Encounters: The UFO Phenomenon, Exposed!/Encounters - The UFO Phenomenon, Exposed (1995).iso/misc3/misc072.txt

Text File | 1995-10-20 | 41KB | 863 lines

UFOSearch
Columbia, Missouri 65203

The Ruppelt Chronology, Part 1/5

Introduction

Edward Ruppelt was an engineer with the Northrup Aircraft
Corporation when he released The Report On Unidentified Flying
Objects in 1956.  This book was to be one of the most influential
volumes produced in the 1950s and is still quoted today.  During
World War II Ruppelt was a bombadier with the very first B-29
wing and served both in China and in the South Pacific.  As some
of you may know, the B-29 people were very carefully selected.

When the war ended Ruppelt went to college and was still in
attendance there when the Korean War started in 1950.  At the end
of that year he was called up to active duty and sent to the Air
Technical Intelligence Corps (ATIC) based at Wright Field near
Dayton, Ohio.  He arrived in January of 1951 with the rank of
Captain.  His stay in the Air Force was to last 33 months.

In September of 1951 he was put "in charge" of the "flying saucer
group" at ATIC, then called GRUDGE.  Also working on UFOs at that
time was the Air Materiel Command (AMC).  Ruppelt stayed with
Grudge throughout the rest of 1951 and remained on board when it
became Blue Book in 1952.  He was the man in the middle during
the great Washington, D.C., flap of July, 1952 and saw what the
Robertson Committee did to the UFO and the Air Force in 1953.

His book is interesting and valuable for several reasons:

1)  Many good cases are accurately and completely discribed.
2) The near panic of insiders in '52 is depicted graphically.
3) A group similiar to "Majestic-12" is mentioned.
4) Statements in the book imply communication with "others."
5)  A second editon in 1959 contains a complete retraction!

The Report On Unidentified Flying Objects appeared in 1956, three
years after Keyhoe's Flying Saucers From Outer Space.  Both books
cover about the same period of time.  Careful reading of the two
reveals that some "power scientists," perhaps they were Bush and
Berkner but we don't know, were in a tremendous tug-of-war with
the military over the UFOs.  Ruppelt says that by the summer of
1952 some Air Force brass was near panic and was actually looking
for an invasion, a concern that was to surface again after the
1965 power failures.  Ruppelt hints that the Washington, D.C.,
flap of July, 1952 almost pushed the military over the edge!

This period is grimly depicted in Keyhoe's FSFOS which ends in a
chapter stating that the Earth was then under survey by "super-
intelligent extra-terrestrials."  Ruppelt calls that "way out"
but a careful reading of his book leads me to think otherwise.
All in all, Ruppelt's The Report On Unidentified Flying Objects
is required reading for any serious student of the UFO.  It takes
you back to the first years of the second half of the century
when the "UFO" was young and the power elite had not yet grabbed
near total control of first-class information.

In the chronology that follows entries prior to 1951 concern
events that Ruppelt thought important enough to mention or that
UFOSearch feels dovetail with information in his book.  Most of
the dates are quite close but there are some that are my best
estimate as to exactly when they happened.  Rarely could the
error be more than a week or two.  UFOSearch has found this sort
of time-line analyis a very revealing way to look at the "UFO."



1947

June 24  Arnold Sighting.  Huge press reaction, perhaps never
matched in all UFO history--approached only in 1952 & 1966.
Banner headlines around the nation.  It is the position of
UFOSearch that this incident was chosen by the people we now
think of as Majestic-12 to be the trigger for public introduction
to "UFOs."  Air Force brand-new, given UFOs as the lowest ranking
of the services!  See Arnold Chronology -- Part I.

July 04  Record for reports not broken until July, 1952.

July 07  Roswell Incident--recovery of "crashed disc" and dead
crew?  Now known with certainty?  Handled at level way above ATIC
and AMC.  What those people saw were just the ripples spreading
out from the REAL investigation as we shall see as this
chronology proceeds. (Actual crash on about June 15?  See: The
Roswell Incident, other books.)

Aug. 15  Gallup says 90+ per cent of Americans know about "Flying
Saucers." That was the whole idea of the press flap--to get the
public interested, file reports.  Most people at this time think
UFOs are illusions, not space ships.

Aug. 31  So many fantastic reports are coming in that many
newspapers begin ridiculing witnesses as much as anything else.

Sep. 27  Gen. Twining writes, for internal consumption only, that
"Flying Saucers are real objects, not illusions."  He was head of
the Air Material Command, supposedly at the "first level out"
from the real insiders.  But he is now said by some to have been
a member of Majestic-12, the "control group" for the flying
saucer problem.

