Subject: Transcription of letters from Dewey Fournet to NICAP and Mr. Melissinie about the EOTS
From: fran ridge <nicap@insightbb.com> & Richard Vitello <w1rv@charter.net>
To: Archive
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PDF contains 1) Typed letter to NICAP 2) Handwritten letter 3-pages, May 25, 1992 to Mr. Melissine 3) Handwritten letter 4 pages, July 27, 1992 to Mr. Melissine 4) Blank page 5) Page 2 of a letter from Fournet to NICAP 6) 3 page letter from Robert Todd dated, Jan 9, 1976, to Sherman Larsen 7) Letter to Julian Hennessey, March 29, 1967, from Air Force PIO, Lt. Col. George Freeman Retyped transcripts from items 1,2,3 are provided below to facilitate use by the site search engines. Part 1 - The typed letter At the request of Major Keyhoe I would like to confirm the existence of two USAF documents which were recently denied by an official USAF representative. They are: 1. An intelligence summary on UFOs prepared in
1948 by the organization which later became the Air
Technical Intelligence Center at Wright-Patterson
AFB.
2. An intelligence analysis on specific aspects
of UFO data which I prepared in 1952 while acting as
UFO program monitor for Headquarters USAF,
Washington, D. C.
Since both documents were classified when I last
saw them, I am not at liberty to reveal their
contents. I would also like to add a qualification
about #2: I completed it in rough form just a few
hours before my departure from Washington (following
my release from active duty) and turned it over to
one of my associates in the Directorate of
Intelligence. Therefore, I never saw it in its
published form. However, since I had prepared it
as well as other reports which I recorded on
tape at the specific request of my Branch and
Division Chiefs, I am certain that it was published.
Another word of caution is necessary on the
latter document: I prepared it primarily as a weapon
for use against the apathy and/or bias on the
subject which prevailed in certain official
quarters. Although the processes of logic employed
would stand up under ordinary circumstances, they
become somewhat tenuous and difficult to defend
completely when applied to the task in question. The
important point should be, therefore, that such a
document did exist not that it did or did not
establish anything about UFOs.
There is also a question about the report
prepared by the panel of civilian scientists
convened in January 1953 to examine the UFO data. I
met with this panel during part of its
deliberations; this was during the week when I was
being processed off active duty. Since I had
departed by the time the panel adjourned, I did not
see any report which it may have prepared. However,
since it was convened for the specific purpose of
reviewing all available data and making
recommendations on the UFO program, it must
necessarily have left some sort of report,
undoubtedly written. (I have since been informed
that it did, although let me repeat that I never saw
it.)
Dewey J. Fournet, Jr
Baton Rouge, La.
May 4, 1958
========== Part 2 - Handwritten letter transcripts 3-page letter of May 25, 1992 Dear Mr. Melissine,
I have your letter of 4th Feb before me and find that once again, I must begin my response with an apology for being so late in responding. Your letter arrived while I was in the midst of making final arrangements for our trip to Australia, and I simply didn't have time before departure to write. We were gone a number of weeks, and I've finally gotten caught up with all the things that required attention after our return, (this was the trip that we had to postpone for three consecutive years, starting in 1989, because of a series of health problems to one or the other of us. Since my wife is Australian, we try to return there for a visit every 2 or 3 years, but it had been years this time because of these past postponements. The UFO "Estimate of the Situation" that you inquire about, as mentioned in Ed Ruppelt's book, did indeed exist. It (or a copy of it) was in the UFO files that I inherited when I became program monitor. It was prepared with the intention that it would proceed through channels to the AF Chief of Staff (I believe Gen. Vandenburg at that time. I think the time was early or mid 1948 or even 1949 but I'm not at all certain about this. It recapped all seemingly unexplainable UFO reports received by the AF to that time. It very explicitly mentioned that absolutely no artifacts had been Page 2
recovered. It then went through all logical
explanations for these sighting reports and
concluded that the objects must be
extraterrestrial in origin. Apparently this
estimate was killed in channels or else failed to
gain a favorable reaction at the top of the
command chain because it sat there in the files,
and no one had ever called it to my attention. I
discovered it only during my research into the UFO
background material. I'm sure it was still labeled
Secret or Top Secret when I saw it, but this would
have been a natural byproduct of the manner in
which its conclusion was reached. There was
deplorably little UFO sighting data at the time
the estimate was prepared, and the conclusion
reached was, in my opinion, the result of extreme
extrapolation - - possibly the objective was to
stir up enough interest in the USAF Intelligence
to promote an organized and complete
investigation, which was totally lacking at the
time. In any case, I've never given that estimate
much weight in the overall USAF UFO program simply
because it occured too early in the investigation.
I don't remember the color of the cover exceot
that it was nothing unusual- - there were
generally scores of these "estimates" there at any
particular time. And my recollection is that this
one wasn't especially thick, maybe 25 or 30 pages.Page 3
Re your last question: have I ever written on UFOs
in unpublished form? The answer is a firm "no",
neither published nor unpublished. I did have a
small, unorganized collection of material on UFOs,
mostly as samples of some of the things that
occurred but nothing that would encourage any sort
of research because it was all disjointed. I
turned all of this material over to Bill Pitts of
Fort Smith, Arkansas before I moved to North
Carolina. Bill is one of the few people that I've
come across in the UFO field in recent years who
has both feet on the ground and doesn't have some
sort of an axe to grind. Now if I receive
unsolicited UFO material, I offer it to Bill. One
of the only things I have retained is an
autographed copy of Ed Ruppelt's original book,
and that is out on loan, to my daughter, I think.I hope this has helped your efforts in some way, however small. My best to you, Dewey Fournet ========== Wendy Connors
FADED DISCS
Collection
4 page letter of July 27, 1992 702 Red Oak Dr.
