NARA Project Blue Book Research Guide

NARA Collection landing 1940s Official link verified

Summary

AI-assisted summary — not an official document and not authoritative. It condenses the machine-extracted text; the original is the only authoritative source. Generated by summary:claude-opus-4-8@v1; last reviewed 2026-06-02.

The National Archives research guide to Project Blue Book — the U.S. Air Force's UFO investigation (1947–1969). It explains the scope of the records and how to access the digitized Blue Book collection through the National Archives Catalog.

This is the National Archives research guide for Project Blue Book, the U.S. Air Force program that investigated unidentified flying objects between 1947 and 1969. The guide explains the scope of the records and how to access them; the National Archives has digitized the Project Blue Book collection and made it available through its catalog. Over the program's life the Air Force reviewed 12,618 reports, of which 701 remained listed as "unidentified"; it was terminated on December 17, 1969. The archive links to the National Archives research page and does not host the records.

Common questions

What does the National Archives Project Blue Book guide cover?
It explains the scope of the Project Blue Book records and how to access them; the National Archives has digitized the collection and made it available through its catalog.
What was Project Blue Book?
It was the U.S. Air Force's investigation of unidentified flying objects from 1947 to 1969, which reviewed 12,618 reports and listed 701 as unidentified.
Where can the Project Blue Book records be accessed?
Through the National Archives Catalog, where the collection has been digitized; this archive links to the National Archives research page.

Source & Classification

Record metadata

Record type
Collection landing
Decade
1940s
Review status
published
Publication status
published

Official source link

https://www.archives.gov/research/military/air-force/ufos

Documents are linked to official source pages; copyright and license notes are recorded per source. This archive does not embed PDFs or videos.

Topics

Cite this record

National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). "NARA Project Blue Book Research Guide". 1940s. Official source: https://www.archives.gov/research/military/air-force/ufos. Cataloged by the independent UAP Records Archive (not an official or government source): https://uap-archive.org/uap/records/nara-project-blue-book-guide/.

BibTeX

@misc{uaprecords_nara-project-blue-book-guide,
  title  = {NARA Project Blue Book Research Guide},
  author = {National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)},
  year   = {1940s},
  howpublished = {Official source: https://www.archives.gov/research/military/air-force/ufos},
  note   = {Cataloged by the independent UAP Records Archive — not an official or government source},
  url    = {https://uap-archive.org/uap/records/nara-project-blue-book-guide/}
}

Evidence

License note (source-level)

US federal government work, generally public domain under 17 U.S.C. §105 for materials authored by federal employees in the course of their duties. Specific items in the collection may include third-party materials with separate rights; license treatment per item will be assessed before any indexed or monetized release.

Archivist note

NARA’s research guide for Project BLUE BOOK and earlier Air Force UFO record series (including Project SIGN and Project GRUDGE). The page describes the scope of the collection, NARA’s holdings, the case-report counts recorded by the project, and pointers to related finding aids.

Uncertainty / Limits

Archive state (this release)

Record status
Official link verified
Review status
published
Publication status
published
Archive URL
Not archived in U3
Local copy
Not stored in U3
Summary
Not published
Translation
Not published

U3 does not download or locally store source files.

Translation

Translation: not published in this release.

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