Sep. ??  Control Group Majestic-12 said to be set up to handle
the problem of the UFO.  Vannevar Bush is the chairman.  These
people seem to be the "inside-insiders."  The documents are
reproduced in Good's 1987 book Above Top Secret.  The documents
could very well could be phony but it seems obvious to us that
some sort of control group was then in existance, MJ-12 or no.
Does the word "innoculation" ring any bells for our readers?

Dec. 15  Saturday Evening Post used by "Air Force," others in
government, to plant authoritative article saying Flying Saucers
are nothing but hoaxes and illusions. This, of course, was read
by millions of Americans.

Dec. 20  Security lid is on tight, little published in press.
There was confusion, near panic at ATIC.  Answers were wanted--
fast.  Intense investigation underway; inquiries had been sent to
Germany about secret Nazi projects.  All intelligence officers
were given orders to investigate UFO reports but in public the
Air Force was pooh-poohing the entire subject.  Vannevar Bush and
the inventor of the proximity fuse (Dr. Tuve, Johns Hopkins,
where Hynek spent the war) are said to believe that flying
saucers are impossible.  At least they say so in public.

Dec. 30  Project SIGN established (secret) with Project SAUCER as
the public cover.  Gives official approval to the UFO
investigation.  J. Allen Hynek attached to SAUCER but was
secretly working for SIGN, too.  SAUCER and SIGN were
establisheded by order of Secretary of Defense James Forrestal.


1948

Jan. 01  Lack of press interest at new year is giving the Air
Force more time to conduct its investigation.  Public reports are
still being suppressed, "witness ridicule intense."

Jan. 08  SIGN and AMC go into overdrive on UFOs because of the
Mantell incident.  Investigation lasts a year.

Jan. 08  Capt. Thomas Mantell, an experienced WWII and Nat'l
Guard pilot, dies chasing UFO.  Hynek and SIGN explained this
away as the planet Venus but the affair burned hot for awhile.
But then the explaining took hold and the flap died.
Ruppelt was to find in 1951 that the Mantell file was obviously
damaged and incomplete--worthless for investigation. By 1951 the
Navy had "admitted" that Mantell had died chasing a secret
"Skyhook" balloon (under test by CIA as a spy camera
vehicle--against the USSR!) which no one knew about back in 1948.
But no balloon was in the area at the time and Dr. James McDonald
found that out in 1968.  Then in 1985 a secret transcript was
relesed under an FOIA request, confirming that Mantell had in
fact said that whatever he was chasing was a "metallic object of
tremendous size."  Denied for 38 years by AF; contemporary leaks,
ridiculed at time, were correct, no matter what Mantell saw.

Feb. 15  Ghost rockets back in Sweden & Norway but Air Force not
really interested--still had the Mantell flap to worry about.
Flying Saucers again to be pushed out of the news, few stories.

Mar. 15  Air Materiel Command still working on report concerning
the flying saucers.  Working very hard.  Consensus was that the
objects were not of Earth orgin--outer space.

July 24  Eastern Airline sighting puts flying saucers back into
the headlines for a while.  Two competent pilots and a passenger
see something at close range.  Resonates in media.

End, Part 1/5
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UFOSearch
Columbia, Missouri 65203

The Ruppelt Chronology, Part 2/5

The year is 1948 as we continue:

July 30 -- Air Materiel Command's Estimate goes up the chain, is
shot down in flames by Af Chief of Staff Vandenberg, who is said
to have been a member of Majestic-12.  The Estimate was a
detailed historical study of the UFO which concluded there was a
real phenomenon behind the sightings.  Ordered declassified (?)
and then burned but a copy still existed for Ruppelt and Fournet
to see in 1951.  From here on SIGN begins begins to fade as high
brass puts on the brakes through the summer.

Nov. 30 -- Green Fireballs begin over northern New Mexico.  These
objects have been seen ever since at irregular intervals and from
different parts of the country.

Dec. 05 -- Pilots see a green object ASCEND from the eastern
slopes of the Sandia Mountains and then level off at a few
thousand feet before streaking away.  Pilots in the area saw
eight fireballs that night.

Dec. 06 -- Dr. La Paz, University of New Mexico, scours the area
for fragments of these bright meteors--finds none.  Dr. La Paz
was to be involved in "UFOs" for many years and have some
definite ideas on what was going on with government and the
scientific community.

Dec. 16 -- Orders issued for Project SIGN to become GRUDGE.  From
"Director, Air Force Research and Development."  GRUDGE would
soon prove to be an enemy of the UFO.


