UFOSearch Columbia, Missouri 65203 The Ruppelt Chronology, Part 1/5 Introduction Edward Ruppelt was an engineer with the Northrup Aircraft Corporation when he released The Report On Unidentified Flying Objects in 1956. This book was to be one of the most influential volumes produced in the 1950s and is still quoted today. During World War II Ruppelt was a bombadier with the very first B-29 wing and served both in China and in the South Pacific. As some of you may know, the B-29 people were very carefully selected. When the war ended Ruppelt went to college and was still in attendance there when the Korean War started in 1950. At the end of that year he was called up to active duty and sent to the Air Technical Intelligence Corps (ATIC) based at Wright Field near Dayton, Ohio. He arrived in January of 1951 with the rank of Captain. His stay in the Air Force was to last 33 months. In September of 1951 he was put "in charge" of the "flying saucer group" at ATIC, then called GRUDGE. Also working on UFOs at that time was the Air Materiel Command (AMC). Ruppelt stayed with Grudge throughout the rest of 1951 and remained on board when it became Blue Book in 1952. He was the man in the middle during the great Washington, D.C., flap of July, 1952 and saw what the Robertson Committee did to the UFO and the Air Force in 1953. His book is interesting and valuable for several reasons: 1) Many good cases are accurately and completely discribed. 2) The near panic of insiders in '52 is depicted graphically. 3) A group similiar to "Majestic-12" is mentioned. 4) Statements in the book imply communication with "others." 5) A second editon in 1959 contains a complete retraction! The Report On Unidentified Flying Objects appeared in 1956, three years after Keyhoe's Flying Saucers From Outer Space. Both books cover about the same period of time. Careful reading of the two reveals that some "power scientists," perhaps they were Bush and Berkner but we don't know, were in a tremendous tug-of-war with the military over the UFOs. Ruppelt says that by the summer of 1952 some Air Force brass was near panic and was actually looking for an invasion, a concern that was to surface again after the 1965 power failures. Ruppelt hints that the Washington, D.C., flap of July, 1952 almost pushed the military over the edge! This period is grimly depicted in Keyhoe's FSFOS which ends in a chapter stating that the Earth was then under survey by "super- intelligent extra-terrestrials." Ruppelt calls that "way out" but a careful reading of his book leads me to think otherwise. All in all, Ruppelt's The Report On Unidentified Flying Objects is required reading for any serious student of the UFO. It takes you back to the first years of the second half of the century when the "UFO" was young and the power elite had not yet grabbed near total control of first-class information. In the chronology that follows entries prior to 1951 concern events that Ruppelt thought important enough to mention or that UFOSearch feels dovetail with information in his book. Most of the dates are quite close but there are some that are my best estimate as to exactly when they happened. Rarely could the error be more than a week or two. UFOSearch has found this sort of time-line analyis a very revealing way to look at the "UFO." 1947 June 24 Arnold Sighting. Huge press reaction, perhaps never matched in all UFO history--approached only in 1952 & 1966. Banner headlines around the nation. It is the position of UFOSearch that this incident was chosen by the people we now think of as Majestic-12 to be the trigger for public introduction to "UFOs." Air Force brand-new, given UFOs as the lowest ranking of the services! See Arnold Chronology -- Part I. July 04 Record for reports not broken until July, 1952. July 07 Roswell Incident--recovery of "crashed disc" and dead crew? Now known with certainty? Handled at level way above ATIC and AMC. What those people saw were just the ripples spreading out from the REAL investigation as we shall see as this chronology proceeds. (Actual crash on about June 15? See: The Roswell Incident, other books.) Aug. 15 Gallup says 90+ per cent of Americans know about "Flying Saucers." That was the whole idea of the press flap--to get the public interested, file reports. Most people at this time think UFOs are illusions, not space ships. Aug. 31 So many fantastic reports are coming in that many newspapers begin ridiculing witnesses as much as anything else. Sep. 27 Gen. Twining writes, for internal consumption only, that "Flying Saucers are real objects, not illusions." He was head of the Air Material Command, supposedly at the "first level out" from the real insiders. But he is now said by some to have been a member of Majestic-12, the "control group" for the flying saucer problem. Sep. ?? Control Group Majestic-12 said to be set up to handle the problem of the UFO. Vannevar Bush is the chairman. These people seem to be the "inside-insiders." The documents are reproduced in Good's 1987 book Above Top Secret. The documents could very well could be phony but it seems obvious