AFR 200-2, July 1962: The Air Force's Blue Book-Era UFO Regulation

What this record is

Air Force Regulation 200-2 was the Air Force’s standing order on unidentified flying objects from 1953 until Project Blue Book closed in 1969. It was reissued several times, and much of the UFO literature quotes the August 1954 edition, the one that gave field investigations to the 4602d Air Intelligence Service Squadron. This file holds a later edition. Its last line on page 3 of the PDF states that it “supersedes AFR 200-2, 14 September 1959, as amended”, and both the 1964 change and the Air University supplement bound with it refer to it as “AFR 200-2, 20 July 1962”. The date line at the top of the regulation is garbled in the scan, but that cross-reference fixes it as the edition of 20 July 1962.

The PDF has 14 pages and three separate documents. Pages 3 to 9 are the regulation itself, seven printed pages issued by order of the Secretary of the Air Force over the name of the Chief of Staff, General Curtis E. LeMay, with Colonel R. J. Pugh, Director of Administrative Services, as authenticating official. Page 11 is Change AFR 200-2A, dated March 1964 (the day is blurred, but reads most plausibly as the 30th). Page 13 is Air University Supplement 1, issued at Maxwell AFB, Alabama, on 7 September 1962. Page 1 is a routing sheet addressed to the archives branch of the Aerospace Studies Institute at Maxwell, and the even-numbered pages are blank. The regulation was unclassified, with distribution “S”. Every page of it concerns UFOs.

What it says about UFOs

The preamble on page 3 of the PDF puts the subject squarely inside air defence. It says the regulation establishes “the UFO Program to investigate and analyze UFO’s over the United States” and ties the program to “identification”, the second of four phases of air defence: detection, identification, interception and destruction. All commanders were to comply strictly.

Section A defines terms. Familiar objects include aircraft, balloons, kites, birds, searchlights, astronomical bodies, pilotless aircraft, missiles and “satellites in orbit”. Aircraft of unknown type or origin, usually air defence identification zone violations, were Air Defense Command’s business and were not to be reported as UFOs. Nor were flares, jet exhausts, contrails, or blinking lights near airports and airways. A UFO is defined as any aerial phenomenon or airborne object that is unknown or appears out of the ordinary to the observer because of performance, aerodynamic characteristics or unusual features.

Paragraph 2 (pages 3–4 of the PDF) gives the Air Force’s interest as “three-fold”: as a possible threat to security, to determine the technical or scientific characteristics of any UFOs, and to explain or identify all sightings. Under the second heading it lists the need to track new foreign air vehicles, the possibility of revolutionary foreign configurations or propulsion, and the scientific value UFO study might have for geophysics, astronomy and upper-atmosphere physics. The third heading is blunt: Air Force activities “must reduce the percentage of unidentifieds to the minimum”. The text says analysis had explained all but a few sightings, and suggests the rest could probably have been explained with better data, but concedes that because analysis depends on observers’ impressions rather than controlled measurement, eliminating all unidentifieds is improbable.

Responsibilities follow on pages 4 and 5. The commander of the Air Force base nearest a sighting was to carry out the initial investigation and make every effort to resolve it. Analysis was assigned to the Foreign Technology Division (FTD) of Air Force Systems Command at Wright-Patterson AFB, and investigators could telephone FTD directly with high-priority findings. FTD would write a final report on each sighting and send a copy to Headquarters USAF. The Office of Information in the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force handled releases and public correspondence, and the Office of Legislative Liaison answered Congress. Paragraph 4 is a short manual of investigative technique: interview the witness and weigh age, occupation and education; take theodolite readings; check with radar units, weather forecasters, astronomers, control towers and the Federal Aviation Agency; ask about experimental aircraft and missile tests; use photographic units; choose investigators with scientific or technical backgrounds where possible.