1949

Jan. 10 -- By now "most of the distinguished scientists" working
at Los Alamos and Manzano had seen a green fireball and a Major
Flap is taking place in secret at the most secret locations in
the country.  Ad Hoc investigations begin by teams of scientists,
get some results!  There is virtually no media coverage in nation
at large as our "free press" is silenced.

Jan. 15 -- Spectacular sightings at Army facility so secret that
Ruppelt can't even mention its name or location.  Plan similiar
to TWINKLE proposed for this location but killed from the top
before it could go into operation.  Independent investigations by
competent people with their own budgets were not on the program
in the USA.

Jan. 22 -- SIGN offically begins operating as GRUDGE.

Feb. 10 -- Conference on Green Fireballs, Teller & Kaplan in
attendance.  The Cambridge Research Lab puts in motion Project
TWINKLE with three cine-theodolites.  Except that only one camera
was ever set up and it was moved to White Sands!  No Green
Fireballs triangulated, or so it is said.  See April.  Was
TWINKLE just a cover for the REAL investigation?  We think so
because La Paz was still upset about it in 1964 and during the
Zamora flap he accused Hynek of being part of a large-scale cover
up.  Somewhere, somehow a real scientific investigation was being
conducted. . .by MJ-12 or whatever it was called?

Feb. 15 -- Project SIGN publically becomes Project GRUDGE, begins
to work immediately on its Final Report.  UFO files are now
closed to the public.  Plans to put teams of investigators at
every base are cancelled.  Grudge has two tasks: explain UFOs and
publicise those explanations.  A purge takes place and many top
people are removed.  The plan now is to get rid of UFOs.  Total
about-face in Air Force policy takes place at this time as the
old team is wiped out, replaced.  This is the FIRST CRACKDOWN.

Feb. 20 -- Interim SIGN report continues line of enquiry opened
up by the Estimate of 1948 but waffles considerably.  Says UFOs
need more work and that without some hardware (downed saucer) we
would never really know what they are.  This report ended up
calling for a few officers to be trained to collect reports but
that it should be a "routine activity" within other work.

Feb. 28 -- Ruppelt talks of a new look at SIGN/GRUDGE.  The UFO
to be killed.

Apr. 06 -- Navy scientists at White Sands triangulate UFO at
18,000 mph.  Part of TWINKLE?  Leaked years later to Keyhoe.

Apr. 30 -- Saturday Evening Post again runs planted article, this
one by Sidney Shallet. Totally debunks UFOs. Is disinformation
that the AF will refer people to for years.  Prominent
scientists, Nobel Prize winners, come out and tell the public to
forget about UFOs.  Ruppelt even says it was a cover-up.  In the
wake of this article the Air Force then puts out a press release
saying UFOs are illusions, hoaxes, etc.  Explanation became
Grudge's main interest, besides working on its own Final Report.

May  15 -- Secretary of Defense Forrestal, hospitalized at
Bethesda for horrific hallucinations, committs suicide by jumping
from the 16th floor of the hospital.  Or so it is said.  First of
many mysterious deaths of persons known to have connections to
the UFO.  Forrestal now said to have been a member of the control
group in charge of UFOs, Majestic-12 or whatever.

June 15 -- GRUDGE nearly dead, little investigative activity.
Press interest way down after counterattack of winter & spring.
All information requests get the debunking press release and
reference to the Post articles.  The Final Report nearly done.

Aug. 10 -- Soviets detonate A-Bomb, shocking America, stepping up
Cold War after the announcement is made in September.  Major
Marcel is attached to this program which was begun after AEC
member (and Rockefeller operative) Lewis Strauss plumped hard for
it.  Strauss about to head the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

Mid-Year -- Keyhoe in Aliens From Space, 1973, says that by now a
project was underway in strictest secrecy to determine what the
UFOs actually were.  Many top scientists believed in projects to
"duplicate the performance of the UFOs."  What were the results?

Aug. 15 -- GRUDGE'S Final Report completed and sent on its rounds
for internal consumption.  Says UFOs are illusions, hoaxes and
misidentifications, calls for investigation to continue but as
part of routine intelligence work. Says main threat of "flying
saucers" is to the public mind--mass hysteria.

Mid-Year -- Air Force said to be trying to bring down a Flying
Saucer.  Pilots told to ram.  "Do anything, including grabbing it
by the tail."

Sept 15 -- Some American newspapers run stories about crashed
discs and little men, in Texas and old Mexico.  Not mentioned by
Ruppelt in his history but I think this is important.  Something
was going on off camera and that something was driving the events
visible to Ruppelt.  Or else he chose not to comment!

