Documented accounts of UFO secrecy between 1955 and 1960 reveal policies and actions initiated by United States government officials that are still influencing contemporary perceptions about UFO and contactee cases. The responsibilities of contemplating the UFO evidence has often been delegated to military jurisdictions and this has emphasized uncertainties among people who have no knowledge of the subject. My previous blog articles in their totality indicate how apprehensions about UFO potentialities are unjustified.
Reports that were declassified in 1985 reveal Senator Richard B. Russell, Jr. experienced a UFO sighting while he was aboard a train in the Soviet Union in 1955. The National UFO Reporting Center article “Looking Back” — “October 1955" by Bob Gribble includes the following:
Mr. Tom Towers, in his January 20, 1957 column “Aviation News,” for the Los Angeles, CA, Examiner, printed the contents of a letter from Senator Russell, which was in response to a request for information about the sightings in Russia. Mr. Towers had originally contacted Senator Russell’s office by letter with the request that he be given permission to “break” the story. The Senator wrote: “Permit me to acknowledge your letters relative to reports that have come to me regarding aerial objects seen in Europe last year. I received your letter, but I have discussed this matter with the affected agencies of the government, and they are of the opinion that it is not wise to publicize this matter at this time. I regret very much that I am unable to be of assistance to you.” The letter was dated 17 January, 1956.
A particularly revealing series of events commenced when Major Donald E. Keyhoe, USMC Ret., appeared in the CBS “Armstrong Circle Theatre” telecast "UFO: Enigma of the Skies" in 1958 and his commentary was censored. Keyhoe’s first of five books on the subject of UFOs was published in 1950 and he became a prominent media spokesman on the topic. The telecast may be heard online at archive.org.
This censoring became a subject for discussion on the after midnight-to-dawn New York radio show “The Party Line” hosted by Long John Nebel. The show was often devoted to discussions of UFOs and other unexplained phenomena that were at times deliberated in a somber manner yet punctuated by the host's intermittent refrain of "As an individual I don't buy the flying saucer stories but I don't think you're interested in my opinion."
The “UFOlogy” Audio Archive of UFO History anthology disc of MP3 tracks includes Nebel’s commentary about the “Armstrong Circle Theatre” incident and his interview with the TV show episode’s writer Irving Tunic. The audio recording from 1-23-1958 is also included on a more extensive MP3 CD compilation of Nebel broadcasts that I obtained from theufostore.com. I’ve transcribed some of the statements heard on two memorable MP3 tracks that presented a repeat broadcast of portions of several original interview broadcasts.
Nebel stated, “Major Donald E. Keyhoe — United States Marine Corps Flyer Retired and author of three books on UFOs commonly called 'flying saucers' and presently director of National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena of Washington, D.C. — was a guest on the ‘Armstrong Circle Theatre’ Wednesday night, the 22nd of January, 1958 . . . (several minutes later) . . . Keyhoe made this statement: ‘I would like to make a disclosure that has never been revealed to the public.’ Now at this point fade began — in other words, the microphone seemed like — just like at home if somebody got up to your volume control and turned it down slowly. Now according to two private citizens, possibly many more — but two of them that knew enough how to record this even at that low volume told me that this was the balance of the statement. I will read it for you. ‘For the last six months, our committee has been working with a senate committee which is investigating UFOs. If the hearings are held in open hearing, I feel it will prove beyond doubt that the flying saucers are real. In order to secure the information we need, we suggest that all of the citizens write to’ — and at this point there was a true cut. There was absolutely no sound. Now according to a lip-reader that contacted me, I’ve been told that the last two words were ‘your congressman.’ Now no sooner had the video cut to Douglas Edwards, who was the emcee of the show, when the telephones began to ring. Now actually a large number of viewers wanted to know what Keyhoe had said and they also wanted to know what had happened. Many of them naturally were crying censorship and within hours a series of statements were issued to the wire services, most of them attributed to CBS spokesmen. And also a phone report was made by Irving Tunic, the writer of the show who sat in for Kenneth Arnold, and, of course, actually I’m the one that received that report . . .
