Date: Thu, 01 Mar 2007 18:24:32 -0600
From: Francis Ridge <nicap@insightbb.com>
Subject: The WHO WAS Series
is written and sponsored by the NICAP Website

The starting point for this work was the unpublished papers of Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, and many times Ruppelt is quoted in the report below, except where historical records show the information was incorrect. Many new bios have been added.


Ackerman, Brig. Gen. John B.
 In a June 1952 reorganization, Ackerman became Deputy Director for Collection & Dissemination of AF Intelligence, AFOIN-1. He had no direct connection with Project Blue Book but was very much interested, according to Ruppelt, and used to stop in and visit. According to Ruppelt, he had definite ideas as to what Blue Book had and what they should be doing. "He would tend to get all excited about individual sightings. He got copies of the UFO reports and several times he was on the phone wanting to know what we planned to do even before he had time to digest what was in the report." Ackerman had a "direct channel" to the top, to the Secretary of the Air Force and people in the Department of Defense. Detailed bio

Adams, Col. William  A.
Col. Adams was the Chief of the Topical Intelligence Division of AF Intelligence, AFOIN-2A, after the reorg of June 1952, and Col. Smith and Major Dewey Fournet worked for him. According to Ruppelt, Adams was pretty much sold on the UFO. Ruppelt thought that Dewey Fournet influenced Adams' thinking to a great extent and said, "he pushed Fournet's study of the motions of the UFO's and he is the one who used to be the most vocal in briefings and at meetings in regard to Blue Book's taking a 'negative' attitude." Adams was the person who became irked in one briefing (June 1952) and asked Ruppelt if it wasn't true that "if we made a few positive assumptions we could prove that the UFO's were real". (In a 1979 interview with Brad Sparks, Col. Adams said that in Jan 1953 he had signed and approved Fournet's study concluding that UFO's were extraterrestrial and sent it up the chain of command, to the Deputy Director for Estimates, Col. Jack Morrow, who also signed and approved the study and sent it to the D/I, Maj. Gen. John A. Samford.)

Alvarez, Luis Dr.
Luis Alvarez was a physics professor from the University of California in Berkeley, developer of MEW (Microwave Early Warning) radar at MIT at the beginning of World War II. Alvarez developed the detonators for the high-explosive shaped charges in the plutonium implosion bombs, and after the war,  returned to Berkeley to work on high-energy particle physics. He sat on the CIA Robertson panel that met in Washington in January 1953. (Brad Sparks: According to Ruppelt's notes, Alvarez was one of the two Robertson Panel members who was pro-UFO, Panel Chairman and CIA consultant H. P. Robertson was the other.) Alvarez won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1968.


Burgess, Brig. Gen. Woodbury M.
General Burgess was Deputy for Intelligence, Air Defense Command under General Chidlaw. Gen. Burgess, not a believer in UFOs, was firmly convinced that the Air Force should make every effort to find out what they were, even if they were all explainable. Ruppelt said that Burgess "bent over backwards to give Blue Book all the cooperation that they needed." Ruppelt also said that Gen. Burgess' ideas reflected those of General Chidlaw. Gen Burgess later became Deputy Director for Production of the NSA.


