Government / Military

Hector Quintanilla Jr.

1963-01-01year known, day not recorded

Major, U.S. Air Force; Chief of Project Blue Book at Wright-Patterson AFB in the mid-1960s. Briefed the USAF Scientific Advisory Board ad hoc committee on Blue Book in February 1966, corresponded directly with the Exeter witnesses, and testified in person at the 5 April 1966 House Armed Services hearing. NOT to be confused with any other Quintanilla.

In the UAP recordRuled into the unidentified-phenomena thread on 2 September 2026 from this entity's own name and role text, which contain: "blue book". An editorial classification of what thread this entity belongs to; it rests on no page and does not claim to. Neighbours were not used - see apply-subjects-2026-09-02.mjs for why.

6 of 6 connections resolve to a document you can open.

Documents1 behind a connection

Documents behind a connection

Unidentified Flying Objects 1966-04-05

6 connections

ColourJournalistsIncidentsGovernmentHearings & panels

→ Project Blue Book

Chief of Project Blue Book

Unidentified Flying Objects
printed p. 6041 checked against the page
→ Exeter Incident

signed the Air Force letter saying the investigation indicated a possible association with Operation Big Blast, and that no final evaluation could yet be made

same document as the row above
printed p. 6041 checked against the page
← Eugene Bertrand

co-signed the 2 December 1965 letter to him rejecting the Big Blast and weather-inversion explanations

same document as the row above
printed p. 6040 · PDF p. 52 checked against the page

Caveat The word "rejecting" is this project's summary and not the officers' own language. They do not write that they reject the Air Force explanations; they set out why the timing rules Big Blast out, state that the weather was clear, and ask for help against the suggestion that they made the story up or were incompetent observers. Read the folio for their wording.
→ SAB Ad Hoc Committee to Review Project Blue Book

briefed it on Project Blue Book, 3 February 1966

same document as the row above
printed p. 5996 · PDF p. 8 checked against the page
→ John G. Fuller document, no page cited yet

denied to Congress the radar contact and scrambled fighters in Fuller's account

same document as the row above
← David Hunt

co-signed the 2 December 1965 letter to him rejecting the Big Blast and weather-inversion explanations

same document as the row above
printed p. 6040 · PDF p. 52 checked against the page

Caveat The word "rejecting" is this project's summary and not the officers' own language. They do not write that they reject the Air Force explanations; they set out why the timing rules Big Blast out, state that the weather was clear, and ask for help against the suggestion that they made the story up or were incompetent observers.

3 corrections to this record

Generated from the record, not written by hand. Every change keeps what the map used to say, because a correction nobody can see is indistinguishable from never having been wrong.

Hector Quintanilla Jr. → Exeter Incident

signed the Air Force evaluation attributing it to Operation Big Blast

signed the Air Force letter saying the investigation indicated a possible association with Operation Big Blast, and that no final evaluation could yet be made

HE DID NOT SIGN THAT LETTER. The letter attributing the early sightings to Big Blast "Coco" is at folio 6039 and is signed "JOHN P. SPAULDING, Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Air Force, Chief, Civil Branch, Community Relations Division, Office of Information". Quintanilla's own signed letter at 6041 says "Our investigation and evaluation of this sighting indicates a possible association with an 8th Air Force operation, Big Blast" and "Before a final evaluation of your sighting can be made, it is essential for us to know if either of you witnessed any aircraft in the area". Both folios read as an image 2026-08-25.

Hector Quintanilla Jr. → Eugene Bertrand

wrote to him rejecting the Big Blast and weather-inversion explanations

co-signed the 2 December 1965 letter to him rejecting the Big Blast and weather-inversion explanations

THE LETTER IS SIGNED BY BOTH PATROLMEN and this line said one man wrote it. Folio 6040 ends "EUGENE BERTRAND, Patrolman. DAVID HUNT, Patrolman." Link 1226 already records that Hunt co-signed the same December 1965 letter, so the map carried two descriptions of one document that disagreed about who wrote it. The claim is otherwise unchanged: both the Big Blast and the weather-inversion rejections are on the folio, and the date is now stated because the folio states it.

Hector Quintanilla Jr. → SAB Ad Hoc Committee to Review Project Blue Book

CHRG-89hhrg50066O, pp. 6036-6041, the NICAP Exeter file entered into the record by Rep. William H. Bates

briefed it on Project Blue Book, 3 February 1966

The evidence string named the wrong part of the hearing. Pages 6036-6041 are the Exeter correspondence; the briefing this link asserts is on the Ad Hoc Committee agenda at printed 5996. The locator was null and the state read "proposed, not reviewed", so the citation had never been checked against a page. The claim itself is unchanged and is supported exactly as written, date included.