(later in the broadcast) ". . . about, oh, 2:15 or 2:30 the morning of January 23rd, I received a telegram from Irv Tunic. Now Mr. Tunic was the writer of the ‘Armstrong Circle Theatre’ for that particular telecast. Irv Tunic. Now let me read the telegram. I have it in front of me now . . . ‘As the writer of “Armstrong Circle Theatre” extremely anxious to give you all the facts on the Keyhoe incident. Have been up since five. Am in need of sleep badly. Would appreciate your call if you really want authentic report.’ Now at that time when I received that telegram I contacted Mr. Irving — Mr. Irv Tunic at his home . . . Now we recorded that conversation. It was a beeper phone conversation. And so that you can be brought up to date what Mr. Tunic had to say about that particular telecast we’re going to play that back for you right now . . . ”
Tunic said that while driving home from the studio he’d heard discussion on “The Party Line” about the telecast. One fact revealed was that Kenneth Arnold and his wife had been brought to town from Boise, Idaho. After appearing at rehearsal for two days Arnold sent a telegram stating that he would not appear. Tunic explained, “. . . I kind of sat in for him . . . Well very honestly and I’m being extremely honest I did not see a copy of the telegram. I understand that he sent a telegram to the producer and to newspapers around town giving his reasons. I believe he felt that there was not enough time being given to his side of the story. Now in that regard we have a signed statement from Major Keyhoe in which he states that our program was handled objectively and fairly . . . ” Tunic explained that the statement was signed before the program went on the air when it was heard Mr. Arnold would not appear.
Concerning the incident involving Keyhoe, Tunic said, “ . . . the director and the producer working under CBS regulations had to flip the key and cut the audio because we did not know what statement was coming out. The statement had not been approved by Continuity Acceptance as you know must be done on network shows. We did not know if the Senate subcommittee mentioned had approved his statement and in view of that fact and, as I say, by regulation, they had to cut the speech and no one felt worse about it than the people attached to the program."
Tunic provided his perspective about what happened next: “I do know that following the show INS called and he did give them the statement. And he — also after the program again signed another statement in which he stated that he regretted the incident. He was not aware of these regulations. He had been permitted a certain amount of ad-lib during the course of his presentation and he did not realize that a statement such as this did not fall into the ad-lib category.”
Nebel said, “. . . I was never familiar with that ruling. I mean we don’t have it in radio anyway. Are you saying then that if I were to be interviewed by somebody on television that we would have to have a prepared interview?”
“Oh no no no. But when you have an interview program — obviously it’s an ad-libbed program — but when a program is scripted it must pass through Continuity Acceptance. Now you know that as well as I do. And all of the material is placed on teleprompter, you see. Now obviously no one expects anyone to follow a teleprompter word by word. There is a certain latitude given. However — and put yourself in this position—if you’re the producer or the director—the statement comes out, ‘I am now going to say something that has never been revealed before.’ You don’t know what that statement is. You have no idea if it’s been cleared by the proper authorities who are being mentioned. It has not been cleared by Continuity Acceptance. You are at the mercy — of the person who is making the statement. And it’s a general rule that at that time the director has no prerogative but to cut the show. Now this is the fact and we felt awful about it. It’s not a matter of censorship. As it turned out, I — as I believe, the statement was fairly innocuous and possibly might’ve gone just the way, you know — on the air . . .”
Tunic also stated, “It was not a question of any type of censorship. As a writer I’m very much sensitive of points of censorship and I can assure you that this does not enter into it one little bit. Nor did the Air Force in any way control our program. The original idea for the program was our own. We set about it just as we set about any other program. We were very pleased when the Air Force offered us cooperation and when they opened their files to us. As a matter of fact, I had the files in my home for a number of days working on the show.”
Minutes later, Nebel asked about what happened to the time that Kenneth Arnold was going to be on the program. Tunic replied, “I pinch-hit. I sat in for him because it was done. You see, we had no notification of this. He sent us a telegram which arrived about one o’clock this afternoon . . . and we were caught. You know, after all, we’re all on teleprompter, everything is set in the show. We were ready to go into our run-through and suddenly one of our guests just doesn’t appear. Well what do we do? We kind of jerry-rigged it. I sat in for him and I read the lines, as we could. And we felt very badly about it. We do think that in all fairness we should’ve been informed at least in person — not to be informed by a telegram. I don’t think a service was done to anyone in that regard."
At one point Nebel mentioned the use of an eight-second delay system in relation to the headsets of his show's guests in attendance who at the time were listening to Tunik being interviewed. Tunik’s concluding remark was, “And we really are very — we’re sad that this situation had to come up because we thought it was a good program that the audience would be interested in and we don’t want the audience to feel that they’ve been cheated in any way. It was an emergency measure, you understand.”