Major General Charles P. Cabell
General Cabell was the Director of Intelligence for the Air Force from May 15, 1948 to October 31, 1951. According to Ruppelt's private papers, Cabell was pretty much a "believer" in UFOs. Cabell became Director of the Joint Staff of the JCS on Nov. 1, 1951, and became the no. 2 man in the CIA, the DDCI (Deputy Director of Central Intelligence) on April 23, 1953, and held the post until Jan. 31, 1962, when he was fired for the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Cabell held the dramatic meeting in the Pentagon on October 2, 1951, when Project Grudge chief Lt. Jerry Cummings and his boss Lt. Col. Nathan Rosengarten gave the briefing on their Ft. Monmouth radar case investigation, which Cabell had ordered on Sept. 28.  According to Ruppelt's papers Cabell got angry at the anti-UFO answers he was getting from the debunkers (Watson cronies) at the briefing and said "I've been lied to, lied to, lied to.  I want it to stop." Afterward Cabell ordered Project Grudge reorganized, in mid-October 1951.  (Brad Sparks:  According to Lt Cummings, Cabell thought that Col. Harold Watson had simply taken the UFO Project Grudge "underground" when it was publicly closed in Dec 1949 so it could quietly continue its UFO investigations. When Cabell found out that was not true, that it really was all but terminated, Cabell got upset and in July 1950 ordered his own staff in AF Intelligence to begin conducting the UFO investigations that Watson refused to do.  Cabell fired this leading UFO debunker Col. Watson as soon as he got command of the unit Watson headed, in May 1951, when Watson's AMC Intelligence Dept became the ATIC.  Since a "firing" in the military is not the same as in civilian life, does not mean being booted out of the military, it meant Watson was transferred to another position, which took several months to find, at USAFE as it turned out, during which time Watson was left in limbo.) General Samford replaced Cabell as D/I on Nov. 1, 1951. 


Chapman, James
According to Ruppelt, this man was in charge of one of the photo labs at Wright Air Development Center and did all of the work on UFO photos for Project Blue Book. Although a firm "believer", Ruppelt said Chapman did do a good job of making unbiased analyses of Blue Book's photos.

Chop, Albert M. (1916-2006)
As  Press Chief for the U.S. Air Force in 1952, Albert M. Chop  was a direct participant in the famous July 1952 radar-visual UFO sightings around Washington, D.C.  Chop attended the University of Dayton for two years, and was a newsman for the Dayton  Daily  News and the Associated Press from 1937-1943. During World War II he served as a combat correspondent with the U.S. Marine Corps (which  might account for his  cooperative relationship with Maj. Donald E. Keyhoe, USMC Ret.) After several years in public relations and advertising  copywriting, Chop became Press Chief for the Air Materiel Command in Dayton, Ohio, in 1951. He was transferred to the Department of Defense in Washington, D.C. in 1952 where he served as Press Chief and was public spokesman for the Air Force UFO project. From 1953 to 1962 he was a public relations representative for Douglas Aircraft Company. He then became Deputy of Public Affairs for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) from 1962 until 1975. For two years after that he was employed  by  the Atomic Energy Commission in a management position. Chop was involved in providing information and writing for the 1956 Greene-Rouse Productions documentary film UFO, which included the 1950 Montana film taken by Nick Mariana and the 1952 Utah film by Delbert C. Newhouse. The documentary also recreated the Washington sightings and other important cases, providing new, inside information to the public. Chop  gave an  oral history  to the Sign Historical Group in November 1999 in which he talks about his relationship with Donald Keyhoe, whose dedicated and persistent interest resulted in his obtaining the good information that he did on Air Force cases. He (Chop) also describes being present at Washington National Airport on the night in July 1952 watching on radar and hearing the communications when an Air Force F-94 pilot reported being surrounded by UFOs. (This incident is reconstructed in the movie UFO.) He quotes the pilot as saying, "They're closing in on me! What shall I do?" Chop: "There was dead silence in the radar room; no one knew what to say. I don't mind telling you this, it scared me! It was frightening! And I think everybody in the room was very apprehensive. They had to be intelligently controlled." His experience that night convinced him that UFOs probably were from another planet.

William T. Coleman
Colonel William T. Coleman is a retired Air Force bomber pilot, former Public Information Officer for Project Blue Book, and Air Force's Chief Public Relations Officer during the early 1970s. He was also the Producer of a series called "Project UFO" that ran on NBC for two seasons. (1978-79) In June of 1978, while promoting his new TV show on the Merv Griffin show, Coleman spoke about a UFO sighting he had experienced while a bomber pilot in 1955. The plane closed to within an eighth of a mile of the disc-shaped object. "It was about 60 feet in diameter and 10 or 11 feet thick through the center," he said. "It had what looked like a titanium-type finish". (silver gray). See report.

