From: jan@cyberzone.net (Jan Aldrich)
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 11:37:59 -0800
Fwd Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 02:51:35 -0500
Subject: Re: Newspaper Research

The other day I mentioned brief some aspects of archival research.  No
 one has a really has a good idea of how much ufo data exists.

 Ruppelt estimated that the Air Force only got 10% of the sightings.  I
have constantly seen this number used and re-used in arguments.  Based
on the 1952 wave Ruppelt's estimate is 4 time too high.  The USAF clipping
service for Arpil to September 1952 turned up about 60,000 no duplicated
items according to Strentz study.  The USAF, itself, had a total of 1500
reports for 1952 or 2.5% of the total in their clipping service which while
the Service was extensive; it was not exhaustive and did not cover the whole
year.

 We estimate that there have easily been over 1,000,000 news items carried
in the North American press over the past 50 years.  (2 items per year x
11,000 newspaper x fifty years.)

 We know that there are concentrations of reports in time.  These
 concentrations may vary from place to place.  In North American we have
 identified many of these major concentrations or flaps as we call them.

 So we can check Jun-Jul 1947, Mar-Apr 1950, Apr-Oct 1952, Nov 1957,
 Apr-May 1964, etc., etc.  Of course there are local concentrations at
 other times, southern New England Aug 1956, or times when the press
 decided it was alright to print stories for a short time around the
 Chile-Whitted sighting in July 1948.

For years a number of us have queitly researched old newspapers, visited
newspaper offices, and copied other researchers' collections and tried to
preserve these data.  We have used the significant newspaper collections
at Harvard and Yale to augment this effort.

Basically the newspapers during each wave are exaimed, item copied and
catalogued.  We also attempt to check references--and there are plenty.
The Fortean Society made long lists of ufo sightings by date and location
only.  The same is almost true for publications like INFINITY.  Some
newspapers have indices:  London Times, Le Monde, the San Francisco
newspapers, the excellent 1947-50 index to the Baltimore Sun newspapers,
the British Columbian Legistlative Library index, etc., etc.  Many
newspapers still have clipping files.  Additional libraries have vertical
or clipping files on different subjects.

Some people, God bless them, have gone through every issue of certain
newspapers: W. Ritchie Benedict and Michel Deschamps, for instance.  Some
newspapers have extreme extensive clipping files: THE WINNIPEG TRIBUNE.
Here are checks so we don't just get bogged down in the waves, but sample
the whole last 50 years.  Clipping services are also helpful in this
material.  Almost from the beginning, there were individuals or
organizations that had clipping services from time to time.

I understand that the UFOCAT has over 100,000 entries.  However, since it
is bibliographical--that is each publication that mentions a ufo report
gets an entry line--, the amount of duplication is large.

Project 1947 has checked 4900 newspapers world wide.  The amount of
clippings is mind boggling.  Barry Greenwood's clipping collection
contains about 170 notebooks of about 200 pages each with 3-5 clipping
per page.  This is well over 100,000 items.  When added to the NICAP/CSI,
Dr. Leon Davidson, and USAF 1952 microfilm clipping collections, we start
to approach 200,000 items a significant sample of the estimated total.
CUFOS with the NICAP, CSI-LA, CSI-NY Hynek and other organizations files
has probably the biggest collection in North America.

When the AF contracted the Battelle for their computer analysis, they
should have used two sets of data, the USAF files and the clipping
service files.   I am quite sure the results would have different and
interesting.

I still believe something can be done with this rawest of raw data.  In
the meantime the collection effort continues.

Jan Aldrich, Project 1947