UFOs - Ted Bloecher-REPORT ON THE UFO WAVE OF 1947 (5)

Section V - - Chronology and References

          Terms, Methods, and Conventions Used

            The 853 cases in this section are arranged in chronological order. The data for each case are presented in nine columns, each containing four items of information, which is specified at the top of each column. Some of these items, or the methods by which they were derived, require an explanation.

            In Column 1, the page numbers listed in the Cross References direct the reader to other parts of the Report (Sections I through IV, or to the Appendix), where the case is described in more detail. For some cases, additional information, or corrected information, was received after the Chronology was finished. Since it was not feasible to revise the Chronology at that point to incorporate the new material, it was included elsewhere, as shown by the Cross References. When such supplementary information about a case is available, the Case Number is followed by a double asterisk (e.g., 233**).

            The category Related Cases refers to either independent reports of the same object(s), to other sightings made by the same witness(es), or to other cases having some special relevance.

            The category AF Explanation refers to the official explanation for a sighting as found in the Air Force files. Since the official reports examined at Project Blue Rook (see Preface) contain only a handful of the cases in the Chronology (approximately 6.5 percent), most cases are marked NIOF (Not In Official Files). The files after July 10 were not examined at Blue Book (except for Case 852), and these cases are marked OFNE (Official Files Not Examined).

            Column 2 pertains to the time and date of the sightings. Since newspaper accounts often fail to mention the exact time of a sighting, a uniform system was worked out to transpose vague time indications into specific hours so that a time sequence could be established. When the exact date of a sighting is not given, the estimated date is shown as "about" (ab) or "not later than" (NLT).

            Regarding the time of sighting, daylight observations could usually be separated from those made at night by internal evidence; a few reports, however, gave no clues whatever to even a general time of day or night, and these cases are situated at the beginning of the listing for the day. A number of general time indications have been mentioned in many cases and these have been given specific times by the following schedule, which involves a possible error of only about two hours either way, except for the "Daytimes" cases, for which a plus or minus factor of about seven hours must be considered.

Time Indicated             Local Standard
In Report                     Time Assignments
---------------------- -------------------------
Daytime                           1:00 p.m.
Early morning                   7:00 a.m.
Morning                         10:00 a.m.
Early afternoon                 1:00 p.m.
Afternoon                         3:00 p.m.
Late afternoon                  5:00 p.m.
Early evening                    6:00 p.m.
Evening                             8:00 p.m.
Night, before midnight     10:00 p.m.

            Although local standard time was uniformly used in making these time assignments, some of the localities involved were actually on Daylight Saving Time in Summer of 1947; this is indicated by showing the Time Zone in parentheses--e.g., (EDT). A map of 1947 time zones and a list of the localities observing Daylight Time will be found in the Appendix, pp. 11, 13. Local time for all sightings was converted into Greenwich Mean Time (GMT); the conversion table is given on page 12 of the Appendix. An asterisk after the GMT (e.g., 0145*) indicates that at the local time of the sighting the next day had begun in Greenwich, England.

            Column 3 contains information about the place of sighting. Canadian provinces are listed under States. Local Area gives the location of the witnesses. Colunm 4 lists names and addresses of witnesses, and column 5 their occupations. Married women were uniformly designated "Housewife," for it was felt, unless a specific profession was mentioned, that this would apply to most of the women witnesses who were married.

            The next three columns give details of appearance and behavior of the objects; these are amplified for many cases in the Cross Reference pages. In the last column, the term Exhaust includes all emissions of smoke, vapor, trails, flames, etc. Traces includes fragments alleged to have come from a UFO, as well as marks left in the physical environment. Effects includes physiological reactions on human beings or animals, electro-magnetic effects, or photographs. (Also, if an object is seen to explode, this is referred to under Effects.) "NR" indicates that the feature was not reported; "None" indicates the known or implied absence of the feature from the report.

Other special abbreviations as used in the Chronology are as follows:

Crk	Creek		Lk	Lake, like
Def	Definite		Lngth	Length
Dir	Direct(ly)		Nr	Near
Engr	Engineer(ing)		Pc	Piece
Gov	Governor		Reflctns	Reflections
Hgt	Height		Sen	Senator
Ident	Identi(fy, ied)		Tms	Times

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