to us that some sort of control group was then in existance, MJ-12 or no. Does the word "innoculation" ring any bells for our readers? Dec. 15 Saturday Evening Post used by "Air Force," others in government, to plant authoritative article saying Flying Saucers are nothing but hoaxes and illusions. This, of course, was read by millions of Americans. Dec. 20 Security lid is on tight, little published in press. There was confusion, near panic at ATIC. Answers were wanted-- fast. Intense investigation underway; inquiries had been sent to Germany about secret Nazi projects. All intelligence officers were given orders to investigate UFO reports but in public the Air Force was pooh-poohing the entire subject. Vannevar Bush and the inventor of the proximity fuse (Dr. Tuve, Johns Hopkins, where Hynek spent the war) are said to believe that flying saucers are impossible. At least they say so in public. Dec. 30 Project SIGN established (secret) with Project SAUCER as the public cover. Gives official approval to the UFO investigation. J. Allen Hynek attached to SAUCER but was secretly working for SIGN, too. SAUCER and SIGN were establisheded by order of Secretary of Defense James Forrestal. 1948 Jan. 01 Lack of press interest at new year is giving the Air Force more time to conduct its investigation. Public reports are still being suppressed, "witness ridicule intense." Jan. 08 SIGN and AMC go into overdrive on UFOs because of the Mantell incident. Investigation lasts a year. Jan. 08 Capt. Thomas Mantell, an experienced WWII and Nat'l Guard pilot, dies chasing UFO. Hynek and SIGN explained this away as the planet Venus but the affair burned hot for awhile. But then the explaining took hold and the flap died. Ruppelt was to find in 1951 that the Mantell file was obviously damaged and incomplete--worthless for investigation. By 1951 the Navy had "admitted" that Mantell had died chasing a secret "Skyhook" balloon (under test by CIA as a spy camera vehicle--against the USSR!) which no one knew about back in 1948. But no balloon was in the area at the time and Dr. James McDonald found that out in 1968. Then in 1985 a secret transcript was relesed under an FOIA request, confirming that Mantell had in fact said that whatever he was chasing was a "metallic object of tremendous size." Denied for 38 years by AF; contemporary leaks, ridiculed at time, were correct, no matter what Mantell saw. Feb. 15 Ghost rockets back in Sweden & Norway but Air Force not really interested--still had the Mantell flap to worry about. Flying Saucers again to be pushed out of the news, few stories. Mar. 15 Air Materiel Command still working on report concerning the flying saucers. Working very hard. Consensus was that the objects were not of Earth orgin--outer space. July 24 Eastern Airline sighting puts flying saucers back into the headlines for a while. Two competent pilots and a passenger see something at close range. Resonates in media. End, Part 1/5 Path: news.demon.co.uk!demon!news.sprintlink.net!howland.reston.ans.net!news-e1a.megaweb.com!newstf01.news.aol.com!newsbf02.news.aol.com!not-for-mail From: germannvh@aol.com (Germannvh) Newsgroups: alt.paranet.ufo Subject: Ruppelt Chronology -- 2/5 Date: 12 Jul 1995 13:51:47 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Lines: 189 Sender: root@newsbf02.news.aol.com Message-ID: <3u123j$c9f@newsbf02.news.aol.com> Reply-To: germannvh@aol.com (Germannvh) NNTP-Posting-Host: newsbf02.mail.aol.com Status: N UFOSearch Columbia, Missouri 65203 The Ruppelt Chronology, Part 2/5 The year is 1948 as we continue: July 30 -- Air Materiel Command's Estimate goes up the chain, is shot down in flames by Af Chief of Staff Vandenberg, who is said to have been a member of Majestic-12. The Estimate was a detailed historical study of the UFO which concluded there was a real phenomenon behind the sightings. Ordered declassified (?) and then burned but a copy still existed for Ruppelt and Fournet to see in 1951. From here on SIGN begins begins to fade as high brass puts on the brakes through the summer. Nov. 30 -- Green Fireballs begin over northern New Mexico. These objects have been seen ever since at irregular intervals and from different parts of the country. Dec. 05 -- Pilots see a green object ASCEND from the eastern slopes of the Sandia Mountains and then level off at a few thousand feet before streaking away. Pilots in the area saw eight fireballs that night. Dec. 06 -- Dr. La Paz, University of New Mexico, scours the area for fragments of these bright meteors--finds none. Dr. La Paz was to be involved in "UFOs" for many years and have some definite ideas on what was going on with government and the scientific community. Dec. 16 -- Orders issued for Project SIGN to become GRUDGE. From "Director, Air Force Research and Development." GRUDGE would soon prove to be an enemy of the UFO. 1949 Jan. 10 -- By now "most of the distinguished scientists" working at Los Alamos and Manzano had seen a green fireball and a Major Flap is taking place in secret at the most secret locations in the country. Ad Hoc investigations begin by teams of