Wednesday, February 7, 1962: Project Blue Book

In response to a request by the Mutual Broadcasting Company, the U.S. Air Force issues a statement on unidentified flying objects. It reads, in part, "there has been nothing in the way of evidence or other data to indicate that these unidentified sightings were extraterrestrial vehicles under intelligent control." The day before, the Air Force had released a fact sheet summarizing the first several years of Project Blue Book, the military's investigation into UFOs.

The photo shows the cover of the 1952 status report.

* Air Force statement (February 7): @

* Air Force fact sheet (February 6): @

* "Flying Saucers? AF Says You're Seeing Things" (Miami News, February 7): @

* Project Blue Book Archive: @

* Project Blue Book summary (from the National Archives): @

* Earlier post on Betty and Barney Hill (September 19-20): @

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February 1962: "Spacewar!"

Created at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology starting in 1961, the "Spacewar!" video game was in full working mode by the following February. It quickly proved popular among computer enthusiasts and helped lay the foundation for video game development. In the game, two players steer spaceships and try to destroy the other, all set against a background of stars.

* Play the game: @ and @

* Entry from MIT Museum: @

* Entry from Computer History Museum: @

* Entry from www.1up.com: @

* "Spacewar: Fanatic Life and Symbolic Death Among the Computer Bums" (Rolling Stone, 1972): @

* "Space War! A Computer Game Today, Reality Tomorrow?" (Saga, 1972): @

* "The Origin of Spacewar" (Creative Computing, 1981): @

* "Seminal video game Spacewar lives again" (CNET.com, 2011): @

* "Spacewar!, the first 2d top-down shooter, turns 50" (Ars Technica, 2011): @

* "The first 'electronic' game ever made?" (from pongmuseum.com): @

* Video of "Spacewar!" in action: @

* Interview with Steve Russell, one of the game's creators: @

* "Understanding Video Games: The Essential Introduction" (book): @

* "Smartbomb: The Quest for Art, Entertainment and Big Bucks in the Videogame Revolution" (book): @

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Undated: 'Music From Mathematics'

From the November 17, 1962, issue of Billboard magazine (the article uses the spelling "computor"):

"Decca Records introduces two new artists in its 'Music From Mathematics' LP this week when the IBM 7090 computor and the Digital to Sound Transducer make their disk debuts. The electronic duo are the stars of the new Decca album and the results of their rapid and unerring calculations make the music heard on this disk.

"The process of composing music for the computor is described by the label as 'outlining musical sounds by ascribing to them mathematical sequences of numbers. The numerical descriptions are the equivalent of musical sounds.' These numerical sequences are punched up on IBM cards and, upon instructions from the composer, the cards are fed into the machine which transfers them into sounds which are amplified and recorded on to the usual tape recording console.

"Decca notes that the composer is still the controlling factor and, in so many words, without the man, the machines can't go. So far this kind of music has been produced instrumentally, but it is also known that the Bell Laboratories have a produced a singing voice through electronic manipulation. It shouldn't be too long before card-feeding composers create tomorrow's singing idol."

The album features otherworldly sounds alongside musical renditions of the well-known songs "Frere Jacques" and "Joy to the World." But the most memorable piece by far is "Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)," with the computer singing the last verse. From the National Recording Preservation Board of the Library of Congress: "This recording, made at Bell Laboratories on an IBM 704 mainframe computer, is the earliest known recording of a computer-synthesized voice singing a song. The recording was created by John L. Kelly Jr. and Carol Lochbaum and featured musical accompaniment written by Max Mathews." (The song was later used in the 1968 movie "2001: A Space Odyssey"; the computer known as HAL sings "Daisy" while in its death throes.)

Notes on "Daisy":

The reason this post is listed as "undated" is that there's a bit of discrepancy as to when "Daisy" was actually completed. A different version of "Music From Mathematics" was released as a 10-inch album in 1961 by Bell Telephone Labs, but the track listing does not include "Daisy." (Click here for the entry from discogs.com.)

However, United Press International's year in review for 1961 includes the song. (Click here to read transcript and listen.) The National Recording Registry also puts the year as 1961.

"Daisy" also appears on a magazine insert called "Synthesized Speech" from June 1962. (Click here for details, and here to listen.)

