Flying Saucers: Top Secret

The fourth UFOlogy book by Major Donald E. Keyhoe (USMC Ret.) is Flying Saucers: Top Secret (1960).  His first book on this subject The Flying Saucers Are Real had been published ten years earlier.  The books chronicle how the mysterious UFO events were delegated to military jurisdictions and provoked conflicting responses among officials about what information should be presented to the public.  A sequence of bureaucratic secrecy protocols was formulated.  The fact that these orders entailed lies would continuously undermine the top secret cover-up as new witnesses observed UFOs and realized the importance of this knowledge.

Since the publication of his previous book in 1955, Keyhoe had joined and eventually been made Director of National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP).   He wrote in the Foreword:

Publicly, the official attitude is still one of debunking the "saucers" and explaining away sightings—a policy made possibly by military secrecy orders.  But behind the scenes, a far different attitude exists, as shown by the evidence in this book.  Further proof, just received, is shown by the official instructions of the Air Force Inspector General to Operations and Training commands.  On December 24, 1959, under the heading, UFOS SERIOUS BUSINESS, the Inspector General gave these directions regarding UFO reports:

So far, there is no indication of any change in the official debunking policy.  It was this policy which led to creation of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena over three years ago.  A private organization, with members in the armed forces, Government agencies and many professions and trades, NICAP was created to learn the facts about UFOs and to make them public.

The first chapter provided more details about NICAP.  "In '56, NICAP had been organized as a private, nonprofit organization to determine the facts about UFOs.  By January of '59, its membership covered all forty-nine (now fifty) states and thirty foreign countries, excluding the USSR."  Keyhoe divulged that members constituted "important inside sources, in the armed forces and elsewhere.  Without violating security, they had given us leads to crucial UFO information kept from the press."  He commented, "But in spite of our efforts, and a mass of documented new evidence, the censorship had been tightened."

One ironic incident occurred after Keyhoe was censored while appearing on a network television UFO program (as detailed in a previous blog article).  In the show,  Keyhoe attempted to make some unscripted remarks and the audio track of his speech was made inaudible.  "Only minutes later, Air Force Assistant Secretary Richard E. Horner appeared before the cameras and flatly denied any censorship of the subject."  Then:

Less than twenty-four hours later, in an unguarded moment, the Air Force censorship was fully admitted by the PIO (Public Information Officer) at Langley Air Force Base.  Evidently unaware of Horner's broadcast, Captain Gregory H. Oldenburgh sent an official statement to NICAP member Larry W. Bryant, Warwick, Virginia:

The public dissemination of data on unidentified flying objects is contrary to Air Force policy and regulations . . . specifically, Air Force Regulation 200-2.

One case related in the book is known as 'The Killian Case', involving "a headlined airline sighting and a veteran airline captain who gamely stood up to the Air Force."  Keyhoe chronicled how eventually Killian was "silenced by the Air Force," as Mrs. Killian informed Kehoe.  The incident and following cover-up was also profiled in Keyhoe's following book Aliens From Space, including the following.

Though the other airline crews had confirmed Killian's report, his forthright statements had received the most publicity.  To debunk this serious case, the AF said Killian had merely seen stars through broken clouds.  The captain quickly knocked this down—the clouds had been under the plane and the sky was clear above it.  Switching answers, the AF said Killian had failed to recognize an aerial refueling operation.  Then to discredit him completely, a HQ spokesman hiding behind anonymity implied the captain was drunk.

Overnight, the ridicule spread to Killian's family.  Several people in their community started taunting his wife, and his children were mocked at school.  In a cold anger, Captain Killian went on the air and blasted the Air Force.

Within twenty-four hours the AF put the heat on American Airlines and Captain Killian was silenced.  In his fifteen years with American he had built up a spotless record.  But under AF pressure he was forbidden to defend himself in a broadcast, a press interview—or even in a discussion with friends.

