Finally, I asked him if he believed that UFOs existed. The major smiled, thought for a few seconds, and said, "OK, but this is off the record. You can't use it." I agreed, put my pen away, and he continued.
"I'm a Catholic. I believe in God, and I believe that God created this universe. It seems to me that one would have to be extremely arrogant and close-minded to think that we are the only intelligent beings out here in this great big universe."
Lt. Col. Quintanilla later retired. In 1975, he wrote a memoir that documented his experience with Project "BlueBook" and his personal beliefs about UFOs. It wasn't published until after his death in 1998."
-Harley Campbell
Project Blue Book:
Blue Book, the final more or less public U.S. Air Force UFO investigation took over from Project Grudge in 1952 and lasted until December 1969. By this time, almost 13,000 sighting reports had been collected by all three projects combined. Approximately 600-700 cases remained unexplained (depending on which Air Force statistics are accepted). However, it is notable that hundreds of other cases have been labeled as explained without adequate justification and often in ways counter to known facts. Thousands of reports received conditional explanations (e.g., "possible balloon"; "probable aircraft"). But when the annual statistics were compiled, the qualifiers were dropped and "possible balloons" would become definite balloons, as if speculative answers were established facts.
The project was closed down in late 1969, concluding that the continuation of Project Blue Book "cannot be justified, either on the ground of national security or in the interest of science... A panel of the National Academy of Sciences concurred in these views, and the Air Force has found no reason to question this conclusion."
The memorandum recommending this action made it clear that the system which had long dealt with "reports of UFOs which could affect national security would continue to be handled through the standard Air Force procedures designed for this purpose," namely as it had all along - separately, "not part of the Blue Book system and in accordance with JANAP 146 or Air Force Manual 55-11."
146 After the end of Project Blue Book, its case files were opened to public inspection at the Air Force Archives.
They were withdrawn in 1974, to reappear in 1976 in the U.S. National Archives, after the names of all witnesses had been censored, thus preventing the reinvestigation of cases until the names were later republished by ufologists.