Deyarmond, Col. Albert B.
Albert Deyarmond was an "old hand" with the UFO's, in on the first of Project Sign. From the old memos signed by him it could be determined that he was once a firm believer, along with Alfred Loedding, John "Red" Honaker and the rest of the veterans or Project Sign. But by the time Ruppelt got into the picture Deyarmond, at least on the surface, was lined up with the scoffers. Ruppelt had said that, "once, when I began to knock the UFO's, he raised the devil and chewed me out for not keeping an 'open mind'." Ruppelt had called him a "scoffer"  because he was a "disciple" of Col. Watson's. Deyarmond later became chief of structures at Ryan Aircraft Company.

Ericksen, Col. John G.
Col Ericksen was head of the Policy and Management Group of the Directorate of Intelligence and in some way got in on all of the UFO business. (Sparks: Ericksen had previously been Fournet's boss as Chief of the Technical Capabilities Branch, Evaluation Division of AF Intelligence before the June 1952 reorganization.) Ruppelt said that Ericksen was "sort of power behind the throne on what the official policy would be." Ruppelt gave him quite a few briefings and he seemed to be a "lone wolf" in that he wanted to get the picture for himself. Ruppelt: "He got a little hacked at Fournet quite often, because he thought that Fournet was pushing his ideas, that the UFO's were real, too hard. I think that Ericksen tended to put a lot of faith in the UFO's but he was one of those who was afraid to stick his neck out." Col. Ericksen was National Air Intelligence Commander from July to December of 1958.


Brigadier General Arthur E. Exon
General Exon is a pilot with 135 combat missions and over 300 hours of combat flight time during World War II. His aircraft was severely damaged by an exploding ammunition dump and he was forced to bail out over enemy territory. Captured, he spent just over a year in German prisoner of war camps. He was liberated in April, 1945. After the war he completed an industrial administration course at the Air Force Institute of Technology and was then assigned to the Air Materiel Command (AMC) Headquarters at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. (It should be noted that General Nathan F. Twining was the commander of the Air Materiel Command which controlled various intelligence functions. Twining's letter of September 23, 1947 has been quoted by many. It was Twining's conclusion then that flying discs were real.) Over the next several years he held a variety of positions finally arriving at the Pentagon as a full colonel in 1955. In 1960 he became Chief of Ballistic Missiles and was responsible for establishing the Jupiter Ballistic Missile system for NATO in Italy and Turkey. In July, 1963, he left Europe for an assignment at Olmsted Air Force Base in Pennsylvania. In August, 1964, he was assigned as commander, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. On August 20, 1965, he was promoted to brigadier general. General Exon has had a most impressive military career. Officers are not promoted to flag rank (general officer) without having proven themselves as competent. Those who make it while on active duty, who are not rewarded with the promotion on retirement, are in a small minority. Only the top officers achieve the privilege of wearing stars. General Exon, as a lieutenant colonel, was assigned to Wright Field in July of 1947. He was there when the wreckage from the Roswell crash came in and was aware of the recovery in New Mexico. He knew that it was brought in and knew where it was sent. A few of his colleagues performed the tests on the metal, trying to determine what it was. And he learned from other colleagues that the bodies had arrived on the base. All in July, 1947. Official military bio


Fahrney, Rear Admiral Delmer S.
Rear Admiral Fahrney was "the foremost Navy pioneer for the development of guided missiles. His vision of future weaponry, technical excellence and tireless advocacy formed the basis for the post-World War II Navy missile programs." "Admiral Fahrney's early work in guided missiles and his foresight in planning for future generations of missiles earned for him recognition by many peers as 'the father of naval air guided missiles.'" (circa 1956). On Jan 16, 1957, Admiral Fahrney held a press conference for NICAP. "Reliable reports indicate there are objects coming into our atmosphere at very high speeds. They way they change position would indicate their motion is directed." (New York Times article) Fahrney was chairman of NICAP's Board of Governors for one week, and then, for personal reasons, had to resign. (Washington Daily News). His replacement was first CIA Director and DCI, RoscoeHillenkoetter, who was recruited in April or May 1957, and this must have infuriated the CIA.. (Richard Hall: Fahrney was a NICAP member for a long time, visited the office when I was there after early 1958, and later exchanged a lot of information with Jim McDonald. Throughout, he kept funnelling good Navy pilot and missile officer cases to us.)

