The Flying Saucers Are Real

The five books of Major Donald E. Keyhoe (USMC Ret.) were published between 1950 and 1973, beginning with The Flying Saucers Are Real.  Keyhoe was the Director of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) from 1956 through the early 1970s.

In 1949, Keyhoe's lifelong investigation of UFOs commenced with an assignment from the editor of True magazine.  He wrote in his first book: "For six months, I worked with other investigators to solve the mystery of the disks."  As finally revised, the article written under his by-line fully presented "the fact that the earth had been observed by beings from another planet."

Following publication of the article, Keyhoe became a public figure associated with flying saucer research.  Throughout his life he would be featured in hundreds of television and radio broadcasts.  Some of these would unintentionally reveal how regulated forms of mass media were utilized for disinformation campaigns about UFOs.  Twenty audio tracks of Keyhoe interviews, debates and lectures were preserved on the Wendy Connors Audio Archive of UFO History CD "Profiles In UFOlogy."

Concerning the subject of UFOs, Keyhoe considered himself "a reporter and a careful one," as he had informed Mike Wallace.  Reading his books continuously left me with the impression that his perspective always allowed consideration of potential new evidence.  Keyhoe’s research confronted him with instances where he personally witnessed individuals in positions of authority concealing and denying UFO or so-called 'flying saucer' sightings.

Some of the cases he described in his books presented aspects that may now be identified as inconsistent with the preponderance of eyewitness testimonials of UFO encounters, such as speculation about airplane accidents possibly resulting from UFO incidents.

Biographical information provided about Keyhoe in his first book stated:

Donald E. Keyhoe, who relates here his investigation of the flying saucers, writes with twenty-five years of experience in observing aeronautical developments.

He is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis.  He flew in active service with the Marine Corps, managed the tour of the historic plane in which Bennett and Byrd made their North Pole flight, was aide to Charles Lindbergh after the famous Paris flight, and was chief of information for the Aeronautics Branch, Department of Commerce.

His book shared the title of the True magazine article that generated extensive publicity and interest.  He commented about the article.

We had uncovered important facts.  We knew the saucers were real.  If it was handled carefully, we believed the story would be in line with a secret Air Force policy.

It was finally decided to publish certain alternate conclusions.  The Air Force was informed of True's intentions; no attempt was made to block publication.


Nation-wide press and radio comment followed the appearance of the article.  This publicity was obviously greater than the Air Force had expected.  Within twenty-four hours the Pentagon was deluged with telegrams, letters, and long-distance calls. 

This excerpt shows a vague orientation to the Air Force that exemplifies how people, especially journalists with news articles, often personify countries, organizations and groups of all forms — routinely characterizing them as having a will of their own; such as 'The United States demanded today that . . .'  Conditioned rhetoric assuming undivided consensus opinions among Air Force personnel would hamper Keyhoe in some of his attempts to explain UFO secrecy yet his following book would offer some idea about the predicament as he defined characteristics of "three main groups" with different attitudes toward UFO policy decisions.  Considering news reporting standards in general, the assumption of a unifying opinion in relation to a particular principality sometimes results with journalists failing to identify which official is delineating each course of action; thus, specific officials' intentions are ignored.

One conviction of Keyhoe's would prove ephemeral.  In a prefatory Author's Note for the book, he wrote:

I believe that the Air Force statements, contradictory as they appear, are part of an intricate program to prepare America—and the world—for the secret of the disks.

The main conclusion in the True article was: "that the flying saucers were interplanetary."  Keyhoe admitted that while researching the article when he first considered answers to the flying saucer question, the "interplanetary" possibility provoked a response from him of "You're kidding!"  He then studied a file consisting of dozens of historic worldwide reports dating from 1762 through 1934.  Another group of reports covered the "World War II" phase of the phenomena.  