More information about Kenneth Arnold (1915-1984) is available at kennetharnoldufo.com.
Nebel thereafter interviewed Kenneth Arnold for broadcast after Virginia Belmont facilitated the contact. Arnold explained, ". . . being that the subject of flying saucers has become such a complex problem since the time I first made my report, it would've been impossible to, you might say, project in a short time all of the pertinent facts that have been gathered." He explained that he had never received a draft of the program's script as he had been promised. ". . . though I've turned down many requests of this type, It seemed as though that this was going to be projected as represented and I was anxious, of course, to see that the true story as far as we know was being portrayed for public interest."
Arnold said that in New York, "Every participant in the program, it seemed, was continually changing everything in the script so actually no one I don't believe really knew what the final outcome of it was going to be." His Jan. 22, 1958 telegram stated:
The persons or agencies who project information of national interest have a serious responsibility. A correctly informed public is one of the greatest assets this nation can have. This is to inform you that I will not be a participant on any program that obviously misrepresents and distorts facts available on any subject broadcast for the public interest. Nor could I allow any photograph or material properly copyrighted to be used on any program without written permission of the owner.
A postscript stated: "I am not making an appearance on any television program on January 22nd, 1958."
Donald Keyhoe was later interviewed by Mike Wallace on the television show "The Mike Wallace Interview" and this interview is included on the “UFOlogy” MP3 disc with the broadcast date identified as 3-8-1958. The interview began with Mike Wallace saying: “Good evening. Tonight we go after a fantastic story. The story that flying saucers from other worlds are visiting our planet just as we are exploring outer space with our own rocket satellites. Our guest is former Marine Air Corps Major Donald Keyhoe who has the support of scores of prominent businessmen, military men and some scientists in his campaign to prove that flying saucers exist."
What followed was the sixty-year-old Keyhoe providing a succinct litany of events from his UFO research. His commentary was interspersed with Wallace's indignant and skeptical remarks that obviously were, to a large proportion, scripted. Keyhoe reflected about the intentions of the people in flying saucers, "Well there's been no evidence of any hostility during the last ten years — what we call the modern phase."
After Keyhoe mentioned three secret documents and the findings of a 1953 Pentagon panel, Wallace confronted Keyhoe with an official denial from an unnamed representative of the Air Technical Intelligence Center at the Pentagon who stated that three of Keyhoe's four documents didn't exist and the fourth "doesn't say what Major Keyhoe claims it says."
Keyhoe brought up the “Armstrong Circle Theatre” events himself: “Now I’d like to tell you something that happened on the ‘Armstrong Circle Theatre.’ I had requested that those points be in the script and I was discouraged from it at first by their writer. Then later some of our board of governors insisted that we have those points included. So I said either I don’t go on or we have those in there. They said all right. So the script was completely rewritten. Now those were in the script as it was first rehearsed but when the second rehearsal came along and the Air Force saw the mimeograph sheet — the Air Force representative — according to the Armstrong writer — said they would immediately deny it on the air even though it meant denouncing their own former project chief. Now the source for this was Captain Edward Ruppelt who was the head of Project Blue Book for two years and at that time he was considered good enough that he briefed President Truman on these things. He was the top man. Rank didn’t mean anything — it’s the experience that counted. All right — he says these things existed. He put it in a book which was cleared by Security and Review in the Air Force. On December 5th, 1955 that was cleared. It’s in his book. He’s never been hauled in and court-martialed. Now I have here if you’ll allow your camera to come in on it. This is a sheet from the script of the ‘Armstrong Theatre’ which was deleted. This was crossed off and I was told that I couldn’t say it on the air. And that was censorship by intimidation. This can be matched up with the other sheets from the ‘Armstrong Circle’ script and any typewriter expert will show you . . .”
Here Wallace’s speech overlapped as he said, “Well I’m certain that — I’m certain that — I’m certain that people believe you. The only thing is that the next morning I distinctly remember reading a report by you, Major Keyhoe, to the effect that no censorship, no pressure of any kind had been put on you.”
“I — I’m sorry, Mr. Wallace, that — I knew that statement almost by heart. I said that CBS and the ‘Armstrong’ people were not to blame for cutting me off the air when I tried to mention the fact that a Senate committee was working on the secrecy angle. I never mentioned this that night to anyone because I had promised that I wouldn’t say anything about it on the air that — the Armstrong people. It was taken out and I will do this. I will ask the United States Air Force to have the Marine Corps put me on active duty for court-martial if that is not the case."