Fournet, Dewey J., Major, USAF
Fournet served in the Technical Capabilities Branch of AF Intelligence until transfer to the new Current Intelligence Branch in the June 1952 reorganization.  Fournet took over UFO duties in the TCB (liaison officer between Project Grudge/Blue Book and the Pentagon) from Lt. Col. Milton D. Willis in Feb 1952. (Ruppelt:  Dewey got hot on the subject right away and helped us a great deal in getting things straightened out in the Pentagon. His job was just supposed to be part time, but within a matter of months he was working on it full time) Fournet was the most confirmed believer Ruppelt had run into in the Pentagon. He had access to all of their reports, read them all over very carefully, and was absolutely convinced. His most notable effort was the famous "motion study" that "proved" the UFOs operated under intelligent control. (In 1979 interviews with Brad Sparks, Col. William A. Adams and Col. Weldon H. Smith said that in Jan 1953 Smith signed Fournet's study and sent it to Adams who also signed and approved Fournet's study concluding that UFO's were extraterrestrial.  Col. Adams said he sent the study up the chain of command, to the Deputy Director for Estimates, Col. Jack Morrow, who also signed and approved the study and sent it to the D/I, Maj. Gen. John A. Samford.) This study was presented to the Robertson Panel in January of 1953 and was rejected. After retiring from the Air Force, Fournet became a member of NICAP's  original Board of Governors.

Garland, Brig Gen, William. M.
General Garland was Ruppelt's boss at ATIC from Sept 1952 until Ruppelt left, and was a moderately confirmed believer, according to Ruppelt's unpublished papers. He was Gen. Samford's Assistant for Production in the Pentagon, the no. 2 man in AF Intelligence, then transferred to ATIC as Commander in September 1952. He was the inspiration behind the Life article by Robert Ginna. (Ruppelt: He gave Ginna his ideas and prompted Life to stick their necks out.) After he got out of the Air Force in September 1953, Gen. Garland became a  consultant to Rand.

Gittings, Homer T.
Homer Gittings was Ruppelt's contact in Los Alamos. He was a charter member of the group that was trying to correlate recorded radiation from an unknown source with UFO reports. Ruppelt: He worked closely with a Ph.D. but I've forgotten the Ph.D.'s name (Dr. William Baker). Gittings, the Ph.D. and several other scientists would fly down to Albuquerque and we'd meet with Col. Matheny at 34th Air Division Headquarters. If I remember correctly, Gittings had an MS degree in Physics and was an instrumentation specialist." Joel Carpenter provided the 30 Nov. 49  DOE Green Fireball doc: "A group of scientists and technicians from the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory have become extremely interested in the observations of the aerial phenomena observed at various times in this vicinity, on which reports have been rendered periodically. This group is headed by Richard Taschek and is composed of the following additional personnel: Homer T. Gittings, Jr. George A. Jarvis Stan N. Simmons Jed [?] Nicholas Harold Agnew W. J. Masilum Howard Parsons Robert Potter All of the foregoing have been appropriately cleared under the provisions of the Atomic Energy Act and therefore would have access to any and all information on this subject which might be developed by the National Military Establishment, principally the U. S. Air Forces."  

Goudsmit, Samuel
This man, from AEC’s Brookhaven Lab on Long Island, sat on the CIA/Robertson Panel that met in Washington in January 1953. Goudsmit was probably the most violent anti-saucer man at the panel meeting, according to Ruppelt's papers. Everything was a big joke to him which brought down the wrath of the other panel members on numerous occasions. (This was actually Page who made the UFO jokes, whom Ruppelt confused with Goudsmit, as they were the two anti-saucer panel members).Goudsmit discovered electron spin in 1925. In 1944 he led the Alsos scientific intelligence mission to investigate and exploit German technological developments including atomic weapons research. 