Keyhoe decided: "We had had modern miracles, radio, television, supersonic planes, and the promise of still more miracles.  We could be educated, or at least partly prepared, to accept space visitors."  Keyhoe chronicled how radar reports and his conversations with a variety of officials, pilots, witnesses, newsmen and engineers presented firsthand evidence of these visitors.

One witness interviewed by Keyhoe was George Gorman.  Newspaper articles had reported that on October 1, 1948 Gorman was on a practice flight in an F-51 fighter when he had chased a swiftly maneuvering white "mystery light" that he estimated to be about six to eight inches in diameter. 

"It's just my personal opinion," said Gorman.  "But I'd rather not have it printed.  You see, I got some ideas from all the questions those Project teams asked me.  If my hunch turns out to be right, I might be talking about an official secret."

I tried to pry some hint out of him, but Gorman just smiled and shook his head.

"I can tell you this much," he said, "because it's been mentioned in print.  There was thought behind every move the light made.  It wasn't any radar-responder gadget making it veer away from my ship."

"How do you know that?"

"Because it reacted differently at different times.  If it had been a mechanical control, it would have turned or climbed the same way each time I got near it.  Instead, it was as if some intelligent mind was directing every turn—like a game of chess, and always one move ahead of me.  Maybe you can figure out the rest."

There were witnesses who confirmed Gorman's report.  Keyhoe began contemplating the nature of the mysterious spacemen.

. . . in their progress, there must have been struggle, trial and error, some feelings of triumph at success.  Surely these would be emotional forces, bound to reflect in the planet races.  Perhaps, in spite of some differences, we would find a common bond—the bond of thinking, intelligent creatures trying to better themselves.

Keyhoe described the sensational response that greeted the publication of the True magazine article.  He was in Iowa during the holiday season.  He changed his plans when news of the article was first presented by Frank Edwards and other newscasters on radio networks.  Then: "The wire services quickly picked it up; some papers ran front-page stories."

The publicity was far more than I had expected.  I phoned a reporter in Washington whose beat includes the Pentagon.

"The Air Force is running around in circles," he told me.  "They knew your story was due, but nobody thought it would raise such a fuss.  I think they're scared of hysteria.  They're getting a barrage of wires and telephone calls."


Next day, while changing trains at Chicago, I saw the Air Force statement.  The press release was dated December 27, 1949.  Without mentioning True, the Air Force flatly denied having any evidence that flying saucers exist.


Then came the clincher: Project "Saucer," said the Air Force, had been discontinued, now that all the reports had been explained.

It was plain that the release had been hastily prepared.  It completely contradicted the detailed Project "Saucer" report, issued eight months before, that had called for constant vigilance, after admitting that most important cases were unsolved.


During the first week of January, I appeared on "We, the People," with Lieutenant George Gorman.  When I saw Gorman, before rehearsals, he seemed oddly constrained.  I had a feeling that he had been warned about talking freely.  During rehearsals, he changed his lines in the script.  When the writers argued over a point, Gorman told them:

"I can only say what was in my published report—nothing else."

The day before the broadcast, a program official told me that they had been told to include the Air Force denial in the script.  That afternoon I learned that the Air Force planned to monitor the broadcast.

Two of Keyhoe's other 1958 television network interviews (a subject of last week's blog article) provide examples of how important information was suppressed and propaganda achieved nationwide on the topic of flying saucers.  The question of technology impinging on personal liberties continues to be raised by current events today.

One of the conclusions presented by Keyhoe in the book shows that he hadn't fully appraised the UFO evidence in accordance with the teachings of world wisdom traditions:

We must try to learn as much as we can about the space ships' source of power, and at the same time try to prevent clues to this information from reaching an enemy on earth.

If censorship is suddenly imposed on all flying-saucer reports, this will be the chief reason.

Keyhoe's first book ended with the following statement.

The American people have proved their ability to take incredible things.  We have survived the stunning impact of the Atomic Age.  We should be able to take the Interplanetary Age, when it comes, without hysteria.