By Charles Lear
In late 1957, Americans’ minds were on space. On October 4th of that year, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the very first satellite to achieve a successful orbit. This was followed by Sputnik 2 on November 3rd. This satellite carried a dog, Laika, who tragically died on the fourth orbit. This was due to overheating after the air conditioner unit malfunctioned. The Soviets were pulling ahead of the United States in the space race and American anxiety was high.
The rest of that November, flying saucer reports increased dramatically. This caused particular concern for the Air Force because public frenzy over flying saucers was considered a threat to national security. In 1953, a C.I.A. convened panel of advisors, “The Robertson Panel”, expressed concern that communication channels could be overwhelmed by flying saucer reports. This would have provided the Soviets with an opportunity for a surprise attack. The recommendation was to make flying saucers go away and this became part of official Department of Defense policy.
While the Soviets were causing headaches for all branches of the U.S. military at the time, the Air Force had some extra stress added on courtesy of one Donald A. Keyhoe. Keyhoe was a former Major who served in World War II in the Naval Aviation Training Division of the U.S. Marine Corps. After his service, Keyhoe became interested in flying saucers and wrote a hugely popular article for True magazine, “Flying Saucers are Real”, published in the January 1950 issue. He expanded the article into the 1950 book, “The Flying Saucers are Real”, which was the first to be published on the subject. He’d been helped in his efforts with cooperation from the Air Force but, after 1953, that turned to evasion and eventually into outright stone walling. Keyhoe sensed that there was an officially directed cover-up. He was outraged that people were providing reports to the Air Force in good faith, only to have them dismissed with often implausible and insulting explanations. Keyhoe’s outrage fueled his zealousness and, in 1957, he was given the opportunity to channel that zealousness when he was made director of the group he’d co-founded, the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena.
N.I.C.A.P. wasn’t your average flying saucer club. There were some prominent people on its board of directors including Rear Admiral Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter, Navy (Ret.) Hillenkoetter was the director of the C.I.A. from May, 1946 to June, 1947. Because of their prominent board members, N.I.C.A.P. had a good deal of influence on the public’s opinion regarding flying saucers. When the sightings reports started to skyrocket that November, the Air Force prepared a press release that offered prosaic explanations for the cases that were most prominent in the press at that time. Keyhoe got wind of the Air Force’s upcoming P.R. campaign and started one of his own to counteract it.
The most interesting aspect of the reports that year was that they began to include stalled cars and electrical interference. This phenomenon was brought to the public’s attention by the Levelland, Texas reports which were truly extraordinary. Starting on the night of November 2nd, and into the early morning of November 3rd, several citizens called the police station to report seeing objects as big 100 feet long, ranging from rocket-shaped to egg-shaped. They reported seeing them sitting on the road and that their vehicles lost power as they approached. As the objects flew away, the power was restored. Among the witnesses were Sheriff Weir Clem, who was out investigating the reports, and Fire Chief Ray Jones. A similar case involving 10 vehicles and sunburn effects was reported from Alamogordo, New Mexico.
There were two reports from defense personnel, one from soldiers at White Sands Missile range in New Mexico and another from sailors aboard a Coast Guard cutter in the Gulf of Mexico.
On November 3rd, two MPs at White Sands were on patrol at around 3:00 a.m. when they spotted “a very bright object high in the sky.” The object descended until it was 50 feet above the ground and then went out. It then became as bright as the sun, seemed to land and again “went out.”
The cutter was the U.S.S. Sebago and, at 5:10 a.m. on November 5th, a U.F.O. was picked up on radar. It circled the ship for ten minutes at speeds of up to 1000 mph., was seen to stop and hover. Four men on deck reported visual contact as well.
Keyhoe was hard at work trying to find witnesses who would come forward that were impressive enough that they’d help convince the public that flying saucers were worthy of serious study. N.I.C.A.P.’s Board of Governors spoke out in the press, along with Keyhoe, and expressed hope that recent advances in space exploration could help solve the flying saucer mystery. An example can be seen in an article preserved in a clipping that can be found on page 6 of “UFOs: A History 1957 November 13th-30th.” In the article, Hillenkoetter and other board members, including former Project Blue Book analyst Major Dewey Fournet, expressed their opinions and let it be known that they took the subject of flying saucers seriously. The article ends with Keyhoe suggesting it was possible that “a race from some other planet” could have a base on the moon.
Having Hillenkoetter and Fournet associated in the article with Keyhoe and his view on the interplanetary origin of flying saucers didn’t help the Air Force’s efforts to alter public perception. They responded with a press release (page 11 in the History) on November 15th that took on the cases above and one other from Kearney, Nebraska that involved two more stalled vehicles.
They started off with Levelland and described the case as “Big light, seen by ‘dozens’, stalled autos.” They stated that they could only find three witnesses (no mention of the sheriff or the chief of police) and suggested that rain and electrical storms could have been the cause of the stalled vehicles. In the “evaluation” they invoked ball lightning, St. Elmo’s Fire, mist, rain, thunderstorms and lightning as factors contributing to the reports.
The Alamogordo case was from a November 4th report by high altitude research engineer, James Stokes. He reported that at about 1:10 pm, he saw an elliptical object fly across the highway twice, that his car engine and radio failed, as well as those of other drivers in the area, and that his face was sunburned afterwards. He reported the sighting to his superior at Holloman AFB, Major Ralph Everett and asked if he was permitted to talk about the case. He was told he was and Stokes contacted his friend, Jim Lorenzen of the nearby Aerial Phenomena Research Organization. Lorenzen contacted local radio station, KALG and the story got out. The Air Force Press release evaluation was that this was a hoax “suggested” by the reports from Levelland. What isn’t mentioned is that a similar sighting in the same area was reported on November 7th by a well-respected and trustworthy family.
The Sebago case was ascribed to spurious radar returns and the crewmen on the deck who made visual contact are not even mentioned. The White Sands case was determined to have been sightings of the moon and Venus. Lastly, the Kearney, Nebraska case was said to be a combination of a hoax and an engine failure due a piece of an old distributor rotor stuck between points after a repair job.
Most of the press accepted the statements in the press release. U.S. News and World Report published a long article (page 14 of History) offering very little challenge to the Air Force’s explanations. The article came out on the same day as the press release. This is a good indication that there was little in the way of fact checking done by the editors.
Besides arousing the ire of Donald Keyhoe and N.I.C.A.P., the Air Force evaluations angered the witnesses as well. Sheriff Weir Clem spoke with a reporter from the Star Telegram (page 26 of History) and asserted that eleven people had seen something in the air and three had seen it on the ground. He described them all as “reliable.” James Stokes reportedly told people that he “wanted to get even with the Air Force.”
On November 20th, N.I.C.A.P. sent out a letter (page 42 of History) to its members warning that the Air Force was making efforts “to kill off N.I.C.A.P.” The letter described a vigorous P.R. campaign to offset their efforts, pointed out several cases that supported the Levelland reports and closed with a plea for members to be patient and offer their support. Keyhoe kept up the fight until he was forced to retire as N.I.C.A.P.’s director in 1969 amidst a plummeting membership and badly handled finances. The Air Force got out of the flying saucer business shortly thereafter. Maybe the fight had finally gotten to both of them.