Flying Saucer to the Center of Your Mind: Selected Writings of John A. Keel (5 page)

Genuine Air Force officers don’t ride around in Cadillacs, but use assembly-line Chevys and Fords from the base motor pool. In several cases, these saucer “officers” carried sidearms and actually threatened the witnesses with them. In a recent instance, one such “officer” flourished a
German Luger
instead of a general issue, U.S.-made automatic.

Would any responsible Air Force officer actually threaten an American taxpayer with a firearm just because he or she had seen an unidentified flying object?

The Pentagon became very concerned over the nationwide activities of these mysterious “Air Force officers” and on March 1, 1967, Lt. General Hewitt T. Wheless, USAF Assistant Vice Chief of Staff, issued a letter to all commands on the subject of “Impersonations of Air Force officers.” It advised all military and civilian personnel “and particularly Information Officers and UFO Investigating Officers who hear of such reports” to notify military intelligence immediately.

As usual, the UFO buffs regarded this as still another “whitewash.” But the fact is that the FBI has actively been investigating a number of these cases, and several independent civilian UFO investigators have encountered not only Air Force officer impersonators, but also “mystery men” dressed in police uniforms and
driving police cars.
Efforts to check out the identity of these men, trace their license numbers, etc., led to a dead end. In several cases, the license numbers on these cars
had never been issued
.

To understand the government’s basic position towards the UFO phenomenon, we must review the general UFO situation of the past 30 years or so. Researchers all over the world have been digging into books, newspapers, and scientific journals, and many surprising patterns have been uncovered. These patterns indicate that UFO activity has been occurring repeatedly and consistently in the same areas, year after year, long before the first “flying saucer scare” of June 1947 led to a general public awareness of the “flying saucer” mystery. The following chronology summarizes the heavily documented evidence now available to serious researchers:

1933-34 – December-January: Unidentified aircraft appeared nightly over Finland, Sweden, and England. A small “war scare” resulted. Explanation offered: “smugglers and spies.”

1937-38: Worldwide UFO sightings, with numerous reports from Africa and from ships at sea, particularly in the northern latitudes and around Scandinavia.

1942: A formation of UFOs appeared over Los Angeles, CA. Anti-aircraft batteries opened fire, without effect. A congressional inquiry into this incident was launched, but no conclusions were reached.

1943-45: Many well-documented UFO sightings by military pilots and ships all over the world. Both Axis and Allied pilots reported seeing discs over Europe and the Pacific. They were dubbed “foo fighters.” Such reports were turned over to military intelligence.

1945 – December: Six planes and 27 men disappeared completely in clear weather off the coast of Florida in the area now known as the “Bermuda Triangle.” An extensive search by land, air, and sea failed to find any trace of the missing craft. UFOs had been sighted in the area.

1946 – January: President Truman forms the Central Intelligence Group, forerunner of the CIA.

1946 – April: Congressional hearings are held to determine the fate of the 27 men who disappeared off the Florida coast. Relatives of the missing men were flown to Washington and sworn to secrecy. No definite conclusions were published.

1946 – July: Thousands of “ghost rockets” and mysterious flying objects suddenly appeared over Sweden and Scandinavia. There were many reliable observations by military men and high officials. The Swedish government later released a strong statement attesting to the reality of the phenomenon. The sightings spread throughout Europe but received almost no publicity in the U.S., except for a few random “human interest” stories. Within a month, USAF General James Doolittle arrived in Stockholm, Sweden, allegedly to “conduct an investigation along with Swedish authorities.”

1947: Numerous sightings of circular aircraft began to appear in isolated American newspapers in the spring, but the subject did not receive public attention until Kenneth Arnold reported seeing flying discs near Mt. Rainier, WA on June 24
^th
. Hundreds of sightings were published in the two weeks that followed. The “flying saucer” controversy was born, and the official Air Force investigation began. In Sept., the Air Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC) at Dayton, Ohio, sent a letter to the commanding general of the Air Force expressing the opinion that “flying saucers” were real, and that an all-out investigation should be launched.

