Project Identification: Ufology's Red-Headed Stepchild

“Unbiased, disinterested physical scientists usually measure the properties of inanimate matter. Biological, medical, and behavioral scientists, on the other hand, study intelligences less than or equal to their own. In this Project, we dealt with an intelligence equal to or greater than that of man. We interacted with the phenomenon under study.”

~ Dr. Harley Rutledge, Chairman of the Physics Department, SE Missouri State University

Hardcore skeptics are well-known to loudly ask for scientific proof of the anomalous nature of UFOs. Heck, we ALL want that. Which surprises me that the following 7-year study gets so little mention.

Project Identification came about in response to the Piedmont, Missouri flap that spanned the late 60's to about the mid 70's and encompassed literally hundreds of sightings. An article on the flap itself from the St. Joseph News-Press March 21, 1973:

UFO Seen by Many at Piedmont

An excellent article by Dr. Greg Little on Project Identification asks a very good question:

Why Do Ufologists Largely Ignore the Most Scientific Field Study of UFOs Ever Conducted?

First lets meet the man responsible for the study, Dr. Harley Rutledge:

In 1966, Harley Rutledge completed his Ph.D. in solid state physics at the University of Missouri. He subsequently took the position of Professor and Chairman of the Physics Department at Southeast Missouri State University. He was Department Chairman from 1964 to 1982 and retired from teaching in 1992.

en.wikipedia.org...

After some initial inquiries Dr. Rutledge--a skeptic at the time--signed SEMO astronomer Milton Ueleke and physicist Dr. Sidney Hodges onto the project and got busy designing the study framework:

Challenged to explain sightings of unidentified lights and luminous phenomena in the sky around Piedmont, Missouri, Dr. Harley Rutledge decided to subject these reports to scientific analysis. He put together a team of observers with college training in the physical sciences, including a large array of equipment: RF spectrum analyzers, Questar telescopes, low-high frequency audio detectors, electromagnetic frequency analyzer, cameras, and a galvanometer to measure variations in the Earth's gravitational field.

The resulting Project Identification commenced in April 1973, logging several hundred hours of observation time. This was the first UFO scientific field study, able to monitor the phenomena in real-time, enabling Rutledge to calculate the objects' actual velocity, course, position, distance, and size.

en.wikipedia.org...

One aspect of the teams findings is especially interesting to me and is also consistent with the reports of hundreds--if not thousands--of "layman" sightings:

Observation of the unclouded night sky often revealed "pseudostars" - stationary lights camouflaged by familiar constellations. Some objects appeared to mimic the appearance of known aircraft; others violated the laws of physics. The most startling discovery was that on at least 32 recorded occasions, the movement of the lights synchronized with actions of the observers.

They appeared to respond to a light being switched on and off, and to verbal or radio messages. The final results of this project were documented in the 1981 book, Project Identification: The first Scientific Study of UFO Phenomena.

en.wikipedia.org...

Here's the first two paragraphs of the book that related the findings of the study as related by Bob Soetebier

In late February and March 1973, strange events were being
reported in the area of Piedmont, Missouri. For example, there
were reports that cars had become stalled on highways when a
light had flown nearby or when a light had beamed down from
above. Usually, the car radio ceased to function, too.
Interference with television signals was reported not only in
the Piedmont area but in nearby towns as well. After the picture
had become scrambled and the sound garbled, people would step
outside and see a silent ball of light come floating over;
sometimes the yard lights went out, too.

On one occasion, the police radio system stopped working.
According to Dennis Hovis, manager of radio station KPWB, the
transmitter was "knocked out" the same night. Hovis and others
had seen a lighted object pass directly over the radio
transmitter tower. On another occasion, a man reported that he
not only lost his television signal, but that his lights dimmed
and his house shook. Stepping outside, he saw an egg-shaped
object hovering nearby that emitted a high-pitched sound. His
dogs had to run away to hide. There were other reports of lights
that made erratic turns, or went off when aircraft approached.
There were even reports of flying saucers, of objects sitting on
the ground in fields, and of objects moving underwater in
Clearwater Lake. Clearly, "the Piedmont UFO," as Hovis termed it
on his newscast, had arrived.

ufoupdateslist.com...

