DOW-UAP-D167, Project Capella, December 2008

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to Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies, LLC (BAASS) Project CAPELLA: Towards the development ofa data warehouse in support of research on unusual aerial phenomena and related anomalies San Francisco, orma CAPELLA Data Warehowe page 1

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Project CAPELLA: Towards the development ofa data warehouse in support of research on .unusual aerial phenomena and related anomalies IAAP Person 5 Documatica Research, LLC How this report is organized This report consists of the present overview proposal and three appendices (two of which summarize previously-published work). Together, these four documents describe a consistent methodology for the capture, processing and retrieval of parameters characterizing unusual aerial phenomena and related anomalies. The appendices address three specific implementation areas, describing the technical choices we have made in each area and the reasons for these choices: - A Classification methodology and reliability measures for reported sightings - B. Modeling ofinfonnation categories, including high-strangeness data elements - C. Data Structures and Software Platforms in support ofAerial Phenomena Research Given the tools described hereafter, some of which have already been implemented and tested in prototype form in the course ofprior research, we examine several scenarios for the long­ term acquisition, exploitation and maintenance of a comprehensive data warehousing system that could serve the needs ofa geographically diverse research community with a wide variety ofinformation needs. Historical Background As we undertake this work we are building on a series ofprojects developed by many groups around the world, whose experiences contain important lessons. Over the last half century many researchers, both professional and amateurs, have undertaken to build catalogues (either on paper or in computer readable form) or data bases about the range of phenomena that interest us. • As early as 1953, the U. S. Air Force entrusted the Battelle Memorial Institute with the task of analyzing the reports that Project "Blue Book" had accumulated. Battelle used punched cards for this work, developed a coding system, and produced extensive statistics presented in Blue Book "Report 14." Unfortunately this work was not pursued and the cards were not kept. • Following the Battelle study the Air Force never built a computer catalogue ofProject Blue Book files, but the author and his wife compiled their own version of it using IAAP Person 5 CAPEUA Data WarehOU.fe page 2

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punched cards following a data scheme that had been first used in France in 1962 and expanded at the University of Texas and at Northwestern University in the period 1963-1967. This catalogue served as the source of a series of statistical studies that were published in several works. • Our database, which included all unidentified cases from Project Blue Book, was turned over to the Condon study at the University ofColorado in 1968 and eventuall 1843(a)(2) t:=__J This catalogue has been greatly expanded and 1s now mamtamed by the CUFOS organization 1843(a)(2) separately developed a catalogue ofvehicle interference cases, an 1843(a)(2) compiled all known cases ofphysical traces. • In 1968 the author compiled and published the Magonia catalogue, a list of over 700 close encounter cases (landings) reported between 1868 and 1968. • Other groups, such as MUFON, have started to compile their own computer files, and IAAP Person 8 r5sembled a catalogue ofphysiological effects. • In the 1980s an independent researcher (a)( ) developed a catalogue called UNICAT in collaboration wi 1843(a )(2) Several independent projects have been implemented around the world since that time. • In the United State~1843(a)(2) !a private researcher working alone, developed a popular scheme to be run on PC platforms under DOS. His catalogue eventually reached almost 20,000 entries. • In France the GEPAN (now GEiPAN) group under the CNES, implemented an ACCESS database available to a "College of Experts" under password access control on the Internet. The system maintains the full text of over 3,000 official reports to the French Gendarmerie, in the form of scanned images. It is embedded in an online collaboration system that gives experts access to maps, Google Earth views, photographs and videos. Note that both the GEiPAN database and UFOCAT treat every report of a given case as a separate entry (iffive witnesses in separate locations report sighting the same object, there are five entries in the file), while other catalogues, like the Hatch catalogue, give a single entry per sighting. • Also in France a database of pilot sightings has been built by (a)( ) 1843(a)(2) rrtie file uses EXCEL and a set ofspecial codes to facilitate retrieval. Every case has been scrupulously re-analyzed and transcribed. A larger set of pilot data, as CAPEUA Data Warehouse page 3

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w II ecific investigation files, are maintained by the NARCAP group under J?43(a)(2 ) In recent years, easy access to personal computers and the Internet has made it much easier for interested groups to start their own files. There are at least 30 active catalogues at various points of development, with obvious overlap and widely-varying standards. Special catalogues exist for material trace analysis, abduction claims, ancient sightings, and also for particular countries or regions. Several groups are active through closed Internet conferences and have begun to develop and exchange information through wikis in various languages. Furthermore, the range of available data sources has been expanded as countries like the U.K and Spain followed the example of the U.S. Project Blue Book in releasing their declassified files, although not in an organized, structured computer-readable format. Lack of data validation and lack of standards has impeded progress among the researchers responsible for these databases. It is natural for people who have recently become aware of the field to launch into their own implementation of a file of selected cases in the hope of rapidly "solving" some of the problems raised by this pu1..zling phenomenon. Unfortunately, they rarely have the financial wherewithal or professional staff necessary to conduct field investigations or even elementary checks on the validity ofthe information they collect. As time goes on, unfortunately, this reinventing of the wheel fails to generate new results.