A very well researched and calm discussion of this topic:
https://www.amazon.com/UFOs-National-Security-State-Chronology/dp/1571743170
https://www.amazon.com/UFOs-National-Security-State-1973-1991/dp/0967799511/
MJ 12, which later led to Blue Book, was never formed to prove the existence, but to prove they might not exist so they could be written off.
Although at first fearful that the objects might be Soviet secret weapons, the Air Force soon concluded that UFOs were real but easily explained and not extraordinary. The Air Force report found that almost all sightings stemmed from one or more of three causes: mass hysteria and hallucination, hoax, or misinterpretation of known objects. Nevertheless, the report recommended continued military intelligence control over the investigation of all sightings and did not rule out the possibility of extraterrestrial phenomena. Just tried to smoke them out of sight.
Project GRUDGE was the first effort in trying to dissuade the public to be concerned about them. They never said they weren’t there when they couldn’t blame it on weather balloons or swamp gas. They just broke into a commercial for Reese’s Pieces in the middle of the report to take the listener off track. Then they went back to their regular scheduled program after the BULLetin.
wy69
Rational review of a sighting.