scientists, get some results! There is virtually no media coverage in nation at large as our "free press" is silenced. Jan. 15 -- Spectacular sightings at Army facility so secret that Ruppelt can't even mention its name or location. Plan similiar to TWINKLE proposed for this location but killed from the top before it could go into operation. Independent investigations by competent people with their own budgets were not on the program in the USA. Jan. 22 -- SIGN offically begins operating as GRUDGE. Feb. 10 -- Conference on Green Fireballs, Teller & Kaplan in attendance. The Cambridge Research Lab puts in motion Project TWINKLE with three cine-theodolites. Except that only one camera was ever set up and it was moved to White Sands! No Green Fireballs triangulated, or so it is said. See April. Was TWINKLE just a cover for the REAL investigation? We think so because La Paz was still upset about it in 1964 and during the Zamora flap he accused Hynek of being part of a large-scale cover up. Somewhere, somehow a real scientific investigation was being conducted. . .by MJ-12 or whatever it was called? Feb. 15 -- Project SIGN publically becomes Project GRUDGE, begins to work immediately on its Final Report. UFO files are now closed to the public. Plans to put teams of investigators at every base are cancelled. Grudge has two tasks: explain UFOs and publicise those explanations. A purge takes place and many top people are removed. The plan now is to get rid of UFOs. Total about-face in Air Force policy takes place at this time as the old team is wiped out, replaced. This is the FIRST CRACKDOWN. Feb. 20 -- Interim SIGN report continues line of enquiry opened up by the Estimate of 1948 but waffles considerably. Says UFOs need more work and that without some hardware (downed saucer) we would never really know what they are. This report ended up calling for a few officers to be trained to collect reports but that it should be a "routine activity" within other work. Feb. 28 -- Ruppelt talks of a new look at SIGN/GRUDGE. The UFO to be killed. Apr. 06 -- Navy scientists at White Sands triangulate UFO at 18,000 mph. Part of TWINKLE? Leaked years later to Keyhoe. Apr. 30 -- Saturday Evening Post again runs planted article, this one by Sidney Shallet. Totally debunks UFOs. Is disinformation that the AF will refer people to for years. Prominent scientists, Nobel Prize winners, come out and tell the public to forget about UFOs. Ruppelt even says it was a cover-up. In the wake of this article the Air Force then puts out a press release saying UFOs are illusions, hoaxes, etc. Explanation became Grudge's main interest, besides working on its own Final Report. May 15 -- Secretary of Defense Forrestal, hospitalized at Bethesda for horrific hallucinations, committs suicide by jumping from the 16th floor of the hospital. Or so it is said. First of many mysterious deaths of persons known to have connections to the UFO. Forrestal now said to have been a member of the control group in charge of UFOs, Majestic-12 or whatever. June 15 -- GRUDGE nearly dead, little investigative activity. Press interest way down after counterattack of winter & spring. All information requests get the debunking press release and reference to the Post articles. The Final Report nearly done. Aug. 10 -- Soviets detonate A-Bomb, shocking America, stepping up Cold War after the announcement is made in September. Major Marcel is attached to this program which was begun after AEC member (and Rockefeller operative) Lewis Strauss plumped hard for it. Strauss about to head the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Mid-Year -- Keyhoe in Aliens From Space, 1973, says that by now a project was underway in strictest secrecy to determine what the UFOs actually were. Many top scientists believed in projects to "duplicate the performance of the UFOs." What were the results? Aug. 15 -- GRUDGE'S Final Report completed and sent on its rounds for internal consumption. Says UFOs are illusions, hoaxes and misidentifications, calls for investigation to continue but as part of routine intelligence work. Says main threat of "flying saucers" is to the public mind--mass hysteria. Mid-Year -- Air Force said to be trying to bring down a Flying Saucer. Pilots told to ram. "Do anything, including grabbing it by the tail." Sept 15 -- Some American newspapers run stories about crashed discs and little men, in Texas and old Mexico. Not mentioned by Ruppelt in his history but I think this is important. Something was going on off camera and that something was driving the events visible to Ruppelt. Or else he chose not to comment! Oct. 15 -- Document (released in 1985) speaks of a secret team reporting to General Marshall himself. This team is the Interplanetary Unit, part of a high-level group that is investigating UFOs. . .under the control group? Dec. 15 -- Keyhoe's article runs in True. Keyhoe says the Air Force passed on it. Terrific sensation. Says that Flying Saucers Are Real and that they are from outer space. Has many "unnamed sources" who say the military is covering up an investigation of Earth