Project U.F.O.

This series was based on Project Blue Book, and one of the former officers assigned to Blue Book was actually a technical adviser to the show.

The problem, of course, is that today, we know that Blue Book was an attempt at Public Relations by the USAF to show that they had a handle on this UFO thing when they really didn't, and that they frequently used the most ludicrous explanations for sightings they could think of. Usually, an officer who was assigned to Blue Book was someone who was at a career dead end, and the Air Force was happy to get out of the whole thing in 1969.

The problem with Jack Webb's concept is that he tried to treat it like one of his cop shows, but still create a little action. So you'd have this elaborate special effects sequence setting up the story, followed by some "prosaic explanation" (as famous UFO Debunker Phil Klass used to say) as to what they actually saw. OH, that was swamp gas? Really?

To be absolutely fair, they were right. 95% of UFO sightings can be explained as something that was misidentified by people. Still, that didn't make for very good drama. The Air Force even cooperated in this series, hoping it would be good PR, but it was anything but.

Author kjq45 from United States, a fan of Jack Webb's "Project UFO", writes that "Some Universal Studios personnel claim this series never existed." I was a guest star on "Project UFO" under what was then my stage name, Christie Wagner, and I can assure that it definitely existed.

I wonder if the Air Force behind the scenes contributed to taking the show off the air? After all, on the 50th anniversary of Roswell, New Mexico's alleged extraterrestrial craft and personnel sighting and interaction, the Air Force issued a long disclaimer in the media that it was only a "weather balloon" which crashed with "dummies" inside it.

If the space alien phenomenon really didn't happen then it's a non-issue so why issue a disclaimer half a century later? That disclaimer alone, some would believe, confirms that it really did happen.

Christie Wagner

I remember this show, particularly one episode which ended with the two agents at the top of some observation tower with a large white UFO floating away from them. As I recall the FX were actually OK, and the whole thing had quite a cool Close Encounters-type feel to it. Certainly a predecessor to the X-Files, Sci-Fi channel or somebody could re-run this and cash in.

I always kind of felt sorry for Jack Webb, he created a cultural icon like Dragnet, first as a sensational radio series and then in two long running tv shows. How could he possibly top that? He spent the rest of his life trying to top Dragnet and couldn't do it. Project UFO was his last series before his death in 1982. Webb brought the same approach to this show that he used with Dragnet. He believed that viewers wanted realism and "just the facts". He used actual material from the files of "Project Blue Book". This was the study the United States Air Force did about unidentified flying objects and the reports of people who claimed they saw one. The study revealed that most of these reports were people being mistaken about what they saw or hoaxes. BUT there were about 10% of the case that COULD NOT be explained. These were the cases that interested Mister Webb and he brought them to life in this fascinating series that was cancelled far too soon. The two actors who were the investigating Air Force Officers were like Friday and Gannon in Dragnet, only they were investigating an "out of this world" mystery. The one I remember most was a young actor named Caskey Swaim. He had never really acted before and landed a starring role in this show. He did an amazing job as did Edward Winter. Do you believe in UFO's or life on other planets? If you did or not, this series was really interesting and entertaining. I wish they would put it back in syndication. One case I wish that they would have profiled was a case in Austrailia in 1978, interestingly this case happened when this series was on the air. It involved a young pilot named Frederick Vallentich who was flying a private plane over Bass Strait. He disappeared without a trace and no trace of him or his aircraft was ever found. Shortly before, he had radioed that he was being followed by a UFO and then he said that it was right on top of him! The ground controllers heard a strange metallic grinding sound and then silence! Vallentich's father said that he believed that his son had been abducted by aliens from another planet.

When I was a kid watching this show. I always remembered it titled as "Project Blue Book" NOT "Project U.F.O." Is it just me or am I going completely mad? Maybe since they used the word "Project Blue Book" in the series so much that I just remember the show being called that. Any thoughts from anyone on this?