Hendersonville, NC 28739
Mon. 7/22/92
Dear Mr. Melissine,
I received your last letter a few days ago and
will answer your questions to the best of my
recollections. The report of which you sent me a
copy is definitely NOT the after referred to
"Estimate of the situation". This was strickly a
"study" within the USAF Intelligence Organization
(apart from a copy for OMI), as is clearly
indicated by the reports title and its
distribution. A copy was undoubtedly in the UFO
files in my office, and I most probably scanned it
at the very least, but I can't say that I remember
it,
perhaps because its conclusions were rather
unacceptable by late 1951- - we had generally
considered by then that they would not be of
foreign (i.e. the Soviets). On the other hand,
the Estimate of the Situation (its actual name)
was intented for disseminationup through
channels to the USAF Chief of Staff. Whether it
ever made it to that level, I'm not sure. It
could have been disapproved and bounced back at
any intervening echelon of commands. Its
conclusion was that the most logical explantion
was an extraterrestrial source, but I
re-emphasize that this was quite tenuous at that
stage and based on a very limited number of
reports - - generally same order of magnitude as
those cited in the Study you sent me.
- 2 - The assumption that Al Chop would have seen
either of these reports is incorrect. Al saw
only those things that we thought he should see
to handle public info requests. In very unusual
and highly publisized cases, he was brought into
the picture in detail and very early in the game
- - e.g. the Newhouse movies. This was intented
to enable him to handle the bulk of the
inquiries without having to refer each one to
us. As far as I know, Al never saw either of the
reports under discussion, simply because neither
was public knowledge until Ed Ruppelt's book was
published, as far as I know.
I'm not terribly surprised to hear that your
efforts on the Newhouse flim have been generally
fruitless. The Naval photo lab had analyzed the
original footage and reported that the emulsion
had been completely burned off wherever an
object appeared and, therefore, no details at
all were discernable. Sorry to hear you've
unable to locate Newhouse - - he could well be
dead by now.
For your records, I did _not_ retire from the
USAF, I had been recalled to active duty for the
Korean conflict, and my tour of duty expired in
January 1953. At that time, I resigned my
commission for reason totally unrelated to my
UFO assignment. When I departed in 1953, the
basic UFO files were still in Ed Ruppelt's
office (Blue Book) as part of the Air Technical
Intgelligance
- 3 -
Center at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton. The
less detailed files I had inherited in
Washington remained, as far as I know, in the
Air Technical Intellegence Branch files
augmented possibly by closely related files in
the current Intellegence Branch. I have no idea
at all what may eventually have happened to any
of these files.
Re final questions: How was I selected
as Blue Book Program Monitor? I suggest a number
of elements were involved - - but I did not
voluteer nor was I consulted beforehand; at some
point I was simply told that henceforth I would
take on the job of overseeing "flying saucer"
investigations and analyze (both being handled
by Ruppelt's Group) "in addition to many other
duties", which was a continuing technical
analysis of air material of a few foreign
coutries, none of which were the Soviets or
China or a major European power. To understand
this properly, let me provide a little
background. I was an officer in WWII for almost
4 years, the last 2 1/2 of which I was in the
brand new type of activity, air technical
intellegence (I was an aero engineer). I
retained this MOS as a reservist after WWII. It
was considered a xxxxxx MOS for the Korean
conflict, as I was released to duty in 1951,
going first to air command and Staff School at
Maxwell AFB, then to my assignement with the Air
Technical Intellegence Branch in the Pentagon.
As the newest assignee in the Branch, I was
given one of the least
- 4 -
demanding areas of coverage initially. After
2 or 3 months, the UFO coverage was added when
the Lt.Colonal XXXX had been headling it was
reassigned on normal "rotation". I suggest
I was chosen because (1) I had extensive field
investigative and analytical expeience in WWII
and (2) my normal assignment was one of the
least demanding in the Branch. In the spring of
1952, with the horrendous UFO 1952 "flap"
beginning I was relieved of my regular
assignmentin Tech Intel and moved to the Current
Intelligence Branch on nothing but UFO coverage.
The reason for the move was to put me in the
mainstream of USAF intelligence communications
because there was some fear that the growing
volume of UFO reporting traffic could possibly
mock a Soviet air attack on the U.S. I
remained in that assignment until my relief from
active duty in 1953. My assignment in the D of I
was never considered a part of Blue Book per se.
As I told you earlier, Blue Book was a part of
ATIC at Wright-Patterson and therefore a part of
Air Material Command. A more direct link with
USAF D of I was needed, so this so-called Blue
Book
program monitor position was created.
Although Ruppelt and I worked closely together,
we had no direct line relationship. I would make
suggestions, and generally Ed would follow-up
unless there was too much other activity. We
also worked together on the report I presented
to the Robertson Panel. Hope this helps.
Dewey Fournet ====== Other letters in the pdf have not been re-typed this date. |