Oct. 15 -- Document (released in 1985) speaks of a secret team
reporting to General Marshall himself.  This team is the
Interplanetary Unit, part of a high-level group that is
investigating UFOs. . .under the control group?

Dec. 15 -- Keyhoe's article runs in True.  Keyhoe says the Air
Force passed on it.  Terrific sensation.  Says that Flying
Saucers Are Real and that they are from outer space.  Has many
"unnamed sources" who say the military is covering up an
investigation of Earth by extra-terrestrials.  Keyhoe was an
ex-Marine, Annapolis classmate of Delmar Fahrney and Admiral
Hillenkoetter, director of public information for Department of
Commerce in the 1920s.  Flew with Lindberg on his tour in 1928.
Friend of Admrial Byrd.  Wrote "M-Day" in 1940, a preview of how
America would fight The Second World War.  The man had inside
sources, was a conduit for material to be released unofficially.
To a pure outsider this looks like "good-cop/bad-cop" but could
this waffling be the result of competing investigations run from
different arms of the government and military.  Possible.

Dec. 27 -- GRUDGE Final Report issued to counter the Keyhoe
article.  As with the Condon Report in 1969 reporters read only
the conclusions.  It was admitted that 20 per cent of all
sightings could not be explained.  Very little publicity was
generated by this report, no doubt because of Keyhoe's bomb.

Dec. 27 -- With release of SIGN/GRUDGE Final Report the Air Force
announces the termination of Project GRUDGE.  Its personel were
to be transferred and its files dumped into storage boxes, or so
it was said.  Actually, GRUDGE continued to collect reports
though at a lower level than before.  Air Force refused to
declassify UFO files or recommend that a non-military group
should study the subject.  The Green Fireball investigation was
not de-classified.  At the level of ATIC everyone hoped the UFO
would just go away.  But it didn't do that.


1950

Mar. 15 -- Navy clears TRUE to run article by officer at White
Sands.  He says that scientists and engineers there had
photographed a UFO while observing a balloon launch.  Article
goes on to say that object observed was "spaceship from another
planet."  This article and the one by Keyhoe were the first to
put the extra-terrestrial hypothesis out to the public in
believable form.  Important.

Mar. 15 -- Farmington, New Mexico incident is one of most
incredible of all time.  Several hundred people saw literally
hundreds of vehicles, all at the same time, milling around above
them.  Went on for two days and there were witnesses in droves.
Explained away as, you guessed it, a research balloon exploding.

End, Part 2/5.
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From: [e-mail] (Germannvh)
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Subject: Ruppelt Chronology -- 3/5
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The Ruppelt Chronology, Part 3/5

UFOSearch
Columbia, Missouri 65203

It is 1950 as we continue:

Mar. 26 - One nationwide radio commentator says UFOs are from
Russia.  Henry Taylor says one was found in Texas with USAF
markings on it.

Apr. 14 - U.S. News & World Report says UFOs are Navy secret
weapons, like the "Flying Flapjack."  At this time the first
truly authoritative documentary runs on CBS radio with Edward R.
Murrow (`this is London') talking to people all over the country.
This program is calm, does not ridicule witnesses.

Apr. 27 - White Sands report to ATIC is of object at 40,000 feet,
2,000 mph and about 300 feet in diameter.

May  15 - Airline pilots sending in many, many reports.

June 15 - Korean war begins and Flying Saucers move to a back
burner--for awhile.  The vast majority of Korean War sightings
remain a secret and few good ones were leaked until the 1970s!

Sept 08 - Scully's book appears with the "crashed disc," "little
men" stories.  This is the first "UFO book" to appear in the
United States.  Causes a sensation.  It is lucid, well-written
and contains one of the first condemnations of the Black World
octopus of the WW II "intelligence" agencies.  A Must READ.

Dec. 25 - Article in Cosmopolitan by journalist Bob Considine is
vicious attack on UFOs and witnesses to UFOs. A definite response
to Scully's effort.  Is so brutal that law suits are filed and
drag on for several years. The Air Force planted this article and
allowed Considine to examine secret files and talk to Air Force
personnel.  The Air Force Directorate of Intelligence says that
"flying saucers are idiotic."  AF playing both sides of street.


1951

Jan. 15 - Ruppelt called up and sent to ATIC, finds UFOs a
subject of ridicule within the organization.  But Ruppelt talks
to "one man who had been on SIGN since 1947 and thinks flying
saucers are interplanetary space ships. This led me to sound out
a few more people."  It was then that he began his history, which
in part has been summarized here.  Who was this man that got
Ruppelt started?  The "man" was not military and by 1951 who was
left--only Hynek!

Feb. 10 - Ruppelt told "the powers that be are anti-flying saucer
and if you want to stay in favor it behooves you to follow suit."