I emailed Max Mathews in 2011 to try to pin down the date. His reply, dated March 28, reads as follows: "The best date I have is sometime in 1962. The piece was made in two parts. Kelly and Lochbaum made the singing voice first with a singing voice synthesis program they wrote. I made the accompaniment later using my Music 3 program." (Mathews died on April 21, 2011.) Bell Labs also says it was recorded in 1962. (Click here for summary.)

* Listen to album (from Computer History Museum): @ and @

* Album liner notes: @

* Back cover: @

* Max Mathews obituary (New York Times, April 2011): @

* "The First Computer Musician" (New York Times, June 2011): @

* "Max Mathews Makes Music" (from Computer History Museum): @

* "The Computer Music Tutorial" (book by Curtis Roads): @

* "HAL's Legacy: 2001's Computer as Dream and Reality" (from MIT Press): @

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December 1961: Avrocar

The joint Canada-United States project to develop a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) craft ends when the U.S. military withdraws funding for the Avrocar. The flying-saucer-like vehicle proved unstable in flight.

* Entry from National Museum of the Air Force: @

* Entry from "The Encyclopedia of Science": @

* Entry from Arrow Digital Archives: @

* "The Pentagon's Flying Saucer Problem" (Air & Space magazine, 2003): @

* Project Silver Bug summary: @

* Air Force technical report on Project Silver Bug (February 1955): @

* Newspaper stories from 1999 and 2000: @

* Footage: @

* "Flaws of the Avrocar" (video from howstuffworks.com): @

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Friday, November 24, 1961: SAC-NORAD communication failure

From www.mentalfloss.com:

On November 24, 1961, all communication links between the U.S. Strategic Air Command (SAC) and the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) suddenly went dead, cutting cutting off the SAC from three early warning stations in England, Greenland and Alaska. The communication breakdown made no sense, though. After all, a widespread, total failure of all communication circuits was considered impossible, because the network included so many redundant systems that it should have been failsafe. The only alternative explanation was that a full-scale Soviet nuclear first strike had occurred. As a result, all SAC bases were put on alert, and B-52 bomber crews warmed up their engines and moved their planes onto runways, awaiting orders to counterattack the Soviet Union with nuclear weapons. Luckily, those orders were never given. It was discovered that the circuits were not in fact redundant because they all ran through one relay station in Colorado, where a single motor had overheated and caused the entire system to fail.

* Entry from "The Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents and Nuclear Weapons" (book by Scott Douglas Sagan): @

* Entry from "Book of Lists: Subversive Facts and Hidden Information in Rapid-Fire Format" (entry by Alan F. Phillips, book by Russell Kick): @

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November 9, 1961: 'Flying bicycle'

What's believed to be the first flight of a human-powered aircraft capable of taking off under its own power takes place as Derek Piggott pedals a plane to a height of 5 feet and a distance of 50 yards. The SUMPAC (Southampton University Man Powered Aircraft) was designed and built by students at the British university.

* Anniversary story from The Guardian newspaper: @

* Video (from britishpathe.com): @

* Website for SUHPA (Southampton University Human Powered Aircraft): @

* "Gossamer Odyssey: The Triumph of Human-Powered Flight" (book by Morton Grosser): @

* "Man-Powered Flight" (Flying magazine, June 1963): @

* "Man-Powered Flight" (Popular Science magazine, January 1971): @

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October 30, 1961: Tsar Bomba

From Cornell University Library: Tsar Bomba ("King Bomb" in Russian) is the nickname for the AN602 hydrogen bomb, the most powerful nuclear weapon ever detected. Developed by the Soviet Union, the bomb was originally designed to have a yield of about 100 megatons of TNT. However, the bomb yield was reduced to 50 megatons to reduce nuclear fallout. The attempt was successful, as it was one of the cleanest nuclear bombs ever detonated. Only one bomb of this type was ever built and it was tested on October 30, 1961, in the Novaya Zemlya archipeloago. Weighing 27 tons, the bomb was so large (26 ft long and 6.6 ft in diameter) that the bomber that carried it had to have its bomb bay doors and fuselage fuel tanks removed. The bomb was attached to a 1,760-lb. fall-retardation parachute, which gave the release and observer planes time to fly about 28 miles from ground zero. The fireball, about 5 miles in diameter, was prevented from touching the ground by the shockwave, but nearly reached the 6.5 mile altitude of the deploying bomber.

