NSA and UFOs : Anyone want to compare notes?

I've spent a reasonable amount of time during the last few years looking into issues regarding the NSA and UFOs.

So far, I have typed up about 100 pages of notes as a start on a thread about NSA documents relating to UFOs and related issues, including relevant individuals (including people that worked, or have claimed to have worked, for the NSA and had/have some involvement in ufology).

While I've created a searchable PDF archive of several collections of NSA documents relating to UFOs (some of those document not being available on the NSA's own website in its section on UFOs...), at the moment I'd just like to check whether anyone has spent any time looking into relevant individuals and would like to compare notes. (I think I've read most material published about these individuals online and in books plus quite a bit of the material on them in UFO magazines/journals/newsletters - so I'm really looking to compare notes on information which adds to that already online or in books...).

Has anyone here covered any of this ground already?

The relevant individuals currently covered in Part I of the relevant draft thread are listed below:

Part I : Relevant individuals

Part I1: Tom Deuley
Part I2: Lambros D. P. Callimahos
Part I3: Howell McConnell
Part I4 : Todd Zechel
Part I5 : Admiral Ray Inman
Part I6 : Hal Puthoff
Part I7 : Ray Fowler
Part I8 : William Draeger
Part I9 : Bob Oeschler
Part I10 : Dan Sherman
Part I11 : Ron Cecchini
Part I12: Paul Bennewitz
Part I13 : Donald Menzel
Part I14 : Russ Estes
Part I15 : R. A. Boulay
Part I16 : “Mil”

a reply to: IsaacKoi
This is a good idea.
S&F.
I do not have any info that is of help, but I want to push this thread.

I wish i made notes on everything that i found interesting before i found ATS.

Just didnt realize so many were into it and how deep it all goes.

Good luck
Look forward to reading.

Interesting project! I'm only familiar with half of the names on your list, and two of those I thought were phonies, Zechel
and Oeschler. Admiral Inman's UFO involvement was speculation as far as I know, magnified by some creative phone taping of an out-of-context conversation by Oeschler.

I'm looking forward to reading what you put together.

originally posted by: CardDown
I'm only familiar with half of the names on your list, and two of those I thought were phonies, Zechel
and Oeschler.

Hi CardDown,

As I mentioned in my post above, the list of individuals includes "people that worked, or have claimed to have worked, for the NSA and had/have some involvement in ufology".

Todd Zechel is more interesting than I originally thought. I'd originally dismissed him as a hoaxer of little significance.

Over the last few decade or so, I'd read about Zechel in, among other places, Saucer Smear (including in the issues for 10th February 2000, 15th March 2000, 10th January 2004), and in Jim Moseley's book “Shockingly Close to the Truth!” (2002).

The 10th January 2004 issue of Saucer Smear included the following from Phil Klass:

"Reference Jerry Clark's e-mail comment to Karl Pflock, it reminds me of Clark's August
1978 comment about Ufologist W. Todd Zechel, in 'UFO Report': 'At this moment in history,
it's distinctly possible that W. Todd Zechel is ufology's major figure'. In a letter from Jerry
Clark dated September 12th, 1978: 'Those of us who know him personally...know him to be a
man of great personal decency and uncompromising integrity.'

"Within a year Jerry Clark would drastically revise his assessment of one of the biggest 'con
men' in ufology, as my investigation had revealed. In his letter of July 23rd, 1979, Clark
wrote: 'Zechel and I have long since parted ways and for many reasons I no longer consider
him an individual of "great personal decency"...' A year later (July 15th, 1980) Clark wrote:

'You and I have disagreed about many things in the past, but you were dead right about
Zechel. If I'd listened to you, I'd have saved myself a hell of a lot of heartache...'"

As I'm sure you know, Jim Moseley had some back experiences with Zechel - particularly when he had Zechel as a house guest and Zechel ran up a large telephone bill. Jim became, um, disenchanted with Zechel.

