Editing Project Blue Book (section)

===Captain Hardin era===
In March 1954, Captain Charles Hardin was appointed the head of Blue Book; however, the 4602nd conducted most UFO investigations, and Hardin did not object. Ruppelt wrote that Hardin "thinks that anyone who is even interested [in UFOs] is crazy. They bore him."<ref name=clark468>Jerome Clark, ''The UFO Book: Encyclopedia of the Extraterrestrial'', p. 468</ref>

In 1955, the Air Force decided that the goal of Blue Book should not be to investigate UFO reports but to minimize the number of unidentified UFO reports. By late 1956, the number of unidentified sightings had dropped from the 20–25% of the Ruppelt era to less than 1%.