After this vicious slander by the AF, some FAA officials began to rebel against Air Force control.  Apparently this feeling of guilt for not going to Killian's aid spread to top levels.  It was climaxed seven months later by the official release of the FAA logs at Redmond.  The AF's denunciation of the FAA intensified the agency's stubborn resistance, and on through the sixties it gave out several significant UFO reports the AF tried to conceal.

But the Pentagon's attempt to ruin Killian was a victory for the censors.  Most airline pilots stopped reporting UFO encounters, fearing they would get the same treatment.  Hundreds of dramatic and sometimes startling reports are still being withheld by these embittered pilots.

In another chapter of Flying Saucers: Top Secret, Keyhoe explained how he received faked AP wire stories in an incident involving a "trap" that could have resulted with NICAP officials appearing as if they were responsible for "making up the whole thing."

Incidents of the UFO sighting "flap" of 1957 included a landing at the north tip of the White Sands rocket-proving grounds (the vicinity of Daniel Fry's  first contact experience).  Keyhoe reported an additional sighting occurred the next day at a camp north of the proving ground.

The following passages provide an example of the frequently noticed backtracking among officials and military witnesses.  During the numerous sightings of November 1957, Keyhoe received a telephone call from Frank Edwards —

"Don, you won't believe this!  The Chief Air Force PIO at Los Angeles—Colonel Dean Hess—just revealed he's asked Secretary Douglas to open up with the truth about UFOs."

"That's amazing, if he really did."

"It's true, all right.  My source in L.A. just read me a press interview.  Colonel Hess says the Pentagon is greatly concerned, and it's plain he's worried, too.  He said he phoned the Secretary's office and asked for a thorough investigation.  Here's the hot part, quote: 'I have asked for a thorough investigation so the public may know the real nature of these objects.  I'm not going to be satisfied with one of these routine inquiries.  I am sure the American people would be receptive to information as to whether these objects are of terrestrial or celestial origin.'  Unquote."


. . . word came that Colonel Hess was to be interviewed on a Los Angeles television program.  Hoping for a real break, I waited for word from the Coast.  Then a Los Angeles member phoned the bad news to our office.

"Colonel Hess looked beaten—they must've given him hell.  All he did was recite the Air Force line."

In the following chapter, Keyhoe provided an account of a conversation that he had with Lou Corbin, news director of WFBR in Baltimore.  This excerpt recounts some of the usual outlandish explanations given by officials in response to UFO inquiries.  At the time of the conversation, Kehoe was working on a press release consisting of confidential reports of identified witnesses.  He was hopeful the joint statement could lead to a breakthrough in attempting to end the continuous ridicule of UFO witnesses

"Well, they've done it again!  Of all the idiotic explanations—"

"What are you talking about?"

"This new Air Force brush-off.  It just came over our wires.  They picked out five recent sightings and then tore them down.  They called the Stokes report a hoax inspired by the Levelland case.  Then they made fools out of the Coast Guardsmen—"

"How?"

"Said the Sebago radarmen got confused—mistook ordinary plane blips for a UFO."

"What about the men on deck who actually saw the thing?"

"Oh—they steered clear of that—didn't mention it."

"Lou, the Coast Guard will never stand for that."

"Unless they've been shut up.  And listen to this.  In the White Sands cases, they even changed the witnesses from MP's in jeeps to plane crews circling the area.  Then they say the UFOs these crews reported were only astronomical effects. . . ."

I looked down grimly at the press-release draft.  But the Air Force couldn't have known; it was only a bad luck coincidence.

"Hello," said Corbin.  "Are you still on?"

"Yes.  Go ahead."

"The Levelland explanation is the most outlandish of all.  The Air Force says that the huge UFO was, quote: 'A natural electrical phenomenon called ball lightning or St. Elmo's fire.'"

