UFOs and Donald Keyhoe: The Forgotten Champion

“Sounds pretty dopey, Huh? A fighter pilot sitting behind 50 caliber guns and rockets and scared of a light in the dark.”


[All quotes are from the vintage book by Major Donald Keyhoe “Flying Saucers From Outer Space”]



“Major Donald Keyhoe, head of NYCA,P(National Investigations Committee On Arial Phenomenon) was the man. No doubt about it. If anyone could get information from pilots he was the person. A navel pilot himself, respected by his peers his integrity unquestioned… he was the perfect UFO truth finder.
Hardened, non nonsense pilots didn’t mind hoisting a few with Donald at the officers’ quarters. He knew people and he was upfront about his interest in the “Saucers”. Inevitably, the pilots gave him what they would have never given to anyone else… the real story, and of course that made Keyhoe a liability and dangerous.

If you don’t know about Major Donald Keyhoe he was the first real UFO researcher. He created NICAP. In the early days of “Flying Saucer” investigations those pursuing an answer to these objects did not know the debunkers were not going to play fair. Keyhoe understood the workings of the Air force and why they did what they did with the UFO phenomenon… but he trusted scientists and felt debunking was a service. He expected Donald Menzel (Astronomer) and other scientists to formulate their explanations based upon all of the data. This, of course, did not happen. On Menzel’s investigation of three pilot encounters, Keyhoe was shocked by his explanations. It seems Menzel had simple prosaic answers to all of them including the famous “UFO Mantel Jet crash” . Keyhoe couldn’t understand how Mensel came to these conclusions. “Hadn’t he seen the investigation reports by Bluebook”. Keyhoe had mentioned earlier in his book, “Flying Saucers From Outer Space” how he believed Menzel was sincerely searching for answers. But get this: Keyhoe checked with Project Bluebook and found Menzel hadn’t read any of the three reports on these pilots sightings because he hadn’t requested them.
Also, as a footnote to history, Project Bluebook in a letter to Keyhoe had rejected Menzels explanations on these three pilot reports. Major Keyhoe, like Dr. McDonald and his trust of Phillip Klass, had no idea they were dealing with, government lackeys posing as investigators.

Here are some stunning reports from the 1950s:

One large disk 56 miles above the earth tracked at 18,000 miles per hour.

Two disks observed tracking a high altitude rocket. After circling a test rocket they climbed and sped away. (We know there is substantial proof this happened again at least once but in that instance the missile was shot down by the UFO).

“Little 3 ft. space man” captured after a disk crashed.
First written about in “Talk of The Times,” an Air Force bulletin with photographs of the little being, the bulletin caption read:
“Hit by flak rockets, the object exploded in a shower of fireworks… About 20 silvery capsules fell to the ground. One broke and the first “Mars” man was captured.” FBI agent Mckennerich from Phoenix who was an eyewitness to the capture of the being is quoted: ‘I was astounded by the importance of this great moment. For the first time I was seeing a being from another world.’ The being was three feet his body covered with an aluminum material.”


1948 two airline pilot spot a cigar shaped UFO with lighted windows. They swerve and the objects swerves to avoid a collision. The object than climbs and speeds away. Explanation meteors, “It will have to be left to the psychologist to decide if a person can mistake the heat waves of a meteor for windows”

Mysterious device buzzes Hamilton Field three times trailing blue green smoke; speed: 1000-1500 miles an hour.

Scientists tracking cosmic rays watches UFO circle their plane and speed away. When another approaches it is caught on a theodolite telescope. (“scientists never see UFOs?”)

Secretary of The Navy’s plane “buzzed by saucer.” A second plane nearby is also buzzed by the same object.

There were 600 hundred reported sightings of UFOs by pilots over that period. This does not include radar operators, plane crews and scientists on the ground. The government reported that only 20 percent of all of the sightings could be attributed to any balloons, including the Sky Hook balloon. Practically every military base, missile base and atomic facility reported multiple sightings There is no doubt that the military wanted the public to swallow these amazing detailed craft sightings, as nothing more than birds, temperature inversions, sundogs, Venus and ground lights.
The truth is the military took “Flying Saucers” quite seriously. Many felt these objects were controlled and were surveying our weapons capability.

Major Keyhoe was a prime reason why the government investigated UFOs.

Although Project Bluebook white washed some reports, their wealth of research information has proven to reinforce the idea that UFOs have not been explained. Although NICAP was gutted from the inside by alleged operatives and Keyhoe eventually fired, no man did more to gain respect for the subject of “flying saucers”. Keyhoe also proves that it was not the UFO researchers who started out paranoid of the Debunkers. The distrust of them evolved because of the repeated sloppy research on the UFO reports. done. NICAP cataloged countless eyewitness UFO reports that contained a wealth of information.

Today we find these craft are still in our skies doing things not even our scientists dreamed of. We find now people think of UFOs as a trendy experience that deserves attention when they show up. Major Keyhoe rightly believed that investigating these crafts, and what they possibly represented, was one of most important Jobs a person could do. He gave his life to this belief. Although you hardly hear him mentioned now, he was, and always will be, a champion investigator on the front lines of the UFO mystery.
NICAP Web Site:
http://www.nicap.org/


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Joseph Capp
UFO Media Matters
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