Apr. 15 - Ruppelt at ATIC investigating characteristics of the
new Mig-15, just showing up in the skies over Korea.

Apr. 20 - Life magazine wants to do an article on flying saucers,
is going to send a reporter to talk about the subject.  The
reporter has a lot of questions that GRUDGE people can't really
answer.   Top people at Life were in on the disinformation
campaign from start.

June 15 - A Lt. Cummings, late of Cal Tech, just called up to
active duty, is put in charge of GRUDGE.  He attempts to make the
UFO "respectable" again but faces "political, economic and
manpower problems."  But he upgrades the project quite a bit and
does get some support from higher echelons.

Aug. 25 - Lubbock Lights begin and Ruppelt finds that a huge
"flying wing" has flown from Albuquerque, N.M., to Lubbock,
Texas, in 20 minutes.  It then appears in Washington State 1 hour
and 55 minutes later.  It's average speed is over 900 miles an
hour.  This object in many ways almost identical to the Taconic
Parkway Object of the 1980s.  Also, this writer may have seen the
same type of object at Carrollton, Missouri, in the spring of
1954.  (Ruppelt would later repudiate this sighting, saying that
further investigation had shown it to have a conventional
explanation.  But his denials don't ring true.  The Lubbock
lights complex of sightings remains of extreme importance, if
only because of the reaction they got from the AF and others.)

Sept 12 - Flap at Fort Monmouth, headquarters of Army Signal
Command and a very sensitive place, causes sensation at Wright
Field and a call comes in from Major General Cabell, of the Air
Force Intelligence directorate. (This man is the brother of the
Cabell who would be mayor of Dallas on November 22, 1963)
General Cabell wants a full report on the incident at Fort
Monmouth amd gives verbal orders given to investigate fully.
Lt. Cummings investigates.

Sept 15 - Briefing held at Pentagon for General Cabell, his
staff, Lt. Col. Rosengarten (chief of missile branch) and a
"civilian from Republic Aircraft."  Ruppelt says that "the
civilian from Republic supposedly represented a group of top U.S.
industrialists and scientists who thought there should be a lot
more sensible answers coming out of the Air Force regarding the
UFOs."  This is typical Ruppelt wording--sly.  The man was from a
group similiar to what we now know as Majestic-12.  He wanted to
know what the Air Force knew, which was very little.  The
recording of this briefing was ordered burned and no manuscripts
exist, says Ruppelt.  Thus this manuscript really was a Top
Secret.  It should be extremely unusual, even UNHEARD OF, for the
military to burn such documents.  That an order like this was
given at all indicates the nature of the "man from Republic."

Sept 15 - Ruppelt says that at this time GRUDGE was almost dead,
had a bad attitude and was short-changed at ATIC. There was
opposition within the Air Force to the processing of reports and
the simple re-organization that Cummings was trying to get into
place.  This was communicated at the briefing mentioned above and
embarrassed Cabell in front of the "man from Republic."

Sept 20 - Lt. Cummings suddenly de-activated and sent back to
Cal-Tech for "an important government project."  Don't things get
curiouser and curiouser?  Who was this guy who gets called up
just long enough for a good look at what's going on and then is
sent back to the "civilian" side.  Think about it.

Sept 25 - Spectacular sighting at Long Beach as F-86s chase three
airplanes with swept back wings at very high speeds and very high
altitudes.  Ruppelt replaces Cummings as head of GRUDGE.

Sept 30 - Ruppelt says that at this time study was being made of
the Lubbock Lights by "a group who due to their association with
government, had complete access to our files.  It consisted of
scientists, nuclear physicists and intelligence experts.  They
had banded together to study our UFO reports and were convinced
that UFOs were space ships."  This, of course, was something like
Majestic-12, a control group overseeing the whole subject.

Oct. 15 - GRUDGE to be upgraded, to analyse every UFO report.
Ruppelt is now visited by scientists, including one "Great Man"
who told him that "UFOs are being very freely discussed in
scientific circles."

Dec. 15 - UFOs barrage Los Alamos, Oak Ridge, White Sands plus
Navy ports and SAC bases.  But this military flap is kept under
wraps.  General Samford replaces Cabell, who goes to the CIA
under Allen Dulles.  Yeah.  By the 1960s Cabell will be number
two under Dulles at CIA and would be one of the main liason
people between the CIA, Robert Mahue and the many companies of
Howard Hughes.

