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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