But when I looked into Zechel in more detail a few months ago (including getting hold of a copy of a file containing Zechel's exchanges of "White Papers" with Phil Klass) I found a few bits and pieces that piqued my interest. As you may know, Jim Moseley's co-author (Karl Pflock) had a large file on Zechel, which I'm going to try to obtain.

By the way, some of the other references I've collated to discussion of Zechel in various UFO books include (in alphabetical order by author):

Birnes, William in his “The UFO Magazine UFO Encyclopedia” (2004) at page 343 (in an entry entitled “Zechel, Todd”) of the Pocket Books softcover edition.

King, Jon in his “Cosmic Top Secret” (1998) at pages 72, 74 (in the chapter entitled “Document 03”, “File 08”) of the NEL paperback edition.

Klass, Philip J in “UFOs – The Public Deceived” (1983) at pages 291-293 (in Chapter 31) of the Prometheus softback edition.

Moseley, James and Pflock, Karl in their “Shockingly Close to the Truth!” (2002) at pages 242, 243-246 (in Chapter 11) of the Prometheus hardback edition.

Sheaffer, Robert in his “The UFO Verdict” (1980) at pages 28-29 (in Chapter 4) of the Prometheus softback edition.

Sheaffer, Robert in his “UFO Sightings: The Evidence” (1998) at page 50 (in Chapter 4) of the Prometheus hardback edition.

Steinman, William and Stevens, Wendelle in their “UFO Crash at Aztec” (1986) at pages 207, 268-269, 351 of the Wendelle Stevens hardback edition.

Walton, Travis in his “Fire In The Sky : The Walton Experience” (1997) at page 140 (in Chapter 10) of the Marlowe & Co softcover edition.

I have reason to think that deceased UFO researcher Todd Zechel may have had a collection of material about various CIA (and possibly NSA) employees that would be very interesting to the UFO community. (It is difficult to be entirely sure of this since much of what Todd Zechel said was, um, unreliable).

Perhaps a member of his family now has his UFO research material, including his audio recordings (which are the focus of my interest)?

It would be a shame if those recordings have been lost (or are lost upon the death of the elderly family members that have inherited the relevant material...).

Some of the names of members of his family are given in the obituary at the link below:

host.madison.com...
Zechel, W. Todd
PRAIRIE DU SAC - W. Todd Zechel, age 63, died on Tuesday, November 14, 2006, at his home in Prairie du Sac. He was born in Baraboo on October 2, 1943, the son the of the late Walter H. and Vivian (O'Neil) Zechel. He graduated from Prairie du Sac High School and then attended Lakeland College. He was a U.S. Army veteran, having served in South Korea in the Army Security Agency. Todd was employed as a salesman. He was an avid reader and writer, especially involving politics and ufology. He is survived by a sister, Peggy (Mike) Reis of DeForest; a brother, Scott (Jan) Zechel of Baraboo; close friend, Bernie Schleden of Sauk City; several nieces, nephews, and cousins; an aunt; other relatives; and friends. In addition to his parents, he was preceded in death by a brother, James Kemp Zechel. A private family service will be held at a later date.

Isaac, I was just reading about Zechel recently,

... in the August 1978 issue of UFO Reports, UFO historian Jerome Clark offered the following appraisal: “At this moment in history, it’s distinctly possible that Todd Zechel is UFOlogy’s major figure.”

www.csicop.org...

He had a huge influence on things, made connections, produced data and did some good work, but lied about his own background and qualifications. A shame to see most of it go to waste, but he's not the only ufologist to shoot himself in the foot over vanity.

originally posted by: CardDown
(Todd Zechel) had a huge influence on things, made connections, produced data and did some good work, but lied about his own background and qualifications. A shame to see most of it go to waste, but he's not the only ufologist to shoot himself in the foot over vanity.

Todd Zechel certainly seems to have had an active imagination - but, as you say, he made connections. He seems to have made audio recordings of some interesting CIA personnel and others in relation to UFOs (including, possibly, disinformation projects).