In the article by Dr. Little he relates that:

While he was generally noncommittal on the nature of the UFOs his team recorded, Rutledge did relate that the discs and lights observed in the daylight by the teams were plasmas. In his summary he wrote, "The plasma balls seen in daylight certainly suggest remote control."

www.mysterious-america.net...

More on Project Identification including some fascinating news reports from the time can be found here:

Project Identification

The Book:

Project Identification: The First Scientific Field Study of Ufo Phenomena

reply to post by The GUT
Interesting as always Gut!

When it speaks of the plasma balls of light seeming to be under remote control do you think it was meant as possible human remote control, other worldly remote control or some sort of telekinetic control by either human, alien or perhaps spiritual entities? I know, probably a stupid question, but I had to ask!

reply to post by The GUT


Hey T.G another interesting thread mate
I must admit this is new to me as I haven't come across Project Identification before but as you've brought it up I will delve into the links provided .... Cheers .

Thanks for the "new" material!

I am definitely gonna dive into this later today.

The time and location ate intriguing to me. I am down the road in Ar Kansas and there was quite a flap occuring here and just to the north of us in McDonald county, Missouri at the same time.

Very interesting!

reply to post by The GUT


Howdy GUT!

Can I ask you what your interpretation of these events are? Do you think this wave had a nuts and bolts element to it, or is it all likely to be the plasma bugs?

Kewl! Always fun to be made aware of a new book on one of my obsession topics!

Funny that this one has been so hidden from view, was it because he really didn't come to any conclusions or ?

For what it's worth I think those 'plasma orb' designations are a way to describe the crafts in their powered-up state; if you're going to have to up both your power and your frequencies to enable supraluminal speeds, looking different from solid-state would be a given. Our eyes aren't designed for these light frequencies. I think David Sereda explains it nicely, but you have to be willing to suspend judgement and listen to his theories for a while to get the gist of it.

Originally posted by littled16
reply to post by The GUT

 

Interesting as always Gut!

When it speaks of the plasma balls of light seeming to be under remote control do you think it was meant as possible human remote control, other worldly remote control or some sort of telekinetic control by either human, alien or perhaps spiritual entities? I know, probably a stupid question, but I had to ask!

That's a great question. You know I dig your mind. For me, it actually IS the exact question. Not so much that we can determine what Project Identification saw, but all those possibilities you mention.

I want to make it clear that I hold it reasonable to believe that in the mega-vast and probably infinite cosmos, there should be intelligent life out there.

However, if I include close-encounter reports and the classic alien abduction in the mix, then I have to more closely consider some variation of Dr. Vallee's observations of the phenomena and it's relationship to us long before 1947.

I think many of us share the same thought basic thoughts about the enigma. That being that there are three very possible explanations though we will vary in how we personally rank them:

1.) The phenomena stems from some deep subconscious mechanisms Possibly for complex societal reasons.

2.) We are indeed being visited by intelligent beings from deep space.

3.) Some variation of the extra-inter-ultra dimensional concept.

My ordering these last few years is 3, 2, 1.

I know those aren't the only three and properties in one category above dosn't exclude themselves from any other category---a mix of all the above.

HEY, look at all the other compelling observations and great questions below that suggest possible answers! The kinds of a questions that are clues, if'n that makes sense. Dr. Vallee has that ability, too, I believe.

Thank you so much for your excellent thoughts.

reply to post by The GUT
Thanks for the reply! Most of the time I lean toward the inter/extra dimensional theory, but it always leads to even MORE questions! I start wondering whether or not it's physical/spacial dimensions, dimensions of time, spiritual dimensions or some sort of dimension that we haven't yet fathomed- you see my quandary? Where's that legendary "Hall of Records" when you need it?

Originally posted by gortex
reply to post by The GUT

 

Hey T.G another interesting thread mate

I must admit this is new to me as I haven't come across Project Identification before but as you've brought it up I will delve into the links provided .... Cheers .

When we need to touch the ground, it's you, mate, that is so often our greatest ally. And yet you have a remarkably open mind. I hope what you read motivates you enough to give us your thoughts on the study's strength and weaknesses.