by extra-terrestrials. Keyhoe was an ex-Marine, Annapolis classmate of Delmar Fahrney and Admiral Hillenkoetter, director of public information for Department of Commerce in the 1920s. Flew with Lindberg on his tour in 1928. Friend of Admrial Byrd. Wrote "M-Day" in 1940, a preview of how America would fight The Second World War. The man had inside sources, was a conduit for material to be released unofficially. To a pure outsider this looks like "good-cop/bad-cop" but could this waffling be the result of competing investigations run from different arms of the government and military. Possible. Dec. 27 -- GRUDGE Final Report issued to counter the Keyhoe article. As with the Condon Report in 1969 reporters read only the conclusions. It was admitted that 20 per cent of all sightings could not be explained. Very little publicity was generated by this report, no doubt because of Keyhoe's bomb. Dec. 27 -- With release of SIGN/GRUDGE Final Report the Air Force announces the termination of Project GRUDGE. Its personel were to be transferred and its files dumped into storage boxes, or so it was said. Actually, GRUDGE continued to collect reports though at a lower level than before. Air Force refused to declassify UFO files or recommend that a non-military group should study the subject. The Green Fireball investigation was not de-classified. At the level of ATIC everyone hoped the UFO would just go away. But it didn't do that. 1950 Mar. 15 -- Navy clears TRUE to run article by officer at White Sands. He says that scientists and engineers there had photographed a UFO while observing a balloon launch. Article goes on to say that object observed was "spaceship from another planet." This article and the one by Keyhoe were the first to put the extra-terrestrial hypothesis out to the public in believable form. Important. Mar. 15 -- Farmington, New Mexico incident is one of most incredible of all time. Several hundred people saw literally hundreds of vehicles, all at the same time, milling around above them. Went on for two days and there were witnesses in droves. Explained away as, you guessed it, a research balloon exploding. End, Part 2/5. Path: news.demon.co.uk!demon!plug.news.pipex.net!pipex!soap.news.pipex.net!pipex!dish.news.pipex.net!pipex!news.sprintlink.net!howland.reston.ans.net!news-e1a.megaweb.com!newstf01.news.aol.com!newsbf02.news.aol.com!not-for-mail From: germannvh@aol.com (Germannvh) Newsgroups: alt.paranet.ufo Subject: Ruppelt Chronology -- 3/5 Date: 12 Jul 1995 14:38:07 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Lines: 178 Sender: root@newsbf02.news.aol.com Message-ID: <3u14qf$cun@newsbf02.news.aol.com> Reply-To: germannvh@aol.com (Germannvh) NNTP-Posting-Host: newsbf02.mail.aol.com Status: N The Ruppelt Chronology, Part 3/5 UFOSearch Columbia, Missouri 65203 It is 1950 as we continue: Mar. 26 - One nationwide radio commentator says UFOs are from Russia. Henry Taylor says one was found in Texas with USAF markings on it. Apr. 14 - U.S. News & World Report says UFOs are Navy secret weapons, like the "Flying Flapjack." At this time the first truly authoritative documentary runs on CBS radio with Edward R. Murrow (`this is London') talking to people all over the country. This program is calm, does not ridicule witnesses. Apr. 27 - White Sands report to ATIC is of object at 40,000 feet, 2,000 mph and about 300 feet in diameter. May 15 - Airline pilots sending in many, many reports. June 15 - Korean war begins and Flying Saucers move to a back burner--for awhile. The vast majority of Korean War sightings remain a secret and few good ones were leaked until the 1970s! Sept 08 - Scully's book appears with the "crashed disc," "little men" stories. This is the first "UFO book" to appear in the United States. Causes a sensation. It is lucid, well-written and contains one of the first condemnations of the Black World octopus of the WW II "intelligence" agencies. A Must READ. Dec. 25 - Article in Cosmopolitan by journalist Bob Considine is vicious attack on UFOs and witnesses to UFOs. A definite response to Scully's effort. Is so brutal that law suits are filed and drag on for several years. The Air Force planted this article and allowed Considine to examine secret files and talk to Air Force personnel. The Air Force Directorate of Intelligence says that "flying saucers are idiotic." AF playing both sides of street. 