http://www.virtuallystrange.net/ufo/update...v/m16-013.shtmlFrom: William Wise <will.nul>
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 15:01:57 -0500
Fwd Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 08:37:19 -0500
Subject: Uncensored Project Blue Book Microfilm Released
Blue Book Archive Newsletter - 15 Nov 2005
Uncensored Project Blue Book Microfilm Released
* First 10 Rolls of Uncensored Blue Book Microfilm Released
* Zoom, Rotate, and Invert Images Using the Image Viewer
* Upcoming Improvements and Microfilm Releases
* Blue Book Archive Gets a Logo
* Contact Information and How To Subscribe & Unsubscribe
First 10 Rolls Of Uncensored Blue Book Microfilm Released
When Project Blue Book was terminated in January 1970 its files
were transferred to Maxwell Air Force Base (AFB) where they were
made available upon request for public viewing until 1975. In
1975 these documents were microfilmed by the Air Force for
internal use and then transferred to the National Archives
(NARA) for eventual public release. Before microfilming these
documents again for public release, however, the Air Force
blacked out witness names and contact information in accord with
its policy of protecting the privacy of witnesses. This was done
despite the fact that the files had been available for copying
and inspection by the public for many years without such
deletions. In 1998 a set of the original unredacted Air Force
microfilm was discovered at the National Archives and a copy was
obtained by the Fund for UFO Research. In addition to witness
names and information, it has been confirmed that these rolls
contain some pages that are not on the standard NARA Project
Blue Book microfilm rolls.
Thanks to the efforts of the Fund for UFO Research and the Blue
Book Archive the first ten rolls of uncensored "Maxwell" NARA
microfilm are now available to researchers free of charge via
the Blue Book Archive's Web site. These rolls include reports
investigated from the beginning of Project Sign in 1947 through
to the middle of June, 1952. They also contain a number of
Project Sign, Grudge, and Blue Book reports including the
Project Twinkle and Project Stork reports as well as Project
Blue Book Special Report No. 14. Famous cases covered by these
rolls include many cases discussed by Edward Ruppelt in his book
"The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects" including:
* The Lubbock Lights
* The Fort Monmouth Radar Case
* The Mariana Film
* The Chiles-Whitted Sighting
* The Gorman Case
As always, the microfilm document scans hosted at our Web
site are searchable within the limits afforded by current OCR
technology. Navigate to the URL below to browse the new Maxwell
microfilm collection.
http://www.bluebookarchive.org/browse.aspx?Tab=5In addition to on-line access, the NARA-Maxwell microfilm scans
are also available for purchase at the Blue Book Archive's
secure e-store. The document scans from each roll of
NARA-Maxwell microfilm are provided on DVD in both PDF and TIFF
format for only $14.95 USD plus shipping and handling.
Please note that due to the relative historical importance of
the NARA-Maxwell collection the decision was made to re-scan the
microfilm in grayscale which dramatically increased the size of
the resulting scans but provided greatly improved legibility.
Also necessitating the use of grayscale scanning is the fact
that the Maxwell microfilm is only available as 16mm microfilm
as opposed to the higher-quality 35mm microfilm generally
available from the National Archives. As a result of this
decision the NARA-Maxwell scans are only available on higher-
capacity DVD media and the cost of each roll is $14.95 instead
of the usual $9.95 for scans sold on CD media.
Zoom, Rotate, And Invert Images Using The Image Viewer
As many researchers know, the quality and legibility of
microfilm reproductions varies greatly from frame to frame and
from roll to roll. To aid researchers trying to tease out
additional legibility from faded, light-blasted, or otherwise
poorly photographed documents we've added a new Image Viewer
component that allows users to zoom, rotate, and invert images.
In addition, we now use a high-quality bicubic resampling method
to create the thumbnail and screen format page representations
further increasing legibility even when simply browsing through
document collections. Less noticeable improvements and bug fixes
have also been made "under the hood".
To access the Image Viewer from any page within the archive
look for the link labeled "View in Image Viewer" in the upper
right-hand portion of the screen or just click the page image
itself.
Upcoming Improvements And Microfilm Releases
Upcoming Microfilm Releases
Within the next few weeks we will be releasing NARA-Maxwell Roll
11 which includes reports from the famous Washington D.C.
"Summer of the Saucers" sighting wave. As we have moved from
automated roll scanning to a manual process you will notice yet
another marked improvement in the quality of our microfilm
scans. In addition, Project Sign Roll 7 and another roll from
our "Other Official Microfilm" collection will also be available
in the coming weeks, both thanks to the continuing generosity of
Jan Aldrich from Project 1947.
Improvements In Ocr Technology To Yield Better Search Results
The Blue Book Archive recently acquired the latest version of
Abbyy's market leading OCR (Optical Character Recognition)
software, FineReader 8.0. Based on our testing the advertised
10-30% improvement in recognition accuracy is a fair assessment
of the improvement we're likely to see when the new software is
used to reprocess existing Archive content. In the next few
weeks researchers should begin to notice better search results
thanks to the application of this new software to existing
Archive content.
The Blue Book Archive Gets A Logo
Since the archive first opened its virtual doors in January 2005
we've been looking for an attractive logo to help users identify
Archive content and to display on various promotional items to
help fund the addition of new content and features. While the
promotional items are still a month or two away from being
available we thought we'd share the new Blue Book Archive logo
with you now. To view the new Blue Book Archive logo navigate to
the following URL...and please let us know what you think!
http://www.bluebookarchive.org/documentation/notify2.aspx 