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By the 1960s, UFOs had become impossible to ignore as a cultural phenomenon. But culture was not the same thing as science. The stories were everywhere. The evidence was much harder to find. Governments had investigated thousands of reports. Witnesses continued to describe strange objects. Books and films continued to popularise the subject. Yet there was still no universally accepted physical evidence demonstrating that extraterrestrial spacecraft had visited Earth. This created a fundamental challenge. If UFOs were genuinely advanced vehicles from another world, where was the evidence? Scientists wanted measurements. They wanted physical material. They wanted photographs that could be independently verified. They wanted multiple instruments recording the same event. Most importantly, they wanted data that could be tested by other researchers. Eyewitness testimony was useful. It could identify something worth investigating. But testimony alone could not establish the nature of an unknown object. This was not because witnesses were necessarily dishonest. It was because human observation has limitations. Scientists therefore began looking at the UFO question from a different direction. Instead of asking whether aliens existed, they asked whether UFO reports contained measurable evidence of something unusual. That was a much more manageable question. The distinction mattered. Extraterrestrial life is a scientific possibility. The universe contains an enormous number of stars. Many stars have planets. Some planets may have conditions suitable for life. But none of those facts demonstrate that extraterrestrial beings have visited Earth. The scientific challenge was to bridge that enormous gap. In the United States, pressure was growing for a more independent investigation. Critics argued that the Air Force was not the right organisation to settle a scientific question. The military's priority was national security. Scientists wanted to know whether the observations represented a genuinely new phenomenon. In 1966, a major wave of UFO reports in Michigan intensified the debate. People reported strange lights and objects. The Air Force investigated. One explanation involved swamp gas reflecting light under unusual conditions. The explanation became famous because it was widely mocked. The incident demonstrated another problem. Even when investigators offered a conventional explanation, the public might not accept it. If the explanation sounded unusual, it could appear less believable than the original mystery. The controversy contributed to calls for a more independent scientific review. Congressman Gerald Ford, who would later become President of the United States, called for a congressional investigation of the Michigan sightings. The Air Force eventually agreed to a major scientific study. The University of Colorado was selected. Physicist Edward U. Condon was appointed to lead the project. The resulting investigation became known as the Condon Committee. It operated from 1966 to 1968. The committee examined a large number of UFO cases. Researchers attempted to analyse reports using scientific methods. They examined photographs. They interviewed witnesses. They reviewed radar information. They studied possible astronomical and atmospheric explanations. The project was controversial almost from the beginning. Some members of the UFO community believed the committee had already decided that UFOs were unimportant. Others argued that the project was genuinely attempting to evaluate the evidence. The final report concluded that there was no compelling evidence that UFOs represented extraterrestrial vehicles. It also concluded that further extensive study of UFOs was unlikely to produce major scientific advances. The report became one of the most important documents in the history of official UFO research. For the United States government, it provided justification for reducing official investigation. Project Blue Book was eventually closed in 1969. The era of major United States government UFO investigation had come to an end. But the mystery itself did not disappear. In fact, closing Project