Dec. 27 - Ruppelt says he wants to ask the public for help, that
something very important is going on.  That idea is rejected.  A
computer file is being set up by a consulting firm who actually
has the staff to do intelligence work FOR the Air Force.  Ruppelt
in fact has almost no organization to work with and his time is
almost totally given over to briefings.  However, he does visit
Colorado Springs and The Air Defense Command says they will
cooperate with the "new" Project Grudge. Ruppelt is supposed to
be the director of the primary military UFO group but he
obviously is not.  Soon he would be dispatched like an errand boy
to talk to a scoutmaster who said he was attacked by a UFO.


1952

Feb. 10 - Scientists at the Rad Lab (Cambridge) see targets on
brand new radar sets that are flying higher and faster than
anything known to be flying.  They interrogate Air Force about
these mysterious returns.  All kept secret. Most Important.
See: Cooper, 1989, for a strange "spin" on this.

Feb. 20 - Ruppelt briefs Gen. Benjamin Chidlaw and the Air
Defense Command orders scrambles on real good UFOs. The Ground
Observer Corps is also detailed to keep watch for UFOs and report
them when they are seen. This program will soon include Leonard
Stringfield in Ohio and mark the beginning of his UFO career.

Feb. 25 - So much is happening that the Pentagon sends Ruppelt an
officer "to be his liason with AF intelligence." That officer is
Major Dewey Fournet, who outranks Capt. Ruppelt.  Who is the
liason for whom?  Seems pretty obvious to us.

End, Part 3/5.
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From: [e-mail] (Germannvh)
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Subject: Ruppelt Chronology -- 4/5
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The Ruppelt Chronology, Part 4/5

UFOSearch
Columbia, Missouri

The year is 1952 as we continue:

Feb. 28 - The Royal Air Force sends a team over to look at the
files, as does the Royal Canadian Air Force. During this
period mamy intelligence operatives from Europe visited as well
as many scientists from both Europe and the United States.

Mar. 15 - GRUDGE becomes the Aerial Phenomnon Group for a
time and then Blue Book.  It was near its all-time peak with 4
officers, 2 airmen, 3 consultant scientists, and Maj. Dewey
Founet.  Al Chop, a civilian press relations man from the
Pentagon, would soon be added.  Ruppelt did not rank high enough
to command such a group but he was not promoted or transferred.
Is this an indication of the true priority of Blue Book?  Yes.

Apr. 10 - Ruppelt visits individuals from the Civilian Saucer
Investigation group, the first such organizatiion in the country.
Dr. Reidel was a member and it was made up of people in the Los
Angeles area with connections to the defense and aircraft
industry.  For a while it was very influential, AF put pressure
on them to disband.

Apr. 15 - Life article finally comes out and it is a bomb! It was
a year in the making.  The public was told that Blue Book wanted
their help but no flood of reports came in from the public--not
then.  Riedel and Giot said that UFOs were real and were from
outer space. Ruppelt says that "the Life article was inspired by
Air Force generals so high their opinions are almost policy."
That would have to be Vandenberg & company and perhaps members of
the "Majestic-12" bunch.

Apr. 25 - AF-200-5 issued and Blue Book was to get "unheard of"
cooperation from the regular Air Force.  But what about the Navy
and Army?  Nothing.  But Ruppelt did get good sightings from the
Airlines and the CAA, who were included in the regulation.  Most
"civilian" pilots at this time were World War II men, many in the
reserves and still under orders!

May  20 - Top CIA people see a UFO from Alexandria, Va.. Pentagon
is called "the puzzle palace" by Ruppelt.  It is now that Al Chop
is put on at the Pentagon.  He had been with OPI at Wright Field
recently.  About 1,000 letters a month were coming from public.

June 01 -  Ruppelt now giving two major briefings per week. Plans
are afoot to equip six F-94s with special cameras and put them on
call to interecpt UFOs.  Along the West Coast special
"diffraction grating cameras" are to be set up to find out more
about UFOs.  Ruppelt says that there are good sightings coming
out of Korea but none of them are in his book.  It was to be the
mid-1970s before any of them were leaked to researchers.  Also,
remember that Ruppelt has been getting just about zero help from
the Navy and Army.

June 20 - Reports now roaring in and a briefing Ruppelt gives at
the Pentagon is not well received.  He had explained away most
UFOs as hoaxes, illusions, etc--the standard Blue Book line.
Pressure was mounting withing the military and the bureaucracy,
there was something up. Soon this pressure would bring total
suppression.

July 01 - First Washington, D.C., sighting, by physics professor
at George Washington University.  Saw disc for several minutes,
made estimates of its size and speed. More than 500 other people
saw it.  Papers in the capital ran only a very short story the
next day--said that hundreds of people had called local police,
firemen. Heavy suppression of UFO news obvious at this time.

