The Office of Naval Intelligence and UFOs.

Had a family emergency--my awesome & great American 86 year old pop (started Navy retired Air Force) had a heart attack and triple by-pass. Prayers and/or good vibes sent MUCH appreciated. Slowed me down a bit here, but this is still one of the best threads going and the only one I've read regularly. Still have some catching up to do I see today.

The great additions & research here have left me a little hesitant to scrounge up my material because part of it regards the ONI, contactees, and a subsequent sighting by the ONI guys. May be a little too woo-woo in light of the great non-woo-woo research here. Probably not new to most here anyway.

What I found fascinating about it is that, if true, it further confirms the Navy's interest in the subject. They really DO turn up all over the place in regards the subject. Where there's smoke...

The Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) was established in the United States Navy in 1882. ONI was established to "seek out and report" on the advancements in other nations' navies. Its headquarters are at the National Maritime Intelligence Center in Suitland, Maryland. ONI is the oldest member of the United States Intelligence Community, and is also therefore by default the senior intelligence agency within the armed forces.en.wikipedia.org...

"The senior intelligence agency within the armed forces." Not to mention their mandate and facility for propoganda...

Originally posted by The GUT

What I found fascinating about it is that, if true, it further confirms the Navy's interest in the subject. They really DO turn up all over the place in regards the subject. Where there's smoke...

The Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) was established in the United States Navy in 1882. ONI was established to "seek out and report" on the advancements in other nations' navies. Its headquarters are at the National Maritime Intelligence Center in Suitland, Maryland. ONI is the oldest member of the United States Intelligence Community, and is also therefore by default the senior intelligence agency within the armed forces.en.wikipedia.org...

"The senior intelligence agency within the armed forces." Not to mention their mandate and facility for propoganda...

Sorry to hear about the family emergency, GUT. Hope things are stabilized and on the mend. (My old man was in the Navy too, they are tough old birds!)

Thank you for the great reply. That answered a nagging question I have had in the back of my mind for years, especially with so little material available on the ONI.

As I mentioned earlier, many is the time when researching a UFO case and peeling back the layers of the onion, when I would get to the center, lo and behold there would be the ONI, deeply implicated and displaying a lot of clout.

I always wondered how these guys managed to muscle their way in on the 2 original agencies Truman set up in July 47, the CIA and NSA.

The impression I got was, that the ONI could give -any- agency or military unit orders, even if it was in conflict with what those units wanted to do, and after checking with their superiors they suddenly did exactly what the ONI told them to do.

Your reply makes perfect sense and explains that, and also why there is so little info available on them.

Again thanks and all my best wishes.

reply to post by A51Watcher


Thank you for the kind words A51Watcher. That means a lot and yes he's a tough old bird and truly one of the best. He'll be coming home and I am so grateful for that.

I'll be busy for the next day or two, but I do look forward to getting more involved with this thread. The research here has been outstanding and if anybody on earth has a clue it truly does look as if it would be the ONI.

If we can convince some more of the excellent researchers here that the ONI is the keeper of the flame, we may be surprised at how much more turns up.

Thanks again.

reply to post by The GUT


Hey The Gut, I (and I'm sure everybody else) would like to echo A51Watcher's comments there mate - best wishes to your dad and a speedy recovery.
Those are some great posts there and I actualy didn't realise the ONI were that high up in the grand scheme of things - they've certainly got a very intriguing history (particularly with the inception of the NSA) and you also make a very interesting point about their mandate and facility for propaganda... wonder how much their budget is for that then.

Talking of propaganda, here's the U.S. Navy UFO Factsheet:

UFO Fact Sheet

There is no central office or activity in the Department of the Navy assigned the mission of collecting and maintaining information on UFO phenomenon, paranormal activity, and/or similar incidents.

link

Guess we all better give up looking and go home then.

Cheers.

Originally posted by A51Watcher
As I mentioned earlier, many is the time when researching a UFO case and peeling back the layers of the onion, when I would get to the center, lo and behold there would be the ONI, deeply implicated and displaying a lot of clout.

I always wondered how these guys managed to muscle their way in on the 2 original agencies Truman set up in July 47, the CIA and NSA.

The impression I got was, that the ONI could give -any- agency or military unit orders, even if it was in conflict with what those units wanted to do, and after checking with their superiors they suddenly did exactly what the ONI told them to do.

Fascinating stuff my friend and it realy could be the case that the UFO buck stops with these guys - although I'm not sure about the source it speculates in this article that members of the ONI could have been impersonating USAF personnel and contacting UFO witnesses - whatever the case, there sure seems to be a lot of accounts from Naval personnel citing suppression of UFO testimony - here's another report from October 24th, 1989 on board the submarine 'USS Memphis':

..When the UFO left our boat returned to normal with the exception of the radio and sonar. We did a quick system check and the captain ordered us to return to reactor power and get underway.

The captain took two petty officers, the executive officer, and myself into the wardroom. He told us to not spread any rumors until we had a chance to talk to Commander Submarine Fleet - Atlantic. We reached port in about 7 hours where I was taken into "protective custody." Two enlisted men and myself agreed we had witnessed a real UFO. I was the one who shot it with a laser range finder so I was the only one that had its exact sizes. I shot that vessel as it hovered and I got solid readings not spotty like I would on debris. We were in holding for about three hours when an officer from the Air Force arrived and gave us a line of bull about an exploding weather satellite. The Navy then transferred virtually everyone on the crew to new assignments. This included the her captain, the executive officer and the entire crew. They were split up which almost never happens unless one of them gets a promotion or a new command, neither of which happened. The military just split up a 4 year team.

link

Cheers.

