Thursday, July 9, 2009

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/


DVD Clip UFO Hunters “UFO Surveillance” :Are “Saucers” still buzzing our technology centers?







Joseph Capp
UFO Media Matters
Non-Commercial Blog

9 comments:

  1. The Keyhoe story alone is worth looking into. His change from skeptic to believer was amazing and than he started to get the real stories from those who knew.
    PS Love the ufo hunters, we need more detail. I hear ppl talk about them like they dont know the whole story when they are just alotting for time. PPl need to read these accounts themselves, than they will see where the info doesnt go together and what is in between.

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  2. Hi Joseph Capp ,
    Thank you for posting this account "UFOs and Donald Keyhoe: The Forgotten Champion"
    Very interesting also about FBI man witness of 3ft being , I had read UFO's are real but cannot remember this one from the book hint for ?
    I would like to read about your account in 1962 if i could ?
    Thanks again
    Chuck

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  3. Hi, Joe:
    This is Luis from Peru, I sent you e-mails to schedule , but no answer.

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  4. For everyone sorry about posting comments late it was an email mix-up

    Thanks
    Joe
    UFOMM

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  5. Dear Beth,
    Keyhole was a precious resource and there will never be anyone like him. They really destroyed NICAP and Keyhole. If we ever have a hall of fame His name should be first.

    Thanks
    Joe
    UFOMM

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  6. Dear Chuck,
    I was in Atlantic City of the beach with a friend. We went down early so we could put our blanket near this girl we wanted to meet. As we arrived we were putting the blanket down when my fiend shouted to me to look behind me as he pointed up. What I saw changed my reality forever. Two flying disk came almost over our heads. They were lower than the Traymore Hotel which was up in those days.
    They were circular copper in color. I could clearly see the Sun reflected off the sides of the ship. I shouted at people but they didn't respond. They were silent. They went out over the Atlantic Ocean and turned north. At the time I would estimate they were going very slow maybe thirty miles an hour. When they turned they shot up the cost at hundreds of miles an hour within seconds. Later I realized there was no sonic boom. We were in awe of this happening. My bother believed in UFOs and had talked to me about it. I love the subject but it's different when you see it that clear, up close and personal. It frightened me and amazed me at the same time,

    There is a post script to this story.
    I moved to NY and my friend went into the Army. We lost touch. 35 years later I was about to go down to the annual family Christmas party in New Jersey when my sister met my friend asked him to come to the party. He agreed. My wife Phyllis didn't know what to do with my story. So the first think I did after returning pleasantries with him was to ask this; and I quote:
    E***** do you remember they day on the beach when we saw something?"
    His Answer and I quote after 35 years now:
    "You mean the day we saw the flying saucers"
    My wife to say the least was impressed. Here it was 35 years later and that day still stood out in his mind.
    A note for debunkers you do not forget experiences like this period.
    Thanks
    Joe
    UFO MM

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  7. I read your account of your personal UFO sighting you explained in the comments. Very interesting indeed. Do the others that witnessed it recall the same story and details as you?

    Skeptics (debunkers) like Michael Shermer, or the likes, would regard your witness testimony as "lightbulb memory" and attribute it with the same problems as with most other witness accounts. They would argue there might be important details lost and others distorted that is vital to judging its origin. The story might have changed over time and so forth. They also refer to studies done and claim that these types of memories IS NOT remembered any better than other random memories.

    As you do, I also find this very unlikely. Sure you could get some of the minutia wrong because of the brain bridging the gap over what you forgot and what you remember but the basics of the story should be true. I mean we don't even remember insignificant events in the past while these kinds of events still lives on in memory. There MUST be a significant difference here. Otherwise the skeptics would have to argue that ALL memory is false and pretty much unusable (since it's made up by the brain). And if that was true we wouldn't have 'learning' and have use for the word 'wisdom'.

    Also I find the term 'flashbulb memory' rather dumb as this refers to some kind of fast or instant type of shocking event. A lot of UFO encounters is not like that. They can go on from 5 seconds to 1 hour. Where is the 'flashbulb' in that? Unless it's over quickly so the witness was overwhelmed and didn't know what to think of it all I see no application for the 'lightbulb memory' effect even though it's so often mentioned in proximity to eyewitness reports.

    Some questions might be relevant to ask, but when will it be enough? A skeptic won't stop his/her demands. In the end the eye-witness can't satisfy any skeptic. Too sad.

    I find your story extremely interesting though. I guess I'm labeled a 'believer' for that. Let me get my foil-hat.

    All the best,
    Daniel Bergh, Sweden

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  8. Dear Daniel,
    This light bulb memory idea never stopped a debriefing of these pilots. Why even debrief them if they couldn't remember the truth. Debriefing was meant to go over and over the memories in detail. The very fact that they could not explain some of these sightings after the debriefing proves those idiots wrong.
    Thanks again
    Joe Capp
    UFOMM

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