On this day: December 17
France recognizes America as a nation, the Wright brothers take flight, Tiny Tim marries Miss Vicki in front of millions of TV viewers, and Kim Jong-il dies, all on this day.
1969: The United States Air Force closes Project Blue Book, its study of UFOs, with the final report stating that sightings are generated as a result of four reasons: a mild form of mass hysteria, individuals who fabricate such reports to perpetrate a hoax or seek publicity, psychopathological persons, and misidentification of various conventional objects. By the time Project Blue Book ended, it had collected 12,618 UFO reports, and concluded that most of them were misidentifications of natural phenomena or conventional aircraft. Pictured is a CIA image of a purported UFO in New Jersey shot in 1952.