Hardin, Capt. Charles
In January 1954, Captain Charles Hardin was appointed the head of Project, Blue Book, and he was replaced by Captain George T. Gregory in 1956. However, most UFO investigations were conducted by the 4602nd Air Intelligence Service Squadron (AISS). Ruppelt wrote that Hardin "thinks that anyone who is even interested  (in UFOs) is crazy. They bore him." (Clark, 468). Ruppelt also wrote: "He has been the one big bottleneck in my getting anything from the Air Force because he is afraid that my book will stir things up too much."

Hayden, Father
Father Hayden was head of the astronomy department at Georgetown University. Ruppelt said he had never met him but mentioned that Dr. Stefan Possony was always going to him with Blue Book's UFO problems, and couldn’t at all be classed as a scoffer.

Hillenkoetter, Vice-Admiral Roscoe
Admiral Hillenkoetter served as the first "official" DCI of the CIA. Appointed first as DCI of CIG and then after the National Security Act of 1947, he was sworn in as DCI of CIA. Hillenkoetter's tenure was from May 1947 to October 1950. He believed that while the stated role of the CIA was to coordinate intelligence activities, realistically the Agency lacked the bureaucratic muscle to effect such a lofty goal. As a result of this decision Hillenkoetter urged the Agency into the area of current intelligence production. In 1949 a group appointed by the NSC recommended that the Agency be restructured. Hillenkoetter served on the board of governors of NICAP and is on record as stating: "Unknown objects are operating under intelligent control. It is imperative that we learn where UFOs come from and what their purpose is." He resigned from NICAP in Feb 1962 and was replaced on the NICAP Board by a former covert CIA high official, Joseph Bryan III, the CIA's first Chief of Political & Psychological Warfare (Bryan never disclosed his CIA background to NICAP or Keyhoe). 

Hynek, Dr. J. Allen
Dr. Hynek had been the consultant astronomer to Projects Sign, Grudge and Blue Book. Ruppelt said that Hynek was "darn interested" and had devoted a great deal of his valuable time to the project. Ruppelt stated Hynek had read almost every UFO report in the Air Force files, which simply was not true. Brad Sparks: "One person working very few hours part-time, like Hynek, could not possibly have read almost all of the 4,000 reports.  Hynek also suspected he never got to see certain sensitive reports.  Sometimes BB used the excuse that Hynek was only to analyze astronomical aspects of cases to explain them away in order to deny Hynek knowledge of or access to spectacular Unknowns."  On Oct. 11, 1952 he debated with Menzel at the American Optical Society meeting in Boston and (according to Ruppelt) "blasted Menzel right out of the hall". He sat as an associate Member on the CIA Robertson Panel in Washington in January 1953 and was cautiously pro-UFO. Dr. Hynek was Head of the Ohio State Univ. Astronomy Department, Director of the Perkins Observatory and Assistant Dean of the USU Graduate School. Hynek headed up Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's Moonwatch project from 1956 to 1960 then went to Northwestern University where he was Director of the Dearborn Observatory and the Lindheimer Astronomical Research Center, until his retirement from Northwestern in June 1978.  Two of his most enduring efforts are the close encounters scale, a new classification system of sightings from which the term "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" became famous, and the creation in 1973 of the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS).

Kaliszewski, Joseph J.
This was one of the people that Ruppelt claimed he liked to talk to at General Mills. He was one of the members of the original Skyhook balloon launching crew. He had a BS degree in aeronautical engineering and was considered to be pretty sharp. All of the people at General Mills were convinced that the UFO’s were real, as they said they had all seen the UFO’s. The boss, Charles Moore, whom Ruppelt talked to for only a few minutes, was very put out at the way the Air Force had handled many of the UFO reports and was very indignant. In the summer of 1952, Kaliszewski was quoted in the Minneapolis paper as saying that the Air Force should put forth more effort because he was convinced that the UFO’s were real.