1951 Jan. 15 - Ruppelt called up and sent to ATIC, finds UFOs a subject of ridicule within the organization. But Ruppelt talks to "one man who had been on SIGN since 1947 and thinks flying saucers are interplanetary space ships. This led me to sound out a few more people." It was then that he began his history, which in part has been summarized here. Who was this man that got Ruppelt started? The "man" was not military and by 1951 who was left--only Hynek! Feb. 10 - Ruppelt told "the powers that be are anti-flying saucer and if you want to stay in favor it behooves you to follow suit." Apr. 15 - Ruppelt at ATIC investigating characteristics of the new Mig-15, just showing up in the skies over Korea. Apr. 20 - Life magazine wants to do an article on flying saucers, is going to send a reporter to talk about the subject. The reporter has a lot of questions that GRUDGE people can't really answer. Top people at Life were in on the disinformation campaign from start. June 15 - A Lt. Cummings, late of Cal Tech, just called up to active duty, is put in charge of GRUDGE. He attempts to make the UFO "respectable" again but faces "political, economic and manpower problems." But he upgrades the project quite a bit and does get some support from higher echelons. Aug. 25 - Lubbock Lights begin and Ruppelt finds that a huge "flying wing" has flown from Albuquerque, N.M., to Lubbock, Texas, in 20 minutes. It then appears in Washington State 1 hour and 55 minutes later. It's average speed is over 900 miles an hour. This object in many ways almost identical to the Taconic Parkway Object of the 1980s. Also, this writer may have seen the same type of object at Carrollton, Missouri, in the spring of 1954. (Ruppelt would later repudiate this sighting, saying that further investigation had shown it to have a conventional explanation. But his denials don't ring true. The Lubbock lights complex of sightings remains of extreme importance, if only because of the reaction they got from the AF and others.) Sept 12 - Flap at Fort Monmouth, headquarters of Army Signal Command and a very sensitive place, causes sensation at Wright Field and a call comes in from Major General Cabell, of the Air Force Intelligence directorate. (This man is the brother of the Cabell who would be mayor of Dallas on November 22, 1963) General Cabell wants a full report on the incident at Fort Monmouth amd gives verbal orders given to investigate fully. Lt. Cummings investigates. Sept 15 - Briefing held at Pentagon for General Cabell, his staff, Lt. Col. Rosengarten (chief of missile branch) and a "civilian from Republic Aircraft." Ruppelt says that "the civilian from Republic supposedly represented a group of top U.S. industrialists and scientists who thought there should be a lot more sensible answers coming out of the Air Force regarding the UFOs." This is typical Ruppelt wording--sly. The man was from a group similiar to what we now know as Majestic-12. He wanted to know what the Air Force knew, which was very little. The recording of this briefing was ordered burned and no manuscripts exist, says Ruppelt. Thus this manuscript really was a Top Secret. It should be extremely unusual, even UNHEARD OF, for the military to burn such documents. That an order like this was given at all indicates the nature of the "man from Republic." Sept 15 - Ruppelt says that at this time GRUDGE was almost dead, had a bad attitude and was short-changed at ATIC. There was opposition within the Air Force to the processing of reports and the simple re-organization that Cummings was trying to get into place. This was communicated at the briefing mentioned above and embarrassed Cabell in front of the "man from Republic." Sept 20 - Lt. Cummings suddenly de-activated and sent back to Cal-Tech for "an important government project." Don't things get curiouser and curiouser? Who was this guy who gets called up just long enough for a good look at what's going on and then is sent back to the "civilian" side. Think about it. Sept 25 - Spectacular sighting at Long Beach as F-86s chase three airplanes with swept back wings at very high speeds and very high altitudes. Ruppelt replaces Cummings as head of GRUDGE. Sept 30 - Ruppelt says that at this time study was being made of the Lubbock Lights by "a group who due to their association with government, had complete access to our files. It consisted of scientists, nuclear physicists and intelligence experts. They had banded together to study our UFO reports and were convinced that UFOs were space ships." This, of course, was something like Majestic-12, a control group overseeing the whole subject. Oct. 15 - GRUDGE to be upgraded, to analyse every UFO report. Ruppelt is now visited by scientists, including one "Great Man" who told him that "UFOs are being very freely discussed in scientific circles." Dec. 15 - UFOs barrage Los Alamos, Oak Ridge, White Sands plus Navy ports and SAC bases. But this military flap is kept under wraps. General Samford replaces Cabell, who goes to the CIA under Allen Dulles. Yeah. By the 1960s Cabell will be number two under Dulles at CIA and would be one of the main liason people between the CIA, Robert Mahue and the many companies of Howard Hughes. Dec. 27 - Ruppelt says he wants to ask the public for help, that something very important is going on. That idea is rejected. A computer file is being set up by a consulting firm who actually has the staff to do intelligence work FOR the Air Force. Ruppelt in fact has almost no organization to work with and his time is almost totally given over to briefings. However, he does visit Colorado Springs and The Air Defense Command says they will cooperate with the "new" Project Grudge. Ruppelt is supposed to be the director of the primary military UFO group but he obviously is not. Soon he would be dispatched