Curiously, on the topic of flying saucer contactees, Wallace asked Keyhoe to comment on George Adamski and Howard Menger without mentioning any other contactees. Keyhoe replied, "We do not accept any reports of these so-called contactees without more evidence . . ."
Wallace asked, "Is it possible we're going to start an interplanetary war when we start sending our rockets to the Moon and to Mars?" Keyhoe replied: “In 1955 General Douglas MacArthur said the next war would be an interplanetary war and we’d have to unite against people from other planets.”
Following the telecast, Keyhoe was interviewed by Long John Nebel on "The Party Line." His commentary on the broadcast began with a description of his organization NICAP. After a follow-up question, Keyhoe stated that all members of the armed forces "are muzzled to a great degree in regard to sighting reports. The Air Force constantly denies this but I have in front of me here copies of the official order JANAP 146, a Joint Chiefs of Staff document, and AFR 200-2 — that's an Air Force order, which says that no one will discuss any unexplained sightings."
When asked about Air Force personnel beliefs about UFOs coming to our planet, Keyhoe commented: ". . . the time when I was working with them, which was back in '52 and '53, there was a very good percentage that believed it — not only believed it but thought the public should know about it. And there have been documents drawn up by Air Force Intelligence officers stating their belief in that."
Keyhoe commented about the Air Force denial of the documents during the Mike Wallace interview: " . . . the Air Force for the first time tonight came out and denied . . . I had proof of it and they said it was absolutely untrue."
Keyhoe stated that his time on the "Armstrong Circle Theatre" program expanded when Edward Ruppelt backed out. Keyhoe read a CBS statement about the show following the telecast: "This program had been carefully cleared for security reasons. Therefore, it was the responsibility of this network to ensure performance in accordance with predetermined security standards." Keyhoe commented about his being censored: "Now I would like to know why if the flying saucers don't exist . . . why there was security about it and why the program had to be cleared at all? Why was it they were so worried that I might say something?"
Here is how Keyhoe described the advice given him in regard to what would be "the best policy for NICAP" in relation to flying saucer contactees — "'No matter what you personally believe, it is smarter to concentrate on your factual sightings because the minute you start in on any other angle your going to lose the press. Then you will start being ridiculed as having accepted contact stories — whether you accept them or not, the minute you start sounding as though you do. The best advice we can give you is not even to mention them. Don't say yes or no. Just keep still.' So I tried that at first. It didn't work. The pressure built up because there are many people who are sincerely convinced that these things are true. And some people who accept all of them. And some people who accept a few. The pressure got so great that I was accused of clamping a lid. Here I am the guy trying to expose censorship and I'm clamping a lid on the contact stories. . . . There are, by now, I think hundreds who claim contact or communication here and abroad."
Keyhoe wrote about the “Armstrong Circle Theatre” events in a chapter of Flying Saucers: Top Secret (1960); however, Keyhoe incorrectly recalled what he had said that had been censored. He had made a statement about "intelligent control" earlier in the telecast. Keyhoe commented in his book: “In that one impulsive act, I seemed to have offset the Air Force claims more than anything I had said on the program . . . Millions now were convinced that the Air Force was hiding the facts.”
The potential for an end to UFO secrecy was suggested in a Feb. 27, 1960 New York Times article that quoted the first director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter: "It is time for the truth to be brought out in open Congressional hearings. Behind the scenes, high-ranking Air Force officers are soberly concerned about the UFOs. But through official secrecy and ridicule, many citizens are led to believe the unknown flying objects are nonsense. To hide the facts, the Air Force has silenced its personnel."
In his book Behind The Flying Saucers (1950) author Frank Scully expressed these circumstances in a succinct way when he referred to "the hypocritical pattern is ever the same . . . the great American game of chumping the common people."
Over the years, I have read and heard many rationalizations for secrecy about UFOs and have noticed that in some instances ulterior motives of perceived self-interest were a factor. Beyond the never-substantiated, theoretical question of hostility, the causes for governmental withholding of information about UFOs that Keyhoe mentioned to Wallace as having been given him back in 1952 and '53 were (1) "that they were afraid of hysteria" and (2) "they were also afraid that it would upset organized religion." Frank Scully provided one response to these concerns by citing a 1950 publication The Way of St. Francis as the final paragraph of his book: ". . . the Bible and Christianity in no way excluded the possibility that God has created other groups of intelligent beings . . . ."
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