Kaplan, Dr. Joseph
Joseph Kaplan was a geophysics professor at UCLA. His main UFO interest was the Green Fireballs. Ruppelt stated that Kaplan put a lot of stock in Dr. LaPaz’s theory that the GFB’s were man-made (Russian), although at one time he thought that they were auroral patches. Dr. Kaplan originated the grid camera idea. Dr. Kaplan later headed the satellite program for the International Geophysical Year.



Lipp, Dr. James
James Lipp was the Rand Corporation's guided missile expert and he was violently anti-saucer, according to Ruppelt's notes. Lipp wrote an analysis of UFO reports in December of 1948 for Project Sign to see if they could be space visitors, but concluded UFO's were probably not extraterrestrial. Ruppelt stated that early in 1952 Col. Don Bower and he tried to enlist the Rand Corporation's aid, on a contract basis, to try to develop some way of getting more positive answers but, at the recommendation of Lipp, Rand refused to touch it. “Too hot,” was their reason. Ruppelt: "I think controversial would have been a better word than 'hot'."

Col. William A Matheny
Col Matheny was the CO of the 34th Air Defense Division in Albuquerque. He later became a Brig. General. He was firmly convinced that the UFO’s were real and that they were interplanetary space ships. He wrote up a plan, Project Pounce, that called for a special squadron of stripped down F-94C’s to chase the UFO’s. The plan went through Western Air Defense Headquarters and to Air Defense Command Headquarters but it was rejected because of the non-availability of the aircraft. It was in the 34th that the F-86 pilot claimed that he shot at the UFO, in the disturbing incident Ruppelt wrote about in the beginning of his book, which evidently occurred in september of 1952, according to Brad Sparks' research. His official bio can be found at: http://www.af.mil/bios/bio.asp?bioID=6323

Page, Thornton
Thornton Page of John Hopkin’s Operations Research Office, editor of the Operations Research Journal, and an astronomer, sat on the CIA Robertson Panel in Washington D.C. in January 1953. Page and Goudsmit were both anti-UFO, but it was Page who kept cracking jokes about UFOs until Robertson reprimanded him. Later his opinion changed and in 1969, after reviewing the Condon Report, he stated: "How can we logically reject this theory when we accept theories of rotating neutron stars to explain pulsars? Of course, a better theory might be devised if more data were collected and the present data examined in broader terms."

Parrish, Lt. Glen
This was the Intelligence Officer at the 34th Air Defense Division at Albuquerque where Col. Matheny was the CO. Ruppelt: "Parrish sent in some of the best reports that we had and he is the man who showed me the report on the pilot who shot at the UFO." (Sept. 1952) According to Ruppelt, with all of the good reports that Parrish had submitted, he wasn’t a confirmed believer. But he did think that the reports were important enough to warrant careful investigations. In addition to the above, Parrish was the middle man for the reports from the people who were doing the radiation work in Los Alamos.



Porter, Col  Edward H.
Ruppelt: "Col Porter was the Deputy Director for Estimates of the D/I. He was violently anti-UFO. He was Fournet’s boss. At every briefing or meeting he always got his two cents worth in and he minced no words. But he never had a decent argument; he didn’t know what was being reported nor did he care, he just didn’t believe that there was anything to it. General Cabell is reported to have climbed all over him and Col Hal Watson for conspiring to get rid of the UFO project in 1950."