July 05 - Ruppelt says that "one group in the Air Force wanted
something done."  Unknowns were running 40 per cent of the total
reports.  The Pentagon, Air Defense Command and the Research and
Development Board and "many agencies throughout the government"
wanted action to come from somewhere!  "Rumors persist that by
mid-July of 1952 the Air Force was braced for an invasion by the
flying saucers."  Things were rapidly reaching breakdown.

July 15 - Ruppelt talks to "a scientist from an agency I can't
name" who predicted there would be a flap in either New York or
Washington--soon.  He was right.  Question is: How could he know?
Here is clear evidence for some sort of what, communication. .
..with "others?"  We think so.

July 19 - The first of the spectacular Washington, D.C.,
sightings of 1952, the biggest UFO flap in history, the flap that
pushed the Korean War off the front pages, takes place.  Ruppelt,
who thought he was keyed into what was really happening, had to
read about it in the newspapers.  UFOs overflew the White House
and the Capitol and there WAS NO REAL INTERCEPTION by Air Force.

July 26 - Another huge overflight of the White House and Capitol
by many UFOs.  Interception delayed 30 minutes and only two
planes sent.  Objects cannot be caught.  Ruppelt read about this
one in the newspapers, too.  When Life called and asked for a
comment on July 27th Ruppelt had not been told a thing.  This
says it all.

July 28 - Pentagon and Blue Book are swamped with requests. The
President's Air Force aide calls and wants to know what is going
on.  Truman is said to have been listening. Ruppelt says that
within the Air Force the frustration was mounting over UFOs, what
they were and what was going to be done.  Things were ready to
bust.  The time had come for action, all right.  The "real
insiders" decided that the whole thing had to be put to sleep.

July 29 - Press conference held and the Air Force waves the whole
thing away--anamolous propagation of radar waves--in spite of
overwhelming evidence to the contrary.  It is an obvious cover-up
and everyone on the inside knows it.  But the press accepts, for
the most part, the simple explanations given.  The results of
this within the military are devastating.  No one will now report
a UFO.  One pilot said that even if he saw a ten-story building
flying through the air he wouldn't say anything.  This is the
chilling effect of secrecy in a bureaucracy.  It is devasting to
information flow.  What did the Washington, D.C., sightings mean?
How was it possible for a civilian scientist to anticipate them?
All sorts of issues are raised here, issues that Ruppelt does not
discuss. Forty years later we still don't know the real story.

Aug. 19 - Florida scoutmaster case, UFOs attack a person for the
first time.  Danger.  Ruppelt goes himself to take a look, talk
to the people.  Said to be a hoax even though solid physical
evidence was found.  "Air Force" sent plain clothes agents down
to investigate.

Sept 09 - Dr. Menzel puts in his first appearance, debunking UFOs
in Look magazine.  It has been said that he was a member of
"MJ-12."  He had a Top Secret-Ultra clearance and worked as a
code-breaker for Army intelligence during the war.

Oct. 15 - Menzel and Hynek debate UFOs before the American
Optical Society, playing good-cop, bad-cop.  Hynek says there is
something to the phenomenon and it needs study by the best minds.

Oct. 20 - Operation Mainbrace generates one of the very few Navy
UFO reports.  It is apparent that the Navy and Army were not
really cooperating with Blue Book at this time though Ruppelt
makes no comment either way.  There are only two Navy reports in
Ruppelt's book and only ONE Army report that we could find.

Oct. ?? - Ruppelt briefs the Beacon Hill Group, a top group of
scientists and industrialists.  It was out of this bunch that the
U-2 spyplane would come.  Ruppelt also talked to standing room
only crowds at Los Alamos, Sandia Labs, Kirtland Air Force Base,
NACA, ARD & ONR.

Nov. 15 - Supposedly Blue Book has the cooperation of the entire
military in the investigation of the UFO. Cameras were going to
be installed in aircraft and radar screens all over the nation
were also to have cameras attached.  Spectroscopic TV systems
were to be built and installed near UFO hot spots.  Ruppelt also
was to go with a team to see if any UFOs would show up in the
South Pacific where the H-Bomb was to be shot.

Dec. 15  Ruppelt asks for a transfer out of Blue Book. He does
not say why he wants out, but things can't be that great, huh?


