Uncensored Project Blue Book Microfilm Released
Blue Book Archive
Newsletter - 15 November 2005
The Blue Book Archive Newsletter
is published irregularly by the Project Blue Book Archive to
announce the release of new microfilm document scans as well as new Web
site features and content. Please see the link at the
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First 10 Rolls of Uncensored
Project Blue Book Microfilm Released
When Project
Blue Book was terminated in January 1970 its files were transferred to
Maxwell Air Force Base (AFB) where they were made available upon
request
for public viewing until 1975. In 1975 these documents were microfilmed
by the Air Force for internal use and then transferred to the National
Archives (NARA) for eventual public release. Before microfilming these
documents again for public release, however, the Air Force blacked out
witness
names and contact information in accord with its policy of
protecting the privacy of witnesses. This was done despite
the fact that the files had been available for copying and inspection
by the public for many years without such deletions. In 1998 a set of
the original unredacted Air Force microfilm was discovered at the
National Archives and a copy was obtained by the Fund for UFO Research.
In addition to witness names and information, it has been confirmed
that these rolls contain some pages that are not on the standard NARA
Project Blue Book microfilm rolls.
Thanks
to
the efforts of the Fund for UFO Research and the Blue Book Archive the
first ten rolls of uncensored "Maxwell" NARA microfilm are now available
to
researchers free of charge via the Blue Book Archive's Web site.
These rolls include reports investigated from the beginning
of Project Sign in 1947 through to the middle of June,
1952. They also contain a number of Project Sign,
Grudge, and Blue Book reports including the Project Twinkle and Project
Stork reports as well as Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14.
Famous cases covered by these rolls include
many cases discussed by Edward Ruppelt in his book "The Report
on
Unidentified Flying Objects" including:
- The
Lubbock Lights
- The Fort
Monmouth Radar Case
- The
Mariana Film
- The
Chiles-Whitted Sighting
- The
Gorman Case
As always, the
microfilm document scans hosted at our Web site are searchable
within the
limits afforded by current OCR technology. Just click the
link below to browse the new Maxwell microfilm collection.
Browse the NARA-Maxwell
Microfilm Collection
In addition
to on-line access, the NARA-Maxwell microfilm scans are also available
for purchase at the Blue Book Archive's secure e-store. The
document scans from each
roll of NARA-Maxwell microfilm are provided on DVD in both PDF
and TIFF format for only $14.95 USD plus shipping and handling. To
purchase these scans for your personal archive (and support the
Blue Book Archive's continuing efforts) just click the
following
link:
Order
NARA-Maxwell DVDs on-line
Please note that due
to the relative
historical importance of the NARA-Maxwell collection the decision was
made to
re-scan the microfilm in grayscale (as opposed to black and white or
"bitonal") which dramatically increased the size of the resulting scans
but provided greatly improved legibility. Also necessitating
the use
of grayscale scanning is the fact that the Maxwell microfilm is only
available as 16mm microfilm as opposed to the higher-quality 35mm
microfilm generally available from the National Archives. As a
result of this decision the NARA-Maxwell scans are only
available on higher-capacity DVD media and the cost of each roll is
$14.95 instead of the usual $9.95 for scans sold on CD media.
Zoom, Rotate, and Invert Images
Using the New Image Viewer
As many researchers
know, the quality and legibility of microfilm reproductions varies
greatly from frame to frame and from roll to roll. To aid
researchers trying to
tease out additional legibility from faded, light-blasted, or
otherwise poorly photographed documents we've added a new Image Viewer
component that allows users to zoom, rotate, and invert images.
In addition, we now use a high-quality bicubic resampling
method to create the thumbnail and screen format page
representations further increasing legibility even when simply browsing
through
document collections. Less noticeable improvements and
bug fixes have also been made "under the hood".
To access the Image Viewer from any page within the archive look for
the link labeled "View in Image Viewer" in the upper right-hand portion
of the screen or just click the page image itself.
Upcoming Improvements and Microfilm Releases
Upcoming Microfilm Releases
Within the next few
weeks we will be releasing NARA-Maxwell Roll 11 which includes reports
from the famous Washington D.C. "Summer of the Saucers" sighting wave.
As we have moved from automated roll scanning to a manual
process you will notice yet another marked improvement in the quality
of our microfilm scans. In addition, Project Sign Roll 7 and
another roll from our "Other Official Microfilm" collection will also
be available in the coming weeks, both thanks to the
continuing generosity of Jan Aldrich from Project 1947.
Improvements in OCR Technology to Yield Better Search Results
The Blue Book Archive
recently acquired the latest version of Abbyy's market leading OCR
(Optical Character Recognition) software, FineReader 8.0.
Based on our testing the advertised 10-30%
improvement in recognition accuracy is a fair assessment of the
improvement we're likely to see when the new software is used to
reprocess existing Archive content. In the next few weeks
reseachers should begin to notice better search results thanks to the
application of this new software to existing Archive content.
The Blue Book Archive Gets a Logo
Since the archive
first opened its virtual doors in January 2005 we've been looking for
an attractive logo to help users
identify Archive content and to display on various promotional items to
help fund the addition of new content and features. While the
promotional items are still a month or two away from being available we
thought we'd share the new Blue Book Archive logo with you now.
If you don't see the logo image below your email client is
probably filtering it from display. In this case,
just click the link below to visit our Web site to take a look.
Contact Information and How To
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