"But that's crazy—they're two entirely different things.  Ball lightning's never been reported over a few inches in diameter.  And St. Elmo's fire is a kind of static electricity that sometimes gathers around ships' masts and—"

News that the Senate Subcommitee on Investigations was considering open hearings brought Keyhoe in contact with subcommittee chief investigator Jack S. Healey.  At one of their meetings, Kehoe was able to tell him about an airline captain who eventually denied his previous detailed UFO reports.  The case presented what Keyhoe called a convincing "record of deception" suggesting that "someone with real power" had been able to "scare" the airline captain into lying to the Civil Aviation Committee.  A NICAP member had taped the television interview where the captain and first officer had provided a careful description of the incident.

Representative William H. Ayres divulged in a letter to NICAP member Melvin V. Knopp, West Ridgefield, Ohio:

Congressional investigations have been held, and are still being held on the problem of unidentified flying objects . . . Since most of the material presented to the Committees is classified, the hearings are never printed.  When conclusions are reached, they will be released if possible.

Keyhoe also mentioned an incident involving Senator Barry Goldwater.

After a daytime UFO sighting at Tucson, Arizona, the Air Force first stated no fighters were in the area.  Later, it had reversed itself, trying to explain the UFO as an unrecognized F-102 interceptor.  It was then that Arizona's Senator Barry Goldwater had publicly declared: "The flying saucers are real."  Adding his now well-publicized comment that the Air Force "clammed up" when asked about UFOs, Senator Goldwater also revealed that two former Air Force "buddies"—presently airline captains—had seen "saucers" flying alongside their planes.

A future event involving Goldwater was his attempt to gain access to enter restricted areas of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

Among the UFO reports brought forward by NICAP members was one concerning four sightings by Baltimore astronomer Dr. James C. Bartlett, Jr. during his almost nightly observations of our solar system and distant stars; and one from a Lutheran minister and his wife that addressed the fear "that religion might be seriously affected if the UFOs were proved to be spaceships."

As far back as 1950 I had been told this was one reason for Air Force secrecy.  But the religious leaders on our Board—Dr. Douglass, Reverend Baller and Reverend LeVan—believed that only a small percentage of people would feel such an impact.  Apparently, most of our members agreed.  But we still pursued the question whenever the opportunity offered, as in this minister's report.

Reverend Hoffman was quoted: 

"I can accept the existence of other planets with intelligent beings.  Why should we question God's power to create other worlds in the Universe?"

Publicity about C. G. Jung's evaluation of UFOs prompted Keyhoe to write him a letter.  Jung's written response was quoted in the book —

Kusnacht-Zurich

Seestrass 228

16.8.58

Dear Major Keyhoe:

Thank you very much for your kind letter.  I have read all you have written concerning UFOs and I am a subscriber to the NICAP Bulletin.  I am grateful for all the courageous things you have done in elucidating the thorny problem of UFO reality. . . .

My special preoccupation does neither preclude the physical reality of the UFOs nor their extraterrestrial origin, nor the purposefulness of their behavior, etc.  But I do not possess sufficient evidence which would enable me to draw definite conclusions.  The evidence available to me however is convincing enough to arouse a fervent interest.  I follow with my greatest sympathy your exploits and your endeavors to establish the truth about the UFOs. . . . 

If it is true that the A.A.F. [American Air Force] or the government withholds tell-taling facts, then one can only say that this is the most unpsychological and stupid policy one could invent.  Nothing helps rumors and panics more than ignorance.  It is self-evident that the public ought to be told the truth, because ultimately it will nevertheless come to the daylight.  There can hardly be any greater shock than the H-bomb and yet anybody knows of it without fainting.

I remain, dear Major,

Yours       

(signed)   C. G. Jung

A spiritual truth never directly addressed by Donald Keyhoe in his books is the immorality of dishonesty.  People holding any manner of position of authority are behaving immorally if they think there is any justification to lie or participate in a cover-up.  Abuses of 'power' are due to an incorrect understanding of what constitutes power.  A discernible teaching throughout the world's spiritual wisdom traditions is that wrongdoing will have unfavorable consequences not only for one's Earth life but also for the eventual existence in the ascended state of being.  If any exercise of power, influence or authority has a negative result then the perceived 'power' is a misconception.