THE INS AND OUTS OF UFOs ABD SECRECY SINCE 1940
Sun, 15 Dec 1996 15:16:20 -0500 (EST)
Source: Francisco Lopez
Taken, as all the Web articles featured in this edition, from the
Stargate Web Site at: http://www.sisna.com/stargate
The Ins and Outs of UFOs and Secrecy Since 1940
by James A. Harder, Ph.D.
The Aerial Phenomena Research Organization was one of the first and
best UFO organizations in the world, and it was based right here in
Tucson, Arizona. APRO was disbanded in 1987 following the deaths of
its founders, Coral and Jim Lorenzen. Our newsletter will occasionally
include an article from the APRO Bulletin that we hope is of
continuing interest. This article is from Volume 32 Number 2, May
1984.
In the last issue I described how the Policy Chief from the National
Security Agency (NSA) had released a censored version of a top secret
affidavit he had submitted to federal Judge Gesell in support of the
NSA claim that his agency did not have to release documents under a
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suit brought by Peter Gersten and
Citizens against UFO secrecy. Within the sanitized version, in an
explanation of why certain sections of a previously released document
had been deleted, there occurs the statement “The matter in this
paragraph concerns the organization and operational activities and
functions of the NSA....” The dots represent a deletion of 15
characters on one line and 17 characters on the next line.
Bill Moore has supplied an interpretation of these deletions that fits
the context, fits the style of the author, and of course fits exactly
the spaces available. In his interpretation the deletions are “with
respect to the UFO phenomena”, so that the passage reads, “...concerns
the organization and operational activities and functions of NSA with
respect to the UFO phenomena.” It is this information that the NSA is
apparently trying to hide from public view.
This instance of censoring matters concerning UFO activities is only
the latest in a series of clues that can be used to reconstruct the
course of US government secrecy over the decades. The problem of
uncovering this pattern is not unlike trying to discern the bottom
contours of the Pacific Ocean from a few soundings and the appearance
of a few islands that break the surface. We do know that the ocean is
there, and that parts of it are very deep. What follows is an
integrated picture of the contributions of many tireless UFO
investigators.
Photos of Bodies
One starting point is the recovery of a crashed UFO from the Sonoran
desert of Mexico in late 1941. This recovery was accomplished by a
team from Navy Intelligence, which was at the time the premier US
intelligence agency in terms of scientific background. One member of
the team, unable any longer to contain the vast import of what had
been discovered, brought home to share with his immediate family a
sheaf of 8 by 10 inch glossy prints showing the UFO. One of the prints
showed his friend holding by the wrists one of several dead bodies
they had recovered. I was present during the hypnosis session wherein
a member of the family was able to clearly recover the images of the
photographs seen. From this case we know a very early date for the
beginning of government involvement and the branch of service that was
involved at that time. Other details are still under investigation at
APRO headquarters .
Intelligence agencies do not communicate their findings to other
agencies, even other intelligence agencies, unless there is a “need to
know”; therefore staff at the Air Materiel Command (AMC)
Wright-Patterson Army Air Force base at Dayton, Ohio (AMC was a part
of Army Air Force Intelligence) did not know in the summer of 1947
that there was already another player in the field. Stimulated by the
Kenneth Arnold sighting (flying saucers over Mount Rainier) on June
24, 1947, the staff at AMC gained permission to investigate the
so-called flying discs. In a letter to the Commanding General, Army
Air Forces, Washington DC, Lt. General N.F. Twining wrote in a secret
report that the “considered opinion” was that the so-called flying
discs were “something real and not visionary or fictitious...the
reported operational characteristics such as extreme rates of climb,
maneuverability (particularly in roll), and action which must be
considered evasive when sighted or contacted by friendly aircraft and
radar, lend belief to the possibility that some of the objects are
controlled either manually, automatically or remotely...” As a result
of Twining’s letter, dated 23 September 1947. the AMC was given
priority 2-A and a project name “SIGN”‘ for the investigation. One
important reason for staff concern was a fear that the aircraft
reported were something that the Russians had developed, perhaps based
on secret design information gained from the Germans at the end of
World War II.
Estimate of the Situation
After several months of investigation, the AMC was in a position to
come to an “estimate of the situation.” In a Top Secret Report, the
estimate was that the sightings were of extraterrestrial spacecraft.