like an errand boy to talk to a scoutmaster who said he was attacked by a UFO. 1952 Feb. 10 - Scientists at the Rad Lab (Cambridge) see targets on brand new radar sets that are flying higher and faster than anything known to be flying. They interrogate Air Force about these mysterious returns. All kept secret. Most Important. See: Cooper, 1989, for a strange "spin" on this. Feb. 20 - Ruppelt briefs Gen. Benjamin Chidlaw and the Air Defense Command orders scrambles on real good UFOs. The Ground Observer Corps is also detailed to keep watch for UFOs and report them when they are seen. This program will soon include Leonard Stringfield in Ohio and mark the beginning of his UFO career. Feb. 25 - So much is happening that the Pentagon sends Ruppelt an officer "to be his liason with AF intelligence." That officer is Major Dewey Fournet, who outranks Capt. Ruppelt. Who is the liason for whom? Seems pretty obvious to us. End, Part 3/5. Path: news.demon.co.uk!demon!plug.news.pipex.net!pipex!dish.news.pipex.net!pipex!news.sprintlink.net!howland.reston.ans.net!news-e1a.megaweb.com!newstf01.news.aol.com!newsbf02.news.aol.com!not-for-mail From: germannvh@aol.com (Germannvh) Newsgroups: alt.paranet.ufo Subject: Ruppelt Chronology -- 4/5 Date: 12 Jul 1995 14:38:23 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Lines: 182 Sender: root@newsbf02.news.aol.com Message-ID: <3u14qv$cv1@newsbf02.news.aol.com> Reply-To: germannvh@aol.com (Germannvh) NNTP-Posting-Host: newsbf02.mail.aol.com Status: N The Ruppelt Chronology, Part 4/5 UFOSearch Columbia, Missouri The year is 1952 as we continue: Feb. 28 - The Royal Air Force sends a team over to look at the files, as does the Royal Canadian Air Force. During this period mamy intelligence operatives from Europe visited as well as many scientists from both Europe and the United States. Mar. 15 - GRUDGE becomes the Aerial Phenomnon Group for a time and then Blue Book. It was near its all-time peak with 4 officers, 2 airmen, 3 consultant scientists, and Maj. Dewey Founet. Al Chop, a civilian press relations man from the Pentagon, would soon be added. Ruppelt did not rank high enough to command such a group but he was not promoted or transferred. Is this an indication of the true priority of Blue Book? Yes. Apr. 10 - Ruppelt visits individuals from the Civilian Saucer Investigation group, the first such organizatiion in the country. Dr. Reidel was a member and it was made up of people in the Los Angeles area with connections to the defense and aircraft industry. For a while it was very influential, AF put pressure on them to disband. Apr. 15 - Life article finally comes out and it is a bomb! It was a year in the making. The public was told that Blue Book wanted their help but no flood of reports came in from the public--not then. Riedel and Giot said that UFOs were real and were from outer space. Ruppelt says that "the Life article was inspired by Air Force generals so high their opinions are almost policy." That would have to be Vandenberg & company and perhaps members of the "Majestic-12" bunch. Apr. 25 - AF-200-5 issued and Blue Book was to get "unheard of" cooperation from the regular Air Force. But what about the Navy and Army? Nothing. But Ruppelt did get good sightings from the Airlines and the CAA, who were included in the regulation. Most "civilian" pilots at this time were World War II men, many in the reserves and still under orders! May 20 - Top CIA people see a UFO from Alexandria, Va.. Pentagon is called "the puzzle palace" by Ruppelt. It is now that Al Chop is put on at the Pentagon. He had been with OPI at Wright Field recently. About 1,000 letters a month were coming from public. June 01 - Ruppelt now giving two major briefings per week. Plans are afoot to equip six F-94s with special cameras and put them on call to interecpt UFOs. Along the West Coast special "diffraction grating cameras" are to be set up to find out more about UFOs. Ruppelt says that there are good sightings coming out of Korea but none of them are in his book. It was to be the mid-1970s before any of them were leaked to researchers. Also, remember that Ruppelt has been getting just about zero help from the Navy and Army. June 20 - Reports now roaring in and a briefing Ruppelt gives at the Pentagon is not well received. He had explained away most UFOs as hoaxes, illusions, etc--the standard Blue Book line. Pressure was mounting withing the military and the bureaucracy, there was something up. Soon this pressure would bring total suppression. July 01 - First Washington, D.C., sighting, by physics professor at George Washington University. Saw disc for several minutes, made estimates of its size and speed. More than 500 other people saw it. Papers in the capital ran only a very short story the next day--said that hundreds of people had called local police, firemen. Heavy suppression of UFO news obvious at this time. July 05 - Ruppelt says that "one group in the Air Force wanted something done." Unknowns were running 40 per cent of the total reports. The Pentagon, Air Defense Command and the Research and Development Board