1958 major keyhoe interview

Originally posted by Jay-in-AR
Sorry, but I'm not going to wait around for some blowhard's definition of trained observer...

In 1958, less than 20 years after the end of WWII, there were actually quite a few people around who were specifically trained by Civil Defense to observe and identify potential enemy aircraft, and to distinguish them from other flying junk, including odd weather, ball lightning, meteors, birds, balloons, kites, etc. Whenever I hear somebody from this era refer to "trained observers," this is usually what I take that to mean.

Thank You ... gave me some names to look up ... lets go hunting people...

Nohup knos his stuff

what does that mean for keyhole then

reply to post by Nohup


Yes, and all of the qualifications you just listed for that "official title" are also covered in a military pilot's training.
Except for maybe the "ball lightning" category. I was of the understanding the people didn't even know of ball lightning until very recently.
Anywho, like I said. I don't buy it now, and I certainly don't buy their crap from back then.

For those who would rather read then watch, I transcribed the first video and will do the other two when I have time.

WALLACE: Good evening, tonight we go after a fantastic story, the story that flying saucers from other worlds are visiting our planet, just as we are exploring outer space with our own rocket satellites. Our guest is former Mariner Air Corps Major Donald Keyhoe, who has the support of scores of prominent businessmen, military men and some scientists in his campaign to prove that flying saucers exist.

If you’re curious to know why Major Keyhoe charges that the United States Air Force is deliberately deluding us when it calls saucer stories the bunk, if you want to hear his own evidence that the saucers are real and his reaction to the claim of two Americans who say they’ve spoken with men from Venus.

Major Donald Keyhoe is the director of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena. As head of this private group, interested in flying saucers, he’s repeatedly attacked the United States Air Force and others, for claiming that flying saucers are apparently flight of fancy and not flights by Martians or men from the moon. Independent surveys show that millions of Americans do share his believe in these celestial saucers.

Major Keyhoe, first of all, let me ask you this; most people in the united States, in spite of the fact that I said that millions do believe, I think you will agree that most people in the United states don’t believe in flying saucers from outer space. They probably hold the view of columnist Bob Considine, who wrote that flying saucers are products of, for the most part, quote “pranksters, half-wits, cranks, publicity hounds, fanatics in general and screwballs” end quote. How do you feel about Mr Considine’s charge?

KEYHOE: Well, I know where he got that story; he got it from Colonel Watson out at the Air Technical Intelligence Center in Dayton. In fact, the colonel went even a little further and he said that behind every sighting was an idiot, a crackpot or religious fanatic. That includes a lot of high-ranking Air Force pilots, indecently, and many airline captains, people who are qualified to see these things. But, he’s just following on Air Force policy.

WALLACE: Well now, you’re not suggesting that Bob Considine is the pay of the Air Force; he’s an independent newsman with a considerable reputation.

KEYHOE: No, I mean the colonel. No, I have every respect for Bob Considine.

WALLACE: In spite of the fact that he suggests that pranksters, half-wits and screwballs are responsible for the stories about flying saucers.

KEYHOE: Well, I wish I could show him, at anytime, a list of about 800 witnesses, some of the big names of aviation including, up to the rank of colonel on the Air Force. They’re still flying, and they’re still carrying passengers; they’ve never been grounded. They’ve still guiding airlines in the radar men are, night after night in bad weather. If they’re screwballs and incompetents, why are they still on the job?

WALLACE: Major Keyhoe, where do you think flying saucers are coming from?

KEYHOE: I don’t know. There is an indication that they could be using mars as a base. I don’t mean they originate right there, but every time mars has approached us, in the last ten years there’s been a noticeable increase in saucer sightings. And that’s been mentioned officially. In fact, the Canadian Official project, on the basis of that, set up an observation station in Canada.

WALLACE: You say the Canadian Official project, what do you mean by the official?

KEYHOE: There was an official project called “project Magnet: and they set up an observatory at Shirley Bay to try to track these things.

WALLACE: What happened to the official project? You say there was a project.

KEYHOE: Yes. They ran for about a year and they had one sighting on a gravimeter, which indicated that something....a very large object had flown over there, but they finally decided that they were spending a little but much on it, I suppose.

WALLACE: For certain, they wouldn’t have thought they were spending too much money on it, if they believed that, that kind of phenomena existed.

KEYHOE: A lot of people on the project are still working up there on their own time and certain government officials have still kept the lid on the reports in Canada, just as they do down here.

WALLACE: What is your theory? In other words, you suggest that they come from Mars or from other planets, from other solar systems, possibly, throughout the universe. Is that correct?

KEYHOE: Yes, and there’re a lot of scientists who’ve said the same thing.

WALLACE: What is your theory as to the kind of people who fly these or the kind of beings fly these saucers?