We know that studies can be tricky to pull off without mistakes in technique and assumption. I think the reason, along with signalfire's that the study doesn't seem to come to much of a conclusion, that Project Identification is probably the red-headed stepchild because of those exact healthy fears.

On the other hand, this was an ambitious approach and seemingly detailed enough to suggest some observational accuracy. Always good to see you my man.

Originally posted by JayinAR
reply to post by The GUT

 

Howdy GUT!

Can I ask you what your interpretation of these events are? Do you think this wave had a nuts and bolts element to it, or is it all likely to be the plasma bugs?

Man, some quality folk are showing up on this thread! As far as your question, I'll answer it with a Q & A I heard many years ago where Michael Spinks the boxer was asked the question:

Interviewer: Michael, in your professional opinion, who is gonna win this fight?

*Spinks looks up in his head for an answer, puts his hand on his chest and says*

Michael Spinks: In my professional opinion? I don't know.

It was funny and yet...whho can say more than that LOL!

signalfire makes such a fine argument above that the plasmas, in this instance, could go either way: A native plasma intelligence or a plasma-encased ship of either alien or earthly govt origin.

I'm really having fun trying to figure it all out though. So glad you are here.

reply to post by The GUT



Spinks sounds like a smart man!

I dunno about the field as a whole, but I suspect we can get an answer for this case. I need to do some digging once I am finished "working" in a couple hours.

Thanks for the reply.

Originally posted by signalfire
...For what it's worth I think those 'plasma orb' designations are a way to describe the crafts in their powered-up state; if you're going to have to up both your power and your frequencies to enable supraluminal speeds, looking different from solid-state would be a given. Our eyes aren't designed for these light frequencies...

Very interesting and a compelling addition to our ufological quandry.

I'll have to be fair and considerate in taking that excellent possibility into consideration as I rethink it against my own up-close sighting: A high-moon size perfect orb that pusalted in and out of sight over 2-3 seconds. On "full pulse" it looked like a fiery globe of sloshy liquid metal rushing in in a clockwise motion. As it faded from from full pulse to nothing, this "liquid metal seemed to suck back up into nothingness in a counter-clockwise motion.

I had finally decided that--more than anything--it looked alive! However, as I said, I'll research your concept a bit. Either Erno or Stirling mentioned something somewhere about how a craft could very possibly appear as if it were a plasmic ball of some sort, too.

I will tell you why Project Identification was not discussed all that much nor continues to be a text which is often referenced; it is because it put to much distance between beliefs and reality that the die hard believers founds bitter tasting.

Contemporary writers whom look to take a more academic approach to Ufology or the paranormal, regardless of how disproving their results are, leave room for the mystery and the possibility of the unknown.

I have noticed this trend in modern academia in which to hold the public's attention beyond a flashy head line is to spice things up a bit, dare i say make a show of your research. Grant it, this is the fundamentals of being a good communicator, but there are critics that being overly concerned with presentation distracts from the hard research, but i digress.

To reiterate, the hardline position Rutledge took on his research made it unappealing to public at large.

Of course this is all just my opinion.

Nice thread T.G. Good researching.

As you noted, the probability of ET life visiting Earth definitely exists. And the probability of ET life visiting Earth clearly increases as the number of civilizations increases.

There could be billions, or even hundreds of billions of civilizations in the Milky Way Galaxy. Assuming that 20-30 percent have reached the capability of interstellar travel, there could be millions or even billions of civilizations visiting the many planets of the galaxy. Even with so many planets in the galaxy, the likelihood of at least one of those civilizations to visit Earth would be modest, but not small.

But then again, there could be no aliens whatsoever, and we're really being visited by top secret craft, or just balloons, and RC planes.

The thought hits me that since the book is out of print and somewhat hard to come by, if there might not be a PDF copy of Project Identification available anywhere, ahem.

From reading the linked articles it seems obvious that Prof. Rutledge had a passion for the project and the sincere desire to get the info out there and to hopefully shame the government--or encourage other trailblazers--into upping the ante and doing it on a bigger scale.

Also, to his credit, this man went out and did it. None of the ufo organizations have achieved such a feat. Rutledge was also apparently very successful at getting the project rather impressively funded by giving lectures and appearing in media relating details of the study as they went along.

We need more folk like that.