1953

Jan. 05  Ruppelt finds that ATIC & Blue Book will get a chance to
convince a panel of top scientists that UFOs are real and a
threat to national security.  This is the famous Robertson Panel
which took only four days to find that there was little or
nothing to the problem of "flying saucers."  Ruppelt was told
that if the finding of the panel was that UFOs are interplanetary
spaceships then the National Security Council and the President
would be told--as if they didn't already know.  Ruppelt makes no
comment about this and plays the Robertson Panel straight.  He
delivered a briefing to the Panel that was taken from the SIGN
interim report of several years earlier.  It was a historical
summary of the phenomenon.  The Panel saw the Utah Film and heard
Major Fournet say what AMC had told Vandenberg in the Summer of
'52.  It was all for nought.  Even Hynek's on-the-sly survey of
astronomers (of whom 5 per cent had seen a UFO, including Clyde
Tombaugh, discoverer of Pluto) did not sway the Panel.  UFOs to
be "debunked" in public.

End, Part 4/5
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From: [e-mail] (Germannvh)
Newsgroups: alt.paranet.ufo
Subject: Ruppelt Chronology -- 5/5
Date: 12 Jul 1995 14:38:24 -0400
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The Ruppelt Chronology, Part 5/5 --

UFOSearch
Columbia, Missouri 65203

The year is 1953 as we continue:

Feb. 10 -  Ruppelt tries to follow the recommendations of the
Robertson Panel (one of which was `education' of the public about
UFOs) and release the Utah Film to the press.  This film was said
to have been seagulls flying around.  The problem was that almost
no one who had actually viewed the film thought it was birds at
all. Thus, there had been leaks and the film had been highly
sought after by the press.  The Navy supposedly had said the
objects on the Utah Film were "self luminous." When the Pentagon
heard of Ruppelt's plans his superiors screamed "NO, no film for
the press--and no press release either."  The Utah Film just
disappeared and was not seen again until the 1960s, and even then
only the `innocuous' parts were released.  In fact, the whole
Robertson Panel report just disappeared and only a summary was
available to Ruppelt himself.  Only in the mid-1960s would parts
of it surface.

Mar. 15 - At this time Blue Book consists of Ruppelt and one
other person, an Airman First Class, who said he "felt like the
president of Antarctica in a non-expedition year."  Ruppelt did
not get his transfer.  The instrumentation plans of Blue Book are
now terminated, without explanation, even though a general
officer was supposedly behind them.  AF investigation of the UFO
is now history.

Sep. 15 - Ruppelt leaves the Air Force, returns to college. To
the end he had been nominally in charge of Blue Book, which is
for all practical purposes, dead.  The only ray of hope is that
the Air Force's 4606d Squadron, counter-intelligence, is now
supposed to be the eyes and ears of Blue Book and interview
witnesses as training for their "real" job--interviewing shot
down enemy pilots.  But since Blue Book has no staff this is a
pipe dream, who will file and analyse the reports?

End chrononolgy  ***


Afterwards

Thus ended the First Phase of the UFO saga in the United States.
It is obvious that something of extreme importance was involved,
something that concerned many top people in government, the
military and in the scientific community.  The "Air Force," which
had come into existence only a few days before Arnold, was the
"fall guy" for the UFO.  Since all the important people in the
early days were Navy people (including the first Director of
Central Intelligence), I think the Navy was really in charge.

In 1956 Ruppelt would release his book, from which most of the
the above chronology was taken.  Later, in 1959, he would rewrite
the last few chapters and deny just about all that he had said
about UFOs in the first edition. He did this, it is said, under
the orders of superiors in the aerospace industry where Ruppelt
was then working.  Like Portrait Of A Cold Warrior, it could be
that the Report was so carefully worded that the real impact was
not realized by the captain's old bosses for a year or two.  No
matter, by the end of 1959 he would be dead--of a heart attack(?)
But the 1956 book stands and has been backed up in any number of
ways.  It is apparent to me that Ruppelt was a very serious man.
Like Dr. McDonald, he had to be neutralized.

From the beginning of his research this writer had wondered why
there had never been a real "scientific" investigation of UFOs.
It is more than obvious from Ruppelt that there HAD BEEN one, a
good one, in total secrecy.  It began in the late 1940s and had
reached its conclusions by New Year's Day, 1953.  Ruppelt was
there when this happened and Keyhoe was getting leaks to the same
effect.  That's when it was decided to put the whole issue to
sleep as far as the public and the lower echelons of the
military, government and science were concerned.

It is only now, forty plus years later, that "Ufologists" are
beginning to put this together.  But it should have been done
years and years ago.  I am afraid that some "Ufologists" are in
fact disinformation agents or worse and that for about four.five
decades they have deliberately gone down wrong roads and chased
red herrings--because that has been their real jobs.

It seems that no one, for instance, has done the simple analysis
of Ruppelt's book that you see in the chronology just presented.
That is devastating, in UFOSearch's opinion.  Think about it.

End, Part 5/5.