and "many agencies throughout the government" wanted action to come from somewhere! "Rumors persist that by mid-July of 1952 the Air Force was braced for an invasion by the flying saucers." Things were rapidly reaching breakdown. July 15 - Ruppelt talks to "a scientist from an agency I can't name" who predicted there would be a flap in either New York or Washington--soon. He was right. Question is: How could he know? Here is clear evidence for some sort of what, communication. . ..with "others?" We think so. July 19 - The first of the spectacular Washington, D.C., sightings of 1952, the biggest UFO flap in history, the flap that pushed the Korean War off the front pages, takes place. Ruppelt, who thought he was keyed into what was really happening, had to read about it in the newspapers. UFOs overflew the White House and the Capitol and there WAS NO REAL INTERCEPTION by Air Force. July 26 - Another huge overflight of the White House and Capitol by many UFOs. Interception delayed 30 minutes and only two planes sent. Objects cannot be caught. Ruppelt read about this one in the newspapers, too. When Life called and asked for a comment on July 27th Ruppelt had not been told a thing. This says it all. July 28 - Pentagon and Blue Book are swamped with requests. The President's Air Force aide calls and wants to know what is going on. Truman is said to have been listening. Ruppelt says that within the Air Force the frustration was mounting over UFOs, what they were and what was going to be done. Things were ready to bust. The time had come for action, all right. The "real insiders" decided that the whole thing had to be put to sleep. July 29 - Press conference held and the Air Force waves the whole thing away--anamolous propagation of radar waves--in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. It is an obvious cover-up and everyone on the inside knows it. But the press accepts, for the most part, the simple explanations given. The results of this within the military are devastating. No one will now report a UFO. One pilot said that even if he saw a ten-story building flying through the air he wouldn't say anything. This is the chilling effect of secrecy in a bureaucracy. It is devasting to information flow. What did the Washington, D.C., sightings mean? How was it possible for a civilian scientist to anticipate them? All sorts of issues are raised here, issues that Ruppelt does not discuss. Forty years later we still don't know the real story. Aug. 19 - Florida scoutmaster case, UFOs attack a person for the first time. Danger. Ruppelt goes himself to take a look, talk to the people. Said to be a hoax even though solid physical evidence was found. "Air Force" sent plain clothes agents down to investigate. Sept 09 - Dr. Menzel puts in his first appearance, debunking UFOs in Look magazine. It has been said that he was a member of "MJ-12." He had a Top Secret-Ultra clearance and worked as a code-breaker for Army intelligence during the war. Oct. 15 - Menzel and Hynek debate UFOs before the American Optical Society, playing good-cop, bad-cop. Hynek says there is something to the phenomenon and it needs study by the best minds. Oct. 20 - Operation Mainbrace generates one of the very few Navy UFO reports. It is apparent that the Navy and Army were not really cooperating with Blue Book at this time though Ruppelt makes no comment either way. There are only two Navy reports in Ruppelt's book and only ONE Army report that we could find. Oct. ?? - Ruppelt briefs the Beacon Hill Group, a top group of scientists and industrialists. It was out of this bunch that the U-2 spyplane would come. Ruppelt also talked to standing room only crowds at Los Alamos, Sandia Labs, Kirtland Air Force Base, NACA, ARD & ONR. Nov. 15 - Supposedly Blue Book has the cooperation of the entire military in the investigation of the UFO. Cameras were going to be installed in aircraft and radar screens all over the nation were also to have cameras attached. Spectroscopic TV systems were to be built and installed near UFO hot spots. Ruppelt also was to go with a team to see if any UFOs would show up in the South Pacific where the H-Bomb was to be shot. Dec. 15 Ruppelt asks for a transfer out of Blue Book. He does not say why he wants out, but things can't be that great, huh? 1953 Jan. 05 Ruppelt finds that ATIC & Blue Book will get a chance to convince a panel of top scientists that UFOs are real and a threat to national security. This is the famous Robertson Panel which took only four days to find that there was little or nothing to the problem of "flying saucers." Ruppelt was told that if the finding of the panel was that UFOs are interplanetary spaceships then the National Security Council and the President would be told--as if they didn't already know. Ruppelt makes no comment about this and plays the Robertson Panel straight. He delivered a briefing to the Panel that was taken from the SIGN interim report of several years earlier. It was a historical summary of the phenomenon. The Panel saw the Utah Film and heard Major Fournet say what AMC had told Vandenberg