Originally posted by JayinAR
I dunno about the field as a whole, but I suspect we can get an answer for this case.

Mebbe so! Here's an interesting section from Dr. Greg Little's article. While the phenomena was mostly reported in "ball of light" terms, some of the witness reports--separate from the study--did report "craft" when viewed up close.

In the region around Piedmont, Missouri (about 75-miles west of Cape Girardeau) literally hundreds of people were seeing odd, multi-colored lights darting around in the sky, popping on and off, changing colors and shape, and instantly changing directions. Ufologists with the ET belief system tend to ignore most anomalous "night-light" reports, but none of the mainstream ufologists dug deep enough to understand the more intriguing aspects of the reports from this area. But many people also reported these lights came close to their homes and when closely viewed, they looked like "craft," sometimes saucer-shaped.

Small balls of glowing and pulsating light were observed to move over towns, farms, homes, roads, police stations, and even tv and radio stations. Transmitter towers were knocked off line by many of these events, including at least one police radio tower. Many reports of scrambled reception of radio and television signals were made.

Dr. Little follows the paragraph above with a rather interesting piece of news that also might go a ways in explaining another aspect of why this study is seldom referenced:

Several newspaper reporters actually witnessed many of the events leading to a brief visit by Dr. J. Allen Hynek in March 1973. Hynek himself saw nothing in the sky in his brief stay but interviewed several "excited people" leading him to conclude that the "power of suggestion" was at work and that the cases were "uninteresting stuff."

Hynek left almost as soon as he arrived and just before the most impressive reports and photos were made. The oddest reports were never investigated by Hynek and he never went to the area where the current activity was taking place. Hynek did however, mention that one report, made by Coach Reggie Bone and 5 players on his high school basketball team, was inexplicable. That case was a pivotal report leading to Project Identification.
www.mysterious-america.net...

An odd case that Coach and basketball team story. Even odder that Dr. Hynek wouldn't find this flap interesting. It seems to have so many elements that he liked and promised some high-strangeness of which he was, by this time, increasingly interested in.

reply to post by The GUT


Very cool!
I have just finished work and am about to settle in with the links you provided in the OP. However, I wanted to do a little digging first. I am curious if this wave is directly related to the McDonald County wave I mentioned earlier. The reports seem almost identical. Hundreds of people being witness to the events, wooded areas of Missouri. Most people report seeing balls of light in both cases, but in both cases there are also scattered reports of people seeing craft. The McDonald County wave took place February through April of '77.

If these two events are indeed linked there is little doubt that this is a nuts and bolts operation. For instance:

THE SINGLE most important UFO sighting occurred on April 3 in the daylight. It involved a landing of sorts and provided some physical evidence.

Mrs. Raymond Stucker of Ellsinore traveling down Highway 60 at about noon "saw this thing in the air off to the side of the road," she told IUFOB investigators. ". . . It looked like something I never saw before. It was round, with the exception of a dome on top . . . three . . . one on top of the other. (*Hewes explains that this means the object had three Pyramiding domes on top, each one smaller than the one below It.) It appeared to have a dull band or something going around the center. The bottom had something like a tripod landing gear.

"The object was hovering just above treetop level off to the right of the road . . . There is a possibility that it came up from the ground and stopped right above the trees."

She said the UFO was silent and appeared to be made of aluminum.

The above is an excerpt from an article done on the Piedmont wave and can be read in it's entirety below. (good article)

members.tripod.com...

reply to post by The GUT


Yeah, Hynek only spoke with 8 people, out of hundreds, and was only in Piedmont for 24 hours. Said the source of photos was lens flare.

reply to post by The GUT
It makes me wonder why Hynek didn't investigate more thoroughly. It seems like this would have been his sort of "dream case". By the time the Piedmont situation was going on it was an open secret that Hynek was more on board with the "something is out there" crowd than the "it's all explainable" crowd. Perhaps he was told to make an appearance and leave, or maybe he knew something that the rest of us will never know. Very intriguing!

reply to post by littled16


He may have been very busy.
By this time there was a LOT going on in the UFO world.
An interesting project would be to track all of the waves occuring in the US and even around the world from '67 to '77.
In my opinion this decade was the most active recorded history for mass sightings and prolonged flaps.