* Summary (from wired.com): @

* Summary and videos (from nuclearweaponarchive.org): @

* "Moscow's Biggest Bomb" (from Cold War International History Project, page 3): @

* Map of blast site (from Corbis Images): @

* Newspaper front pages: @ and @

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Wednesday, October 11, 1961: Don Juan Pond

During an aerial survey of southern Antarctica, an improbable natural feature is sighted: a small lake. It is named Don Juan Pond after the U.S. Navy helicopter pilots who carried the researchers. With a salinity level of 40% (18 times saltier than seawater), the shallow lake is thought to hold the saltiest water on the planet, and as such does not freeze. The pond is fed by melting glaciers; evaporation increases the salinity.

* Entry from The Encyclopedia of Earth: @

* Entry from www.geographic.org: @

* "Why Astrobiologists Love Don Juan Pond" (from Astrobiology Magazine, 2010): @

* Map: @

* Satellite photos: @ and @

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Wednesday, October 11, 1961: 'Space Flight Report to the Nation'

From The Associated Press:

If your children are eager to go rocketing into space, tell them to start saving their money. Commercial manned space flights could be a reality by 1975-80, a space researcher predicted today. Space transportation techniques are expected to develop rapidly in the next 20 years, greatly reducing the cost of a round-trip from earth into an orbit, or to the moon, said H.H. Koelle of the George E. Marshall Space Flight Center at Huntsville, Ala. This could be the timetable, Koelle told the space flight report to the nation sponsored by the American Rocket Society:

* Large, orbiting space stations carrying men in 1968-1969.

* A permanent, manned station on the moon, 1970.

* A lunar settlement by 1975.

* Manned expeditions to other planets starting in the 1972-74 period.

* Round-trips from earth to low altitude orbits involving 5,000 men every year by 1975. Several men would be involved in each trip.

* About 500 annual man round-trips from earth to moon by 1975.

* Commercial manned space flights developing in the 1975-80 period.

"It will be witnessed by the middle-aged generation of today, with the younger generation of today taking an active part in it," Koelle suggested. His prepared paper did not estimate the cost of the round-trip ticket into orbital flight or to the moon.

* "Show Window for Space Progress in New York" (video from www.britishpathe.com): @

* "Free Enterprise v. the Moon" (Time magazine, October 20): @

* "The American Rocket Society Story -- 1930-1962" (from Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, 1980): @

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Sunday, September 24, 1961: 'Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color'

The weekly series gets a new name (from "Walt Disney Presents"), a new network (from ABC to NBC) and a "new" technology (color television, which was only in about 1% of American households at the time). The first episode introduces a new character as well: Professor Ludwig von Drake, who explains light and color (and sings "The Spectrum Song").

* Entry from "Brought to You in Living Color: 75 Years of Great Moments in Television" (book by Marc Robinson: @

* TV Guide stories about Disney (from 1961): @

* Episode list (from 1954 to 1996): @

* Watch show's opening: @

* Watch Ludwig von Drake on first episode: @

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Tuesday, September 12, 1961: The Mercury 13 (updated)

Five days before they were to begin flight simulation training in Pensacola, Florida, the 13 members of the privately funded Woman in Space program received the following telegram, effectively ending their hopes of joining the U.S. space effort.

Regret to advise arrangements at Pensacola cancelled Probably will not be possible to carry out this part of program. You may return expense advance allotment to Lovelace Foundation c/o me Letter will advise of additional developments when matter cleared further= W Randolph Lovelace II MD

* Earlier blog post (from 1960): @

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Thursday-Friday, August 31-September 1, 1961: Soviet nuclear testing

* August 31: Citing the Berlin crisis and France's nuclear testing, the Soviet Union announces to the world that it is ending its three-year moratorium on testing and will detonate a nuclear weapon the next day. (Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had informed the Soviet nuclear community on July 10 of his decision.)

* September 1: A 16-kiloton device is detonated at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in central Asia.

Time magazine cover from September 8.

* "Early record on text moratoriums" (from Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 1986): @

* Excerpt from "The Nuclear Express: A Political History of the Bomb and is Proliferation": @

* Excerpt from "President Kennedy: Profile of Power": @

* atomicarchive.com: @

* Semipalatinsk website: @

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August: LSD-sex study

"The Use of L.S.D. 25 (D-Lysergic Acid Diethylamide) in the Treatment of the Sexual Perversions" is published in the Canadian Psychiatric Association Journal.