Section B (pages 5–6 of the PDF) is about information control. Only the Office of Information could release UFO information to the public. A base commander could answer local inquiries only after a sighting had been positively identified as a familiar object. If it had not, the only permitted statement was that it was under investigation. Air Force personnel other than information officers were not to contact private individuals about UFO cases or discuss their work with unauthorised persons. Section C (pages 6–9) sets out the report format: the word “UFO” at the start of every message, electrical reports with “Priority” precedence for sightings less than three days old, and the same checklist of shape, size, colour, course, manner of observation, time, location, witnesses, weather and possible explanations. It adds detailed instructions for photographs, motion pictures, radarscope film and physical material. Evidence was to be marked for FTD’s Aerial Phenomena Branch, and original photographs submitted by the public were to be returned after study.

The 1964 change on page 11 of the PDF narrowed and loosened the rules. FTD would now forward its final reports to headquarters only when they contained information of significant intelligence value. Designated investigators, as well as information officers, could now contact private individuals. Late reports were to go by letter rather than on AF Form 112. The Air University supplement on page 13 made the Air University Command Post the collecting point for sightings in the Maxwell and Gunter areas, listed its telephone number and directed that anyone who arrived at the base gates to report a sighting be escorted by the Air Police to the command post duty officer.

Comparing this text with the well-known 1954 edition (signed by General Nathan Twining and dated 12 August 1954) shows several clear changes in the wording on these pages. The 1954 edition used the term “UFOB”, while this one uses “UFO” throughout. The 1954 definition covered objects that did not conform to any known aircraft or missile type; the 1962 definition is framed around what “appears out of the ordinary to the observer”. The 1954 edition called Air Force interest “twofold”, security and technical aspects, while this one adds a third aim of explaining every sighting and a new paragraph on reducing the percentage of unidentifieds. In 1954, Air Defense Command’s 4602d AISS investigated and ATIC analysed; here the nearest base commander investigates and AFSC’s Foreign Technology Division analyses, and neither ADC’s squadron nor ATIC is mentioned. The 1962 text adds sections on public relations, congressional inquiries and personal contacts, and mentions satellites and the Federal Aviation Agency. Some of these changes may have first appeared in the 1959 edition, which this one replaced, but the 1959 text is not in this file. Much else carries over, including the fixed size-comparison list and the rule that a base could speak to the press only after positive identification. The regulation never uses the name “Project Blue Book”.

Context

By 1962 Project Blue Book was a small office inside FTD at Wright-Patterson, and this regulation shows how the Air Force’s approach had moved since the Robertson Panel of 1953: investigation was pushed down to ordinary base commanders, analysis set explicit targets for reducing unknowns, and public comment was held tightly by the information office. The Blue Book fact sheet of February 1966, in the file for Ira Eaker’s 1966 column, lists AFR 200-2 as an internal document not available to the public. For the regulation’s 1953 counterpart at command level, see Alaskan Air Command Regulation 200-5. AFR 200-2 remained in force until the program ended with the closure of Blue Book in 1969.

Status

A regulation records what an organisation told its people to do, not what they did. This one is often cited by critics as evidence that the Air Force was more interested in managing the UFO subject than studying it, and the text supports parts of that reading: the stated goal of reducing unidentifieds, the one-office control of information and the ban on staff talking to the public. It also supports the Air Force’s own account, with its detailed checklist for investigators, its call for scientifically trained investigators and its admission that some cases would never be explained. What the file adds is a clean, complete copy of the 1962 text together with the 1964 change and a local supplement, which shows how the rules were applied at a single base.

Sources

• National Archives catalog entry: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/659965404
• PDF of the record: https://catalog.archives.gov/medialz/electronic-records/rg-615/656595571/00472798_Air_Force_Regulation_No._200-2.pdf
• Series: Records from the Department of the Air Force Relating to Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/656595571
• National Archives, Record Group 615 UAP records: https://www.archives.gov/research/topics/uaps/rg-615
• AFR 200-2, 12 August 1954 edition (for comparison), Wikisource: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Air_Force_Regulation_200-2,_Unidentified_Flying_Objects_Reporting