1948 – January: ATIC began
Project Sign,
a concentrated, well-financed effort, manned by highly trained intelligence experts, began to collect and study all available UFO reports.

1948 – August: ATIC completed its initial study and drew up a “Top-Secret Estimate of the Situation.” Their conclusion, according to the men who worked on it, was that the UFOs were real and were
extraterrestrial.
This report was delivered to Air Force Chief of Staff General Vandenberg. He rejected the report, declaring there was insufficient evidence to back it up, and that the government could not offer such a conclusion to the public without an abundance of proof.
Project Sign
was dissolved. Military intelligence withdrew from open UFO research, and a group of second-string astronomers, college professors, and UFO enthusiasts set to work on Project Grudge. This was an alternate project meant to “explain away” the UFO phenomenon.

1949 – December: The Air Force issued the 600-page
Project Grudge Report,
which “explained” all UFO sightings as being delusions, hoaxes, and natural phenomena.

1950: UFO sightings continued and, although no government agency was supposed to be officially interested, mystery men claiming to represent the government turned up to “investigate” a number of the new cases. Their identity has never been ascertained.

1951: In September, protests from concerned scientists and industrialists forced the Air Force to re-establish a UFO project. This was
Project Blue Book,
headed by the late Capt. Edward Ruppelt.

1952: Ruppelt and his Blue Book team worked industriously to collect and analyze new UFO evidence. They carefully prepared charts and graphs of UFO activity, studied films, and investigated new sightings. There were many important UFO incidents in 1952, including the sudden appearance of many objects over Washington, D.C. in July. That year, the National Security Agency (NSA) was brought into being. Far more mysterious than the CIA, the NSA works with computers and elaborate electronic gear. It is headed by a physicist and a general (usually a radar specialist) working in tandem. It has become one of the most secret of all the “secret” agencies in Washington.

1953 – January: The CIA convened a blue-ribbon panel of scientists and CIA agents to examine Project Blue Book’s findings and to settle upon a policy for handling future UFO information. Capt. Ruppelt and his men prepared their case carefully and spent four days presenting it to the CIA panel. These meetings undoubtedly shaped the course of government policy for 15 years to come. This was the real turning point. The panelists felt that the evidence was inadequate for any conclusive, positive governmental position. Since UFOs had already been around in great numbers for many years, it was likely that the reports of UFO sightings would include and could conceivably present a hazard by cluttering up official communications channels with endless reports of little importance. So the panel recommended a program for debunking the subject, and leading the public to disinterest. Project Blue Book was turned into nothing more than an understaffed public relations office dedicated to “explaining” and minimizing the importance of UFO sightings.

1953 – August: The Air Force issued its notorious Regulation 200-2 ordering all Air Force personnel to keep silent about UFO sightings and related matters. This censorship did not extend to other military branches, however. By the end of 1953, the official position was well-shaped and, gradually, the Air Force attitudes did influence other branches of the service.

The real questions – and answers – about the government’s official UFO position are now buried in history. The men who formed those policies are now either dead or retired. Most of the documents from the earlier days have been destroyed or are lost forever in the vast catacombs of files in Washington, D.C.

By sifting the available public records in Washington, we have determined that there was high-level interest in the UFO phenomenon prior to Arnold’s 1947 sighting. Furthermore, this interest was entirely isolated to intelligence specialists. Following standard intelligence procedure, they were quietly collecting and examining all of the available facts on the situation. The public didn’t know about “flying saucers” and they hoped to keep it that way.

In June-July 1947, when “flying saucers” crashed into the nationwide headlines, the “secret” was out. The military machinery moved automatically, completely independent of the government agencies. The Air Force was responsible for protecting our skies, so they began to investigate. The men at ATIC worked hard and conscientiously and, after a long and careful study of the evidence, drafted their Top-Secret Estimate of the situation. They knew they were presenting an outlandish hypothesis: the UFOs were “extraterrestrial.” They were literally laying their careers on the line. They had to believe absolutely in their conclusion. They expected to be taken seriously but, instead, General Vandenberg threw the estimate back at them. If ATIC’s appraisal was accurate in the sense that UFOs might be “alien” objects posing a potential threat – no matter how slight – to the United States, then Vandenberg’s action was ill-considered. He removed the men best equipped to study and cope with the UFO “problem,” and set up
Project Grudge
– an apparent whitewash.

