Series Description

The Project U.F.O. TV show was a 60 minute sci-fi series on NBC about two U.S. Air Force officers who investigated reports of UFO sightings.

Project U.F.O. Cast

William Jordan .... Major Jake Gatlin (First Season)
Edward Winter .... Captain Ben Ryan (Second Season)
Caskey Swaim .... Staff Sergeant Harry Fitz
Aldine King .... Libby Virdon

Project U.F.O. Opening Narrative

The opening sequence of the Project U.F.O. TV show contained pictures of flying saucer diagrams while "Ezekiel Saw the Wheel" played as background music. As that happened, Jack Webb gave the following opening narrative:

"Ezekiel saw the wheel. This (indicating the UFO diagrams) is the wheel he said he saw. These are Unidentified Flying Objects that people say they are seeing now. Are they proof that we are being visited by civilizations from other stars? Or just what are they? What you are about to see is part of a 20-year search."

Project U.F.O. Trivia

In the very first episode, Major Gatlin told Staff Sergeant Fitz that their job was to do their best to prove that a UFO sighting was real by eliminating every other possible explanation. He explained that it would not be wise to approach a sighting with the idea of proving that it was not an alien encounter because you can't prove a negative.

Major Gatlin also told Fitz that he himself had once seen something in the sky that he couldn't explain on a mission as an Air Force pilot.

The Project U.F.O. TV show was loosely based on the real-life Air Force program called, "Project: Blue Book".

Jack Webb ("Dragnet") created the Project U.F.O. TV show and he spent a considerable amount of effort researching actual Air Force files to get ideas for episodes. In the first season, the show reflected those file pretty well. Most of the sightings were explained with just a few that couldn't be explained but certainly didn't prove the existence of alien visitors. Then in the second season, Major Gatlin and Captain Ryan (who had replaced Sergeant Fitz) actually saw a U.F.O. for themselves! The storylines in season two typically ended with a shocking revelation that indicated that the sighting really was an alien craft or some other phenomena outside of conventional science.

Project U.F.O. aired its first episode in February of 1978 on Sundays from 8:00 to 9:00PM on NBC. The "Wonderful World of Disney" was shortened from two hours to one hour to make room for Project U.F.O. In its second season, Project U.F.O. was moved to Thursday nights from 8:00 to 9:00PM where it had to compete with some very popular shows. ABC was starting out that hour with "Mork and Mindy" and CBS was airing "The Waltons".

Brick Price Movie Miniatures (now Wonderworks) usually made the UFOs used on Project U.F.O. from parts assembled from stock model kits that you could buy at a department store, but they did it well! Project U.F.O. was the last TV series created by Jack Webb and the last one produced by his production company, "Mark VII Limited".

Episodes List With Original Air Dates

Season 1

1. Sighting 4001: The Washington D.C. Incident (2/19/1978)
2. Sighting 4002: The Joshua Flats Incident (2/26/1978)
3. Sighting 4003: The Fremont Incident (3/12/1978)
4. Sighting 4004: The Howard Crossing Incident (3/19/1978)
5. Sighting 4005: The Medicine Bow Incident (3/26/1978)
6. Sighting 4006: The Nevada Desert Incident (4/2/1978)
7. Sighting 4007: The Forest City Incident (4/9/1978)
8. Sighting 4008: The Desert Springs Incident (4/23/1978)
9. Sighting 4009: The French Incident (4/30/1978)
10. Sighting 4010: The Waterford Incident (5/7/1978)
11. Sighting 4011: The Doll House Incident (5/20/1978)
12. Sighting 4012: The Rock and Hard Place Incident (5/27/1978)
13. Sighting 4013: The St. Hillary Incident (6/4/1978)

14. Sighting 4015: The Underwater Incident (9/21/1978)
15. Sighting 4017: The Devilish Davidson Lights Incident (9/28/1978)
16. Sighting 4016: The Pipeline Incident (10/5/1978)
17. Sighting 4018: The Incident on the Cliffs (10/12/1978)
18. Sighting 4019: The Believe It or Not Incident (10/19/1978)
19. Sighting 4022: The Camouflage Incident (11/2/1978)
20. Sighting 4020: The Island Incident (11/30/1978)
21. Sighting 4021: The Superstition Mountain Incident (12/7/1978)
22. Sighting 4023: The I-Man Incident (12/28/1978)
23. Sighting 4024: The Scoutmaster Incident (1/4/1979)
24. Sighting 4026: The Atlantic Queen Incident (7/5/1979)
25. Sighting 4025: The Whitman Tower Incident (7/12/1979)
26. Sighting 4014: The Wild Blue Yonder Incident (7/19/1979)