Robert Low

Robert J. Low was an assistant dean of the graduate school at the University of Colorado and the coordinator of the university's Air Force-funded UFO study, led by physicist Edward Condon from 1966 to 1968.

In an August 1966 memo to university administrators, written while the university was deciding whether to take the contract, Low suggested the study could be presented to the public as a fully objective investigation while appearing to scientists as the work of non-believers who would gather evidence that the sightings had no reality behind them. He proposed stressing the psychology and sociology of people who report sightings rather than the physical evidence.

Atmospheric physicist James McDonald came across the memo in project files in 1967. It spread in 1968 through NICAP and a Look magazine article by John G. Fuller that called the project a '$500,000 trick'. Two investigators who had circulated it were dismissed, and Low left the project in May 1968.

Critics still cite the memo as evidence the study's conclusion was set in advance. Defenders, including Condon, said it did not reflect how the work was actually done.