Last fall, we told you about films from Project Blue Book, the United States Air Force investigation into unidentified flying objects. In addition to records related to the search for UFOs, the National Archives and Records Administration also holds records concerning Identified Flying Objects. One of the most remarkable of these is the Avrocar. The Avrocar … Continue reading Avrocar: The U.S. Military’s Flying Saucer
In an effort to provide information on recently declassified motion pictures and sound recordings the Motion Picture, Sound and Video Branch will publish a quarterly list of newly declassified records. Operation MANTRAC (Manual Angle Tracking Capability) (Local Identifier 342-USAF-33788/ARC Identifier 68704), is an example of one declassified film. Using some really great animation and a … Continue reading Declassified Motion Pictures and Sound Recordings – 1st Quarter
A couple of weeks ago, we wrote about the 110th anniversary of The Great Train Robbery, a film that pioneered editing techniques that are so commonplace as to be invisible to viewers today and is acknowledged as the first example of modern film fiction narrative. But this wasn’t the only important innovation taking place in December … Continue reading I Saw Kitty Hawk: Film, Memory, and Archives
“Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth . . . . Put out my hand and touched the Face of God.” You may be familiar with these lines—the first and last of John Gillespie Magee, Jr.’s 1941 sonnet “High Flight”. Many of us likely recognize them from President Ronald Reagan’s speech on the … Continue reading Celebrating Aviation with Magee’s “High Flight”
In a previous post, we gave an overview of Project Blue Book, the 1952-1969 United States Air Force investigation into UFO sightings. For that post, we featured publicity interviews produced by the Air Force that explained the project. This week, we’ll feature some of the home movies that were submitted by citizens as evidence of … Continue reading Project Blue Book: Home Movies in UFO Reports
This week, we’ll be taking a look at Project Blue Book, via the National Archives' film holdings. Project Blue Book was not the United States Air Force’s first investigation into the reports of unidentified flying objects. It wasn't even the second. Project Blue Book was actually the third formal analysis of UFO sightings, coming after … Continue reading Project Blue Book: Spotting UFOs in the Film Record
As a follow-up to last week’s post on the Army Air Force’s First Motion Picture Unit (FMPU), this week I am focusing on a title that is arguably the most significant training film produced by the unit. Considered as a federal record, Recognition of the Japanese Zero Fighter (1943) is an important historical document of the training … Continue reading A WWII Training Film in Action: Recognition of the Japanese Zero Fighter
I will admit, I didn’t know about the U.S. Army Air Forces First Motion Picture Unit until 2007, when the Motion Picture Preservation Lab was tasked with making theater prints for a special program at the Pacific Film Archive. I may not have heard of the unit, but I certainly recognized its stars: “Hey, is … Continue reading The U.S. Military Goes Hollywood: Behind the Scenes with the First Motion Picture Unit
In an effort to provide information on recently declassified motion pictures and sound recordings the Motion Picture, Sound and Video Branch will publish a quarterly list of newly declassified records. The United States Army (USA), United States Air Force (USAF), and the Department of Energy (DOE) have declassified nearly 200 films and sound recordings in the past few … Continue reading Declassified Motion Pictures and Sound Recordings – 1st Quarter