Possony, Dr. Stefan T.
Ruppelt: "Steven Possony was the acting chief of the Directorate of Intelligence Special Studies Group and he had a direct channel to (Gen.) Samford." Possony was apparently pretty much sold on the UFO and did a lot of investigating on his own "book", and had Father Hayden, the astronomer, as his special consultant. Ruppelt: "Steve and his crew used to cruise all over the U.S. and Europe, and during these travels they picked up a lot of UFO data. Steve was behind Fournet 100% and tended to push him. He was smart enough to know that the UFO situation was hot so he used Fournet, who was a reserve and didn’t plan to stay in the Air Force any longer than he had to, to try out his ideas. Possony didn’t much care what he said, however, and he used to go to battle with any or all of the more vocal skeptics. He really got teed off at Menzell and went to all ends to find out everything about the man. It turned out to be very interesting. Possony had a good reputation in the Air Force. Besides being a fairly sharp intelligence man, he is a professor at Georgetown University and he has written quite a bit on the strategy and concepts of airpower. He is considered one the of the world’s experts on this subject."

Robertson, Howard Percy
Robertson later became chief scientific advisor to the Commander-in-Chief of NATO. Ruppelt: "He first came out to ATIC in November 1952 [actually Dec. 12, 1952] with a group of other scientists [from the CIA] to review our UFO material. He and his party stayed two days [one day] and then went back to Washington and suggested to the National Security Council [actually the CIA] that a group of top scientists get together to look over the reports."  (Sparks:  Ruppelt has the events of Nov/Dec 1952 confused. In fact the Chadwell-Robertson-Durant CIA group strongly recommended _against_ convening what became known as the Robertson Panel because Battelle scientist Dr. Howard Cross told them that Battelle needed more time to finish its massive statistical analysis of Blue Book's 4,000 UFO reports.)

Rosenzweig, Leslie
Ruppelt: Les Rosenzweig worked for Possony. He was sort of a dull tool and whenever Possony said or did anything Les took it as the gospel. When it came to UFO’s there was no difference. Les made quite a few studies on how the UFO’s could be powered, how they could be contacted, etc. He pushed the idea of using a huge horizontal movie screen to flash messages to the UFO’s. He, or possibly it was Possony himself, made a lot of contacts with Willy Ley. They dropped him fast however, when good old commercial Willy began to try to push himself into the act a little too fast. It is interesting to note that those people in the U.S. who are actually considered to be tops in the fields of interplanetary travel have no use for Willy Ley or Von Braun. (Sparks:  Note that this is Ruppelt's veiled reference to his CIA friend Fred Durant, a rocket expert who was soon to be proved spectacularly wrong about von Braun. Ruppelt wrote this in 1955, before von Braun proved himself by launching the US's first satellite in Jan 1958, after the Soviets beat everyone into space with Sputnik 1 in Oct 1957 and after the "experts" were humiliated by their Vanguard launch failure.)

Samford, Major General John
General Samford was Director of Intelligence, USAF, and was neutral on the subject of UFO’s, and always very much interested and gave Ruppelt the utmost in cooperation. He took comments and suggestions at meetings but never agreed or disagreed with anyone. Ruppelt: "The only time that I ever heard him say anything was when Col Porter got real nasty about the whole thing one day and began to knock ATIC, UFO’s, me and everything associated with the project. Then the General said something to the effect that as far as he could see, I was the first person in the history of the Air Force’s investigation that had taken a serious approach to the investigation and that he didn’t see how anyone could decide until I’d collected more data." General Samford felt like he got “burned” real bad on the press conference in July 1952. According to Ruppelt, Samford's statements were twisted around and newsreel shots of him were “cut and pieced” and quoted him out of context. (Sparks: "Gen. Samford became Director of the NSA in 1956 and held that position until 1960.")

Smith, Weldon H. Col .
Ruppelt: "This man was Dewey Fournet’s boss. He wasn’t quite as sold on the UFO’s as Col Bill Adams but he was pretty well sold. He also 'bought' Fournet’s ideas and studies. I remember specifically the case of the burned Scoutmaster: Col Smith was 'sold' that this was the real thing. He was following the whole show from the Pentagon, through my calls to Fournet and from the wires that I was sending back. Just as soon as I got back from the first trip to Florida I went in to see him and he got quite irked when I said that something about this scoutmaster just didn’t ring true. He said that I was biased and wasn’t giving the man a chance. According to Keyhoe, he is the person from the D/I that wrote the anonymous letter that Keyhoe quotes in his book. I don’t believe it, however, I think that Fournet wrote it."