KEYHOE: Well, that’s speculation; Willy Ley said recently they’d be just like the man next door, the invaders from space, and his reasoning, may be good. But most of the top scientists have said that the odds are that beings from other worlds would not be like us; some of them would be. Dr Howard Shafly for instance, said that there probably were at least a hundred million inhabited planets in the universe. And the Mansel, who doesn’t believe in saucers at all, says that he goes at higher even higher. And among those, by there must, be law of averages. There is a certain number of planets that would be like the earth. And if evolution started the same time, you might have the same type of being.

WALLACE: What You think of the intentions of these people, for lack of a better name – of these people who are in these flying saucers?

KEYHOE: Well, there’s been no evidence of any hostility during the last 10 years, for what we call the modern face, there have been sightings before then. There had been some accidents; air force pilots chasing these things; kept a man until he was killed chasing, one in 48 and two pilots disappeared chasing one in 53 over Lake superior. But, I think those are just ascendants.

WALLACE: Just accidents. Why don’t they try to communicate with us? What’s your theory about that?

KEYHOE: Well, I’ll follow some of the theories the Air Forces people have said. They’ve suggested to me back in 52 and 53 at which time we were cooperating, i had a lot of very good friends in the Air Force at the time and the policy was to give out the information. They were about to tell the people everything they had. And then the theory was then that perhaps these beings were so much different from us that communication would be a very hard thing; they might not for instance have speech sounds like ours. That’s one answer. And another thing: they might not be able to exist in our atmosphere, We’re going to land on the moon , we’ll have to wear space suits or else build air-conditioned buildings up there air pressured. And there could be lots of factors like that.

WALLACE: Well, do you think they’re down here, when we do see them, to look at us?

KEYHOE: I think that’s it’s probably a long-range survey.

WALLACE: A long-range survey?

KEYHOE: That’s right.

WALLACE: And yet, no attempt, as far as we know in any case, of communication with us.

KEYHOE: There have been claims of communication, but those, most of those, have been by individuals. The Air Force has not admitted that there’s ever been one and I don’t know our committee hasn’t found any cases that we would accept as absolutely verified.

WALLACE: All right. Now let’s go at it from another point of view, if I may, the Air Force point of view. They agree, undoubtedly, objects have been seen in the sky, but the Air Force has said time and time again, this is a quote from Richard Horner, assistant secretary of the Air Force for research and development. “All, but a small percentage of these reports of unidentified flying objects have been definitely attributed to natural phenomena that are neither mysteries nor dire.” End quote. Weather Balloons, mirages, ordinary sky phenomena like meteors or airplanes themselves. What about that?

KEYHOE: I’ll answer that, but I’d like to make several points on doing it. In 1947, the Air Technical Intelligence Center at Dayton, that’s the top Air Force intelligence men and scientists under contract, sent the secret documents to the Commanding General of the Air Force saying that whatever these things were, they were real. In 1948, ATIC, the same group, sent a top-secret estimate to the Commanding General, Roy Vandenberg, that these were interplanetary spaceships.

[edit on 15-1-2009 by andre18]

Keyhoes Wiki page has a few names of interest as well as some pretty good reading links.
I like this excerpt from Wiki.
"Keyhoe wrote several more books about UFOs. Flying Saucers From Outer Space (1953) is perhaps the most impressive, being largely based on interviews and official reports vetted by the Air Force. The book included a blurb by Albert M. Chop, the Air Force's press secretary in the Pentagon, who characterized Keyhoe as a "responsible, accurate reporter" and further expressed guarded approval for Keyhoe's arguments in favor of the extraterrestrial hypothesis"

Seems top brass was deffinately involved in the UFO subject at the time.

reply to post by andre18
I don't remember seeing that interview, but I well remember anothr one about that time by Keyhole. I believe it was shortly after his interview with Wallance and I believe it was on what was usually the Armstrong Circle Theatre which I believe was on NBC. Pre- announcements has promised that he was going to tell the secret about UFOs. He was standing at a lecturn, said a few words and then announced that he was going to depart from the talk he was supposed to give and tell the American people the real truth about UFOs. Virtually, instantly the screen went blank and music came on. Then something else came on to fill out the time slot. Next day newspapers wrote up the story with the explanation from the network that since he was departing from the agreed upon speech they had to pull the plug because they didn't know what he were going to say. --This was all live TV you understand. Keyhole still was active after that, wrote books and spoke, but he never really spilled the beans about UFOs as he seemed to be going to do. --And you probably thought censorship was something new?

Absolutely agree with you Jay in AR. Makes you wonder, if military and civillian pilots, policemen and other professionals, required to be fairly intelligent, are not good observers then who on earth would be?

I've seen one ufo, and when you see something so totally unnatural you cannot be mistaken. Even so, with pilot reports sometimes even backed up the guy sitting at the radar tower, these debunkers just flounder around and call them untrained observers.

Well it's clear what we need is some government paid professional trained ufo observers. Bluebook v.2