I don't know if anyone has attempted to track down any of his relatives in the USA.

This could be (yet another...) case in which interesting material has simply been overlooked when it could be digitised and uploaded to the Internet within the next few days.

originally posted by: CardDown
(Todd Zechel) had a huge influence on things, made connections, produced data and did some good work, but lied about his own background and qualifications. A shame to see most of it go to waste, but he's not the only ufologist to shoot himself in the foot over vanity.

Todd Zechel certainly seems to have had an active imagination - but, as you say, he made connections. He seems to have made audio recordings of some interesting CIA personnel and others in relation to UFOs (including, possibly, disinformation projects).

I don't know if anyone has attempted to track down any of his relatives in the USA.

This could be (yet another...) case in which interesting material has simply been overlooked when it could be digitised and uploaded to the Internet within the next few days.

By the way, I've obtained permission from one of the other persons on the above list to upload some material giving an inside view of the NSA and ufology.

a reply to: IsaacKoi
Thank you. You really put time and effort into your posts and there is alot of info to pour over. I noted the link to the NSA and their information on some ufo cases. That link also appeared in a post I made yesterday about ufo's and the NSA. I was just perusing the info on Roswell, and there was an huge amount of info. Interesting stuff.

originally posted by: data5091
a reply to: IsaacKoi
You really put time and effort into your posts and there is alot of info to pour over.

Thanks - there is a heck of a lot more to be posted about the NSA and UFOs, but I'm keen to check first whether anyone has done more work in relation to these individuals so that the thread I've been researching is as comprehensive as possible.

I have scoured the CIA files and came across a few interesting ones. I posted this info on an old thread a while ago but it seems more relevant here. I have screenshots of the original files saved on my comp, but they are hard to read so I just typed them out word for word, as best I could. Here is what I posted:

"Sorry for bringing up an old thread, but since i don't have 20 posts I can't make a new one (strange rule). I was bored last night so read some of the CIA Freedom of Information (I use the word information loosely) files and stumbled upon a couple of bits. Most of which has been covered by the OP so I won't repeat them. A lot of the files were barely legible but there were some that caught my attention.

The first one is a memo dated Dec 9, 1952 and is regarding the FCC setting up monitoring stations in Hawaii and Alaska to monitor UFO signals:

"It seemed likely using the example of the concerted effort to identify the first diathermy signals back in 1935 and the (illegible) recent efforts that preceded the explanation of the VHF "bursts", that any persistent occurences of radio signals that might come from flying saucers, if below 30 mc/s, would soon be the object of considerable interest at the FCC and elsewhere."

Not a big deal but it's still interesting to know they were (and maybe still are) monitoring UFO signals.

The next file is from July 12, 1955 at Pepperrell Air Force Base, written by (or for) "Acting Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence". A pilot is in the air with a UFO for 49 minutes, and radar confirms the object is there throughout the experience:

"While such dual (visual and electronic) sightings of UFOBs are reported from time to time, this particular report is somewhat unique in that...a: the 'pilot of Archie 29 maintained visual contacts with object calling direction changes of object to (radar) site by radio. Direction changes correlated exactly with those painted on scope with controller.'...b: In previous cases the dual (visual and electronic) sightings are mostly of a few minutes duration at most. This one was observed by radar, at least, for 49 minutes."

This is intriguing because there isn't usually much information about sightings on Air Force bases. It also admits that these sightings have occurred before, for a shorter time. This is a CIA document admitting that military personnel regularly come into contact with UFOs! "

Nick Redfern might be worth checking in with. He's written about NSA documents and FOIA requests before.

Further to my recent post, I found an older thread on here with the actual files and other nice info that is relevant here:

www.abovetopsecret.com...&mem=

Edit: this incident isn't really available on Google, which is quite bizarre so I will mention it for the spiders. Pepperell Air Force Base UFO incident 1955