in the Summer of '52. It was all for nought. Even Hynek's on-the-sly survey of astronomers (of whom 5 per cent had seen a UFO, including Clyde Tombaugh, discoverer of Pluto) did not sway the Panel. UFOs to be "debunked" in public. End, Part 4/5 Path: news.demon.co.uk!demon!plug.news.pipex.net!pipex!soap.news.pipex.net!pipex!dish.news.pipex.net!pipex!news.sprintlink.net!howland.reston.ans.net!news-e1a.megaweb.com!newstf01.news.aol.com!newsbf02.news.aol.com!not-for-mail From: germannvh@aol.com (Germannvh) Newsgroups: alt.paranet.ufo Subject: Ruppelt Chronology -- 5/5 Date: 12 Jul 1995 14:38:24 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Lines: 89 Sender: root@newsbf02.news.aol.com Message-ID: <3u14r0$cv3@newsbf02.news.aol.com> Reply-To: germannvh@aol.com (Germannvh) NNTP-Posting-Host: newsbf02.mail.aol.com Status: N The Ruppelt Chronology, Part 5/5 -- UFOSearch Columbia, Missouri 65203 The year is 1953 as we continue: Feb. 10 - Ruppelt tries to follow the recommendations of the Robertson Panel (one of which was `education' of the public about UFOs) and release the Utah Film to the press. This film was said to have been seagulls flying around. The problem was that almost no one who had actually viewed the film thought it was birds at all. Thus, there had been leaks and the film had been highly sought after by the press. The Navy supposedly had said the objects on the Utah Film were "self luminous." When the Pentagon heard of Ruppelt's plans his superiors screamed "NO, no film for the press--and no press release either." The Utah Film just disappeared and was not seen again until the 1960s, and even then only the `innocuous' parts were released. In fact, the whole Robertson Panel report just disappeared and only a summary was available to Ruppelt himself. Only in the mid-1960s would parts of it surface. Mar. 15 - At this time Blue Book consists of Ruppelt and one other person, an Airman First Class, who said he "felt like the president of Antarctica in a non-expedition year." Ruppelt did not get his transfer. The instrumentation plans of Blue Book are now terminated, without explanation, even though a general officer was supposedly behind them. AF investigation of the UFO is now history. Sep. 15 - Ruppelt leaves the Air Force, returns to college. To the end he had been nominally in charge of Blue Book, which is for all practical purposes, dead. The only ray of hope is that the Air Force's 4606d Squadron, counter-intelligence, is now supposed to be the eyes and ears of Blue Book and interview witnesses as training for their "real" job--interviewing shot down enemy pilots. But since Blue Book has no staff this is a pipe dream, who will file and analyse the reports? End chrononolgy *** Afterwards Thus ended the First Phase of the UFO saga in the United States. It is obvious that something of extreme importance was involved, something that concerned many top people in government, the military and in the scientific community. The "Air Force," which had come into existence only a few days before Arnold, was the "fall guy" for the UFO. Since all the important people in the early days were Navy people (including the first Director of Central Intelligence), I think the Navy was really in charge. In 1956 Ruppelt would release his book, from which most of the the above chronology was taken. Later, in 1959, he would rewrite the last few chapters and deny just about all that he had said about UFOs in the first edition. He did this, it is said, under the orders of superiors in the aerospace industry where Ruppelt was then working. Like Portrait Of A Cold Warrior, it could be that the Report was so carefully worded that the real impact was not realized by the captain's old bosses for a year or two. No matter, by the end of 1959 he would be dead--of a heart attack(?) But the 1956 book stands and has been backed up in any number of ways. It is apparent to me that Ruppelt was a very serious man. Like Dr. McDonald, he had to be neutralized. From the beginning of his research this writer had wondered why there had never been a real "scientific" investigation of UFOs. It is more than obvious from Ruppelt that there HAD BEEN one, a good one, in total secrecy. It began in the late 1940s and had reached its conclusions by New Year's Day, 1953. Ruppelt was there when this happened and Keyhoe was getting leaks to the same effect. That's when it was decided to put the whole issue to sleep as far as the public and the lower echelons of the military, government and science were concerned. It is only now, forty plus years later, that "Ufologists" are beginning to put this together. But it should have been done years and years ago. I am afraid that some "Ufologists" are in fact disinformation agents or worse and that for about four.five decades they have deliberately gone down wrong roads and chased red herrings--because that has been their real jobs. It seems that no one, for instance, has done the simple analysis of Ruppelt's book that you see in the chronology just presented. That is devastating, in UFOSearch's opinion. Think about it. End, Part 5/5.