Excerpts:

"A large room was provided, furnished with a comfortable couch, two arm-chairs, table and chair, radiogram -- with a selection of classical, light opera, musical comedy and dance music -- together with books of photographs such as 'The Family of Man.' "

"... it was felt desirable to ensure the efficacy of the drug by giving a large dose. Patients arrived at the department from the ward, having had a light breakfast at 8:00 a.m. and were immediately given 200 microgrammes of L.S.D. 25 in a glass of water."

"We feel that success is possible when (a) the patient is of above average intelligence, and (b) the patient genuinely wishes to be rid of the perversion."

* Complete text: @

* The Albert Hofmann Collection: LSD & Psilocybin References: @

* "Psycholytic and Psychedelic Therapy Research: A Complete International Biography": @

* More about LSD from U.S. National Library of Medicine: @

* Erowid LSD (Acid) Vault: @

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Wednesday, August 23, 1961: Gravity assist

Michael Minovitch, a graduate student at UCLA working at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory for the summer, presents a technical paper titled "A Method for Determining Interplanetary Free-Fall Reconnaissance Trajectories." In it he describes how a planet's gravity can be used to propel or "slingshot" a spacecraft past other planets and into deeper space. (The first spacecraft to employ the maneuver was Mariner 10 in 1973. The more famous Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 were launched in 1977; at left are their paths.)

* More about Minovitch: @

* Minovitch's website: @

* "A Method for Determining Interplanetary Free-Fall Reconnaissance Trajectories" (PDF): @

* "A Gravity Assist Primer" (from Jet Propulsion Laboratory): @

* "The Voyage of Mariner 10" (from NASA): @

* "Mariner 10 to Venus and Mercury" (from JPL): @

* "Voyager -- The Interstellar Mission": (from JPL): @

* Excerpt from "Voyager: Seeking Newer Worlds in the Third Great Age of Discovery": @

* Excerpt from "Ambassadors from Earth: Pioneering Explorations with Unmanned Spacecraft": @

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Friday, August 18, 1961: Timothy Leary on 'How To Change Behavior'

Harvard psychology professor Timothy Leary delivers a lecture at the International Congress of Applied Psychology in Copenhagen, Denmark. The lecture, "How To Change Behavior," talks about changing behavior through changing (expanding) consciousness and the role of psilocybin in achieving such a state.

* Text of lecture: @

* Blog post from August 9, 1960 (when Leary first ingested psilocybin mushrooms): @

* The Psychedelic Library: @

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Thursday, August 10, 1961: Herbicides in Vietnam

Aerial spraying of herbicides is first tested in the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam). It is the beginning of what would become a much larger U.S. effort, code-named Operation Ranch Hand, that would officially start in January 1962. Its aim: to clear away trees and other vegetation that provided cover for North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces, and to destroy enemy food supplies.

* "Operation Ranch Hand: The Air Force and Herbicides in Southeast Asia, 1961-1971" (Office of Air Force History, 1982): @

* "Ranch Hand" (Air Force magazine, 2000): @

* "The Herbicidal Warfare in Vietnam, 1961-1971" (Agent Orange & Dioxin Committee, Vietnam Veterans of America): @

* "The extent and patterns of usage of Agent Orange and other herbicides in Vietnam" (Nature magazine, 2003): @

* "Characterizing Exposure of Veterans to Agent Orange and Other Herbicides Used in Vietnam: Interim Findings and Recommendations" (Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, 2003): @

* More links (from website on air operations in Vietnam): @

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Monday, August 7, 1961: Milgram experiment

Stanley Milgram, an assistant professor of psychology at Yale University, begins his now-famous experiment to explore the question: How much pain would you inflict on another person if you were ordered to do so?

Milgram pursued the research in light of the trial of Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi Germany official who had said he was only following orders when he helped orchestrate the Holocaust. (Search site for "Eichmann" for posts on his abduction, trial, verdict and hanging.)

"Stark authority was pitted against the subjects' strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects' ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often that not," Milgram wrote later.

Summary from The Guardian newspaper, 2004 (@):

A subject, greeted by a scientist in a white lab coat, was given the role of "teacher." Introduced to a "learner," the teacher watched the learner strapped into a chair with an electrode attached to his or her wrist. Seated behind a screen in front of a large electroshock machine, the teacher read out a list of words and the learner replied with pre-learned corresponding words.

