Those of you who are into the subject of UFOs and its history must remember Colonel Robert Friend. He played a huge role in the US Air Force’s nearly 20-year Project Blue Book, the official government study of UFOs.
Lieutenant Colonel Robert Jones Friend was born in Columbia, South Carolina on February 29, 1920. From an early age, he loved airplanes and wanted to sign up to fly for the army, but he was turned away because he was black.
During World War II, Friend signed up after learning that the army began a segregated program for black pilots in Tuskegee, Alabama. He soon completed training and was commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Army Air Corps and was assigned to the 332nd Fighter Group. He served in Africa and later Europe.
Friend was in the military for 28 years, serving in Korea and Vietnam. He graduated from the Air Force Institute of Technology.
Friend served as Assistant Deputy of Launch Vehicles, where he worked on important space launch vehicles such as the Titan, Atlas and Delta rockets and eventually the Space Shuttle.
During his military service, Colonel Friend led Project Blue Book from 1958 to 1963.
Friend said he believed in the possibility of life in Extraterrestrial life in the universe. Friend led the Air Force study on UFOs.
Blue Book was closed down in 1969, despite the roughly 700 UFO cases labeled as “unidentified” during the Air Force’s investigation of more than 12,000 reports.
The project’s conclusion: UFOs posed no security threat to the nation, nor did they display any technological abilities “beyond the range of present-day scientific knowledge.”
Lt. Col. Friend died on June 21, 2019 in Long Beach, California at the age of 99. At the time, he was one of 12 remaining Tuskegee Airmen.
