Inside Saucer Post...3-0 Blue

About the Author

This site's own Leonard H. Stringfield key-figures entry already documents his founding of CRIFO, his editorship of its newsletter Orbit (1953-1957), and his later career as NICAP's public relations adviser (1957-1970) and a MUFON board member. This article does not repeat that ground, and deliberately does not draw on his much later (1970s-1990s) self-published "Status Report" series on alleged UFO crash retrievals -- a separate, later body of work that earned him a more controversial reputation within ufology than this earlier, more measured 1957 survey.

This article's own research found and corrects one recurring error in modern secondhand-bookseller and print-on-demand descriptions of this title, which repeatedly describe Stringfield as an "oil executive." That characterization is not supported by this site's own existing, independently sourced biography, nor by Wikipedia's account of his career as an advertising, public relations, and marketing executive (including 31 years as PR and Marketing Services Director at DuBois Chemicals) -- this article follows the corroborated description rather than the erroneous reprint blurb.

Historical Context & Origins

The book's title derives from an actual designation, confirmed directly from Stringfield's own foreword as hosted by NICAP: on September 9, 1955, the Air Defense Command informed him that his home telephone had been cleared to report UFO sightings, through coded channels, directly to the Filter Center in Columbus, Ohio, and assigned him the code designation "...3-0 Blue." When Stringfield later sought Department of Defense clearance to publish material referencing that designation, the department's Security Review Branch replied only that it was "not a matter of interest to the Department of Defense" -- a reply this article's own research confirms directly from the primary text rather than a secondhand summary.

This article's own research also confirmed, directly from the book's own reproduced text, that it includes a March 16, 1956 letter from Major General John A. Samford, then the U.S. Air Force's Director of Intelligence, thanking Stringfield and CRIFO for their cooperation with the Air Force's UFO reporting program -- a credibility marker for Stringfield's semi-official standing at the time, published within the book itself rather than merely claimed about it.

One secondary source (earthfiles.com) states Stringfield finished the manuscript in September 1957 ahead of its October 1957 printing; this article treats that specific month as moderately, not fully, confirmed, since it rests on a single secondary source rather than the book's own colophon.

Core Arguments & Key Concepts

Despite its title's narrow focus on Stringfield's own ADC reporting post, the book is structured as a broader survey of CRIFO's investigative record as of 1957, not a single-case account. This article's own direct review of the NICAP-hosted text confirmed its scope includes Stringfield's own August 28, 1945 sighting of unidentified lights from a C-46 near Iwo Jima during his WWII service with the 5th Air Force (his own origin story for UFO interest), a 1952 Cincinnati orange teardrop sighting that led him to found a CRIFO precursor group, CRIFO's own March 1954 founding, an August 23, 1955 Cincinnati jet-intercept case, a March 1956 controversy over UFO reports later attributed to Venus, a Jacksonville, Florida case catalogued in CRIFO's files as "Case 162," and a cluster of 1955 Cincinnati-area low-altitude sightings that included reports of what Stringfield's own text calls "ugly little bipeds."

The book's own text describes the Norwood Searchlight Incident as the "most cut-and-dry factual case on record" among CRIFO's files -- a direct quotation this article verified against the primary source -- and pairs its case material with broader commentary chapters on press and newswire treatment of UFO stories, radio broadcaster Frank Edwards's role in popularizing the subject, and Stringfield's own views on military-press cooperation and government secrecy.

Key Cases & Evidence Discussed

This site's own Norwood Searchlight Incident case file (Case File #091) documents the August 1949-March 1950 Ohio case -- a U.S. Army searchlight operator's beam appearing to fix on a glowing disc over a church carnival, ten sightings over seven months, and surviving (though now largely lost) photographs and film -- in far greater depth than this book's own chapter allows, including modern research by Kenny Young and cross-referencing by NICAP's Francis Ridge. Readers wanting that complete record should consult that case file directly.

This article's own research was not able to independently verify further detail on this book's other, more briefly treated cases -- the Iwo Jima sighting, the 1952 Cincinnati teardrop, the August 1955 jet intercept, or the Jacksonville "Case 162" -- beyond what the book's own text describes; none currently has its own dedicated case file on this site.

Critical Reception & Controversies

As of this article's research (August 2026), the book holds a thin 3.0-out-of-5 average on Goodreads from only 3 ratings and no written reviews -- too small a sample to draw any real conclusion from, consistent with a scarce 1957 self-published booklet rather than a text with a meaningful modern readership.

This article's own research was not able to locate a specific citation or review of this book by name from major UFO historians such as Jerome Clark or Curtis Peebles -- both of whose general reference works are separately cited on this site's Norwood case file -- despite deliberate searching. This article does not claim this book holds any specific canonical status alongside works like Edward Ruppelt's The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, since no source was found establishing that comparison directly; what can be said with confidence is that this was Stringfield's first published book, predating by more than a decade the "Status Report" crash-retrieval series that would later make him a more controversial figure within the field.

Original first-edition copies are scarce collector's items -- one dealer listing found during this research priced an author-inscribed first printing at $485 -- while inexpensive print-on-demand reprints (a 2017 CreateSpace edition and a differently retitled 2019-2020 Lulu edition, Close Encounters of Many Kinds) circulate today, though these two reprints disagree with each other on page count (94 versus 125 pages), underscoring that neither is an authoritative edition; this article cites the original 1957 printing throughout.

Influence & Legacy

The book's most durable legacy is documentary: its own reproduction of the Samford letter and the Department of Defense's terse reply gives researchers a rare, published primary record of exactly how the Air Force related, semi-officially, to a civilian investigator during the mid-1950s -- material this article's own research confirmed directly from the text rather than through paraphrase.

Set alongside this site's own Norwood Searchlight Incident case file, this book's chief value remains what the case file itself already states: it is the single most important primary published source for that specific case, preserving Stringfield's own 1954 investigation and its one surviving photograph in a form that has otherwise been largely lost to time.

The Book

As an Amazon Associate, OverClassified may earn from qualifying purchases made through this link, at no extra cost to you.

Related Cases & Theories