lit object hovering at low altitude over a residential field. The Air Force initially attributes the sighting to a high-altitude refueling mission, then revises the case to 'unidentified.'
Two State Department files from the SP series (Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs / Office of Special Political Affairs), dated July 1963, addressing UAP-related diplomatic correspondence.
Other decades