When this report got to General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, Air Force Chief of
Staff in Washington, he would have none of it. Even when a delegation
of scientists came from the AMC to bolster their report, he could not
be budged. Apparently he had learned something in the meanwhile that
the folk at AMC did not know. From that time the Air Force operation
was put into a holding position of making some investigations, but
with the main job of denying that there was anything to UFO sightings
except mistakes and frauds. In February of 1949 the name of the
project was officially changed to ‘‘GRUDGE:’’ with what some personnel
saw as an indication of an official attitude. In the meanwhile AMC had
become the Air Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC) with headquarters
at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. In all probability
the personnel at ATIC thought of themselves as being the only ones in
the Air Force concerned with UFO matters and were never told
differently.
What General Vandenberg must have known is that there was another
branch of Air Force Intelligence involved with UFO research; we don’t
know its name, but subsequent events would show that somehow the
personnel or the activities that were originally with Navy
Intelligence had moved over to Air Force Intelligence. This secret and
serious group of UFO researchers does not seem to have been known to
the personnel at Project GRUDGE or its successor, project BLUE BOOK.
However, the Air Force Intelligence staff at ATIC were not the only
ones to find that the field had been pre-empted. The summer of 1952
saw an extraordinary outpouring of reports from all over the United
States; UFOs were seen over the White House during the Democratic
Convention, and it was all the Air Force could do to prevent the cover
from blowing off. All of this activity sparked an interest at the
Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI) at the Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA). There is massive evidence compiled by Brad Sparks of the
extensive interest of the “substantive issues” of UFO research at OSI
during the fall of 1952. A conference was planned, later to be known
as that of the Robertson Panel. But by the time the OSI could get
started on the subject, there was a change of personnel as the new
president, Dwight Eisenhower, promoted Alan Dulles from deputy
director to the directorship of the Central Intelligence Agency. The
secret group within Air Force Intelligence had carried the day against
the interlopers from OSI.
From being a discussion of the substantive issues of UFOs, the
Robertson Panel was diverted to a discussion of the dangers posed by
the phenomena; this was seen to be of two sorts: one, that there was a
danger that UFO sightings would be mistaken for those of enemy
aircraft and that reports of them might clog military channels of
communication in an emergency; and the second Subjectivity of (the)
public to mass hysteria and greater vulnerability to possible enemy
psychological warfare.
One of the recommendations of the panel was that there be a double
barrel program of training and debunking. The training (for Military
personnel) would result in the proper recognition of unusually
illuminated objects that were assumed to be at least partly the
stimulus for UFO reports. The debunking aim was to “result in (the)
reduction of (the) public interest in ‘flying saucers’ which today
invokes a strong psychological reaction. This education could be
accomplished by mass media such as television, motion pictures and
popular articles. Basis of such education would be actual case
histories which had been puzzling at first but later explained. As in
the case of conjuring tricks there is much less stimulation if the
‘secret’ is known. Such a program should tend to reduce the current
gullibility of the public and consequently their susceptibility to
clever hostile propaganda...’’
APRO Mentioned
In further action, the panel took note of civilian UFO study groups
(including APRO) and warned that such organizations should be watched
because of their potentially great influence on mass thinking if
widespread sightings should occur (the wave of sightings of the
previous summer was a lesson in this regard). Further remarks were
made that the ‘apparent irresponsibility and the possible use of such
groups for subversive purposes should be kept in mind...” In their
conclusions section there is the statement: “...the continued emphasis
on the reporting of these phenomena does, in these perilous times,
result in a threat to the orderly functions of the protective organs
of the body politic...and the cultivation of a morbid national
psychology in which skillful hostile propaganda could induce
hysterical behavior and harmful distrust of duly constituted
authority.”
The Robertson Panel report was classified SECRET, and might never have
been discovered except that it was seen in the files at ATIC
headquarters by Dr. James McDonald; apparently it had been improperly
declassified, for when he turned it back in and asked for a copy, it
was not provided, and he was told that it was no longer available as a
declassified document. A somewhat amusing side effect was felt at APRO
headquarters, where it was discovered that a “volunteer worker” had
been secretly making reports to his superior officer of his
observations at APRO. At one time there were as many as three former
CIA operatives on the board of directors of the National
Investigations Committee for Aerial Phenomena (NICAP).
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