If the learner's response was wrong, the teacher was to apply an electric shock to the learner by pressing one of 30 switches, labeled from "slight shock" through to "danger: severe shock." For each incorrect response the teacher was told to increase the voltage, resulting in grunts, screams and then silence from the learner.

In fact, the learner was an actor; the teacher was the real subject of this experiment. When the learner's screams and pleadings reached a certain intensity, the teacher often asked whether he or she should continue, or might refuse to carry one. This was the crucial moment: the scientists now insisted that the session should continue.

Before the experiment began, psychologists predicted that only one in a thousand would administer the strongest shocks. In fact, during the first round of experiments, using Yale undergraduates, 60% were fully obedient and took the sessions to their conclusion. Subsequent experiments achieved similar results, with no significant differences between males and females.

(Note: I used August 7 as the starting point, as referenced in "The Man Who Shocked The World," linked below.)

* Study as published in Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology (October, 1963): @ 
* Milgram's "Obedience" documentary (video, 1965): @

* Summary (from www.holah.co.uk): @

* Summary (from www.explorable.com): @
* Summary (from www.simplypsychology.org): @

* Summary (www.paulgraham.com): @

* "The Making of an (in)famous experiment" (British Psychological Society): @

* "Obedience to Authority" (Milgram, 1974): @

* "Obedience to Authority: Current Perspectives on the Milgram Paradigm" (edited by Thomas Blass, 1999): @
* "The Man Who Shocked The World: The Life and Legacy of Stanley Milgram" (Blass, 2004): @
* www.stanleymilgram.com (Blass' site): @

* "Decades Later, Still Asking: Would I Pull That Switch?" (New York Times, 2008): @ 

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Undated: ''The Manipulation of Human Behavior'

Funded in part by the U.S. government, this 1961 book summarizes various approaches to, as the editors put it, "the interrogation of an unwilling subject." From the introduction: "For this work, scientists who had done research in each of these areas were asked to review the state of relevant knowledge in their fields, to consider whether and how it might be applied by interrogators, and to evaluate the recourse available to highly motivated persons for resisting the attempted influence."

* Full text of book: @

* "Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions from Air Force Prisoners of War" (study by Albert D. Biderman, published in 1957): @

* "China Inspired Interrogations at Guantanamo" (2008 New York Times article, citing the 1957 study): @

* "The Torture Report: An Investigation into Rendition, Detention and Interrogation Under the Bush Administration" (project by American Civil Liberties Union): @

* www.torturingdemocracy.com (website and documentary): @

* www.americantorture.com (website and book): @

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Tuesday, July 4, 1961: K-19 nuclear accident

A leak develops in the cooling system of the K-19, a Soviet nuclear submarine, while it was on exercises in the North Atlantic near southern Greenland. A meltdown is averted, but the eight crew members who carried out repairs all died within three weeks of radiation poisoning; the rest of the crew also received substantial doses of radiation.

* Summary from National Geographic: @

* Excerpt from "Rising Tide: The Untold Story of the Russian Submarines that Fought the Cold War" (book): @

* Pravda article: @

* "The Russian Northern Fleet: Nuclear submarine accidents": @

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Undated: Ford Gyron

The two-wheeled concept car, built by the Ford Motor Co., makes the rounds of auto shows in 1961 (Detroit, New York), though as a nonrunning prototype; it was never meant to see the open road.

From a March 31 story by UPI: "It would have a gyroscope for stability and might be powered by fuel cells instead of a regular engine. ... The car will hold two people in contoured seats which support not only the head and back but the upper part of the legs as well. It has no steering wheel. Instead it uses a dial with separate rings for automatic speed and steering control. The car could be steered from either seat because the dial is located in a console between the seats and the car has dual accelerator and brake pads. A 10-button panel, also located in the console, supposedly would control a built-in computer to help a motorist of the future 'program' a trip on a non-stop expressway."

* Summary, photos: @

* Entry from "The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Extraordinary Automobiles": @

* More information (from Tucker Automobile Club of America bulletin board): @

* "When Dream Cars Collide With Real-World Demands" (New York Times, 2007): @

* Photo and video of Gyron toy car (made in Japan, battery-powered, remote-controlled): @ and @

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