Thompson, James
Ruppelt: "When I knew Jim Thompson he was an astronomer working for RAND in Santa Monica. He used to stop in at ATIC quite frequently and spend a day or two reading reports. Whenever I got out to California he used to arrange an unofficial bull session with a dozen or so of the 'believers' and we’d talk UFO’s."

Watson, Col. Harold E.
Ruppelt wrote in his papers that Col Watson, later a Brig Gen and once again Chief of ATIC, was chief of ATIC when he arrived. (He later went to Europe for three years.) "He was violently anti-saucer but he crossed himself up too many times trying to constantly grab publicity. He was the one who made the famous remark about all UFO observers being nuts or 'fatigued airline pilots'. He continually hauled in writers who would plug him and debunk the UFO's. I've overheard him tell how he completely snowed Bob Considine."

White, Major General
Ruppelt: I think that this man’s name was White. He was from some branch of research and development in the Pentagon. He and his staff religiously attended every one of my briefings and were sold that the UFO’s were real. He had Gen Samford’s ear but I don’t think he quite convinced Samford that the UFO’s were real.

Zimmerman, Charles
Ruppelt: Charley Zimmerman was the technical advisor to the chief of the Analysis Branch at ATIC. I never could figure out exactly where he stood on the subject of UFO’s but I think he was a bit of a believer. Several times I tried to put through an explanation that a UFO was a balloon or other known object and he’d argue like mad against it. Many times he’d come running into my office to show me “a new, red hot report”.


LeMay, Curtis Emerson, General
LeMay was an Air Force General and the vice presidential running mate of independent candidate George C. Wallace in 1968. He is credited with designing and implementing an effective systematic strategic bombing campaign in the Pacific Theatre of Strategic Air Command. After the war, he reorganized the Strategic Air Command into an effective means of conducting nuclear war. Critics have characterized him as a belligerent warmonger (even nicknaming him "Bombs Away LeMay") whose aggressiveness threatened to inflame tense Cold War situations (such as the Cuban Missile Crisis) into open war between the United States and the Soviet Union. He was AAF Deputy C/S for R&D in 1946-1947.  He was AF Chief of Staff after SAC.  In the summer of 1952 LeMay enlisted Edward Teller to do a UFO study just like many other agencies following the LIFE article and riding on the UFO wave. The April_25 1988 issue of  The New Yorker carried an interview of Barry Goldwater, who said he repeatedly asked his friend Gen. LeMay if there was any truth to the rumors that UFO evidence was stored in a secret room at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, and if he (Goldwater) might have access to the room. According to Goldwater, an angry LeMay gave him "holy hell" and said, "Not only can't you get into it but don't you ever mention it to me again." Referred to as  "The Blue Room.", Goldwater reported in an interview with Larry King (LARRY KING LIVE AT AREA 51) that he had felt "chewed out" by General LeMay.


Knowles, Rear Admiral H.B,, USN (Retired)
Admiral Knowles was a veteran of both World War I and World War II. He held important submarine commands and wasn a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. Wilbert B. Smith (head of the Canadian government's UFO project, Project Magnet) claimed that in 1952, a time of the great UFO wave, the U.S.A.F. had recovered a piece of a UFO that had been shot at near Washington, D.C. He said that the U.S. Air Force had loaned him a piece of the recovery. He showed it to a friend, Rear Admiral H. B. Knowles. Statement by Rear Adm. M. Herbert B. Knowles: "I shall be very glad to accept appointment as a member of the (NICAP) Board of Governors and be listed as a 'believer' in the reality of UFO's, with the understanding that I shall resign if it appears at any time that your big group is beinq used to cover up for the top brass. I know that there is a real need to break through the official Washington brush-off and get the truth home to the people. There seems to be a great fear among the powers that be that the American people will panic if told the truth. How little they know and understand their countrymen. I feel that millions of our people already believe in the reality of the UFO's."














 

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