Why?

Could it be that Gen. Vandenberg
already
knew something very important about the UFO phenomenon – something that the ATIC did not even suspect? Could it have been important to keep the
Air Force
in the dark? In other words, did he – and the CIA – want to keep the Air Force from finding out?

All of this indicates that this is exactly what happened. The intelligence officers at ATIC were convinced that UFOs were real. They were eager to learn more about them. But they were stopped before they went too far.

The whole charade was repeated again in 1953. Again, lower echelon officers in the Air Force had established a UFO investigating project –
Project Blue Book.
Again, hard-working men like Capt. Ruppelt did their best to figure out what was going on. Later, Capt. Ruppelt wrote a book,
Report on Unidentified Flying Objects,
which still stands as one of the best on the subject. In that book, he mentions a discussion with an unnamed scientist in an unnamed Washington agency early in June 1952. This scientist told Ruppelt flatly that a big “flap” would occur over either New York or Washington. A few weeks later, the sightings over Washington took place. The objects were picked up by radar, pursued by Air Force fighters, and viewed by hundreds of people on the ground. The point is: even in 1952, some scientists or group of scientists already understood the UFO patterns and were able to accurately predict a forthcoming flap.

Obviously, the government – or someone in government – knew a great deal about “flying saucers.” And obviously they had no intention of
ever
letting this become public knowledge.

Ruppelt’s busy technicians had to be stopped. So, in 1953, the CIA reviewed their findings, dismissed them, and laid the groundwork for the present government policy. The panel included many distinguished scientists, but it was only necessary for the CIA to insert a single “ringer” onto the panel – a man with orders to twist everything around convincingly enough so that the others would follow his lead and reject Ruppelt’s evidence. Having accomplished this, the CIA’s role in the UFO muddle was finished.

Since 1953, the Air Force’s UFO “investigations” have been downright laughable. The annual UFO statistics issued by
Project Blue Book
are so carelessly assembled that the columns of figures haven’t even been correctly added.
Blue Book’s
“staff” of two officers (a sergeant and a secretary) labor to answer “kiddie mail” and hand out “explanations” of sightings with a total disregard for the reported facts.

For years, the UFO buffs and their organizations have battled with the Air Force and denounced the CIA. But it appears that Ruppelt, his predecessors, and his successors were merely pawns in some larger game involving the CIA (which has neither the authority nor the responsibility to investigate UFO incidents).

In a sense, the Air Force and the CIA have already told us a good deal by refusing to tell us anything. The problems are actually deeper and more complex than we can comprehend or accept.

PROJECT BETA: AN ANALYSIS OF REPORTS OF UNIDENTIFIED AERIAL OBJECTS (1996)

Although it has somehow escaped the notice of the major news media, the wave of UFO sighting reports in 1966 exceeded all other years. Local newspapers throughout the world recorded over 10,000 sightings. Of these, the U.S. Air Force received 1,060 for the year, or 10% of the total.

These sightings have been categorized by dates, locales, and other significant factors. Many of these reports consisted of vague descriptions of unusual flying lights, etc., and were discarded as “insufficient” for this study. A total of 7.3% of all collected sightings were classified as Type 1 (low-level objects well-described by reliable witnesses such as police officers, pilots, radar technicians, etc.), and were selected as representative of the overall situation.

It was determined that all sightings tended to occur in groups or bunches, centered around specific days in specific months. These groupings are referred to as “flaps” (an Air Force term). For example, on March 30, 1966, extensive Type 1 sightings were recorded in South Carolina, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Iowa, Ohio, California, Long Island, and Michigan. While the sightings in Michigan were minor compared to the incidents in other states at the same time, only Michigan received national publicity.