More interesting statements from Naval Officers and Admirals (this time Russian) - taken from this article featured on Fox News website:

“On several occasions the instruments gave reading of material objects moving at incredible speed. Calculations showed speeds of about 230 knots, of 400 kph. Speeding so fast is a challenge even on the surface. But water resistance is much higher. It was like the objects defied the laws of physics. There’s only one explanation: the creatures who built them far surpass us in development".
Russian Naval Rear Admiral Yury Beketov

“Ocean UFOs often show up wherever our or NATO’s fleets concentrate. Near Bahamas, Bermudas, Puerto Rico. They are most often seen in the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean, in the southern part of the Bermuda Triangle, and also in the Caribbean Sea.”
Captain 1st rank Igor Barklay

“Fifty percent of UFO encounters are connected with oceans. Fifteen more – with lakes. So UFOs tend to stick to the water".
Vladimir Azhazha,Russian Naval Officer

Interesting documents from Jan Aldrich over at Project 1947 discussing Naval Intelligence, an object crashing in a Norweigan lake and the Scandinavian ghost rocket phenomenon:

USAFE saved the block-buster for the last part of the message. An object had crashed into a Swedish lake. "A technical expert near his home on the edge of the lake" was the witness. USAFE informed DI that the Swedes had recovery operations for the crashed object under way. Anyone familiar with the 1946 "Ghost Rockets" knows that a number of the these earlier reports claimed objects had allegedly come down in Scandinavian lakes. A 1946 Secret letter from the Commander US, Naval Forces, Europe, commented on an earlier 1946 recovery attempt from a lake in Norway. The Navy was very much interested in what might be found. While they were willing to render assistance, there were two problems: the lack of Naval equipment and experts for that type of work in Europe at the time, and the lack of an invitation to assist from the Norwegian government. The Commander, US Naval Force Europe, felt that the matter required authorization from US political authority to proceed. [5]. Nothing further officially is known about the Norwegian lake crash, but the "technical expert" in the USAFE Swedish lake report was identified in another Top Secret DI 1948 document now at Maxwell AFB

Naval Document

Main link

Here's a newsclipping I came across regarding "the mysterious submarines sighted off U.S. coastlines" story that the Navy boys surely would have been interested in. (I was not aware of this case(s).)

Since the article is primarily an interview with the "Flying Saucer 'Pioneer' that is the bulk of the information.
The tidbit about Truman having to deny repeatedy knowing anything about the flying saucers (implying for the last 3 years) is indicative that apparently not everyone had bought the weather balloon and temperature inversion stories.


From the Ogden Standard-Examiner (Utah) April 10, 1950


[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/4c2e3a107f45.jpg[/atsimg]

Originally posted by A51Watcher
Here's a newsclipping I came across regarding "the mysterious submarines sighted off U.S. coastlines" story that the Navy boys surely would have been interested in..

Hey my friend, great find and I'm pretty sure the Naval Intelligence boys would have been very interested in those 'mysterious submarine' reports, whatever the objects actualy were - maybe the article you posted was referring to UFO/USO accounts from around the Santa Catalina/San Pedro channel - it seems there's been quite a few dating right back to the fifties.

"The first California underwater UFO was on July 7, 1947 when two San Raphael teen-agers saw a "flat glistening object" emerge from the water, fly around and then dive back into the water 400 yards from shore. Throughout this same year, numerous steamers reported a mysterious 'undersea mountain' or a 'large mass underwater' which kept appearing and disappearing in various locations in the San Francisco Bay and down the coast.
Following this, the sightings came regularly, in 1951, 1954, 1955, 1957, 1962, 1964, 1970, 1980, 1990, 1991, 1993, 2004 - the list goes on, most from the Santa Catalina channel. The sightings involve many highly credible witnesses including lifeguards, security guards, law enforcement officials, military officers and countless citizens.

Thread

Cheers.

Hi Karl,

So if this is indeed a "fact":

Originally posted by karl 12
reply to post by The GUT

 

...here's the U.S. Navy UFO Factsheet:

UFO Fact Sheet

There is no central office or activity in the Department of the Navy assigned the mission of collecting and maintaining information on UFO phenomenon, paranormal activity, and/or similar incidents.

link

Then why is the Commanding Officer and Director of "The Special Devices Center" filing a UFO sighting report over what is classified a "sensitive military installation" -directly- to the ONI?

This indicates that this is the established procedure to be followed in such cases.

...this document taken from the CIA archives regarding an object over White Sands Proving Ground base in the same year and, although the case is quite a controversial one, I did find it interesting who the official report was addressed to.


To: The Chief of Naval Intelligence

Attn: Office of Naval Intelligence

Via: The Chief of Naval Research

Oh I see, they are playing the game of being technically precise so they can say they are telling the truth.
Reports are to be made directly to the ONI (Via The Chief of Naval Research) which is technically a separate agency from the Department of the Navy.

Thanks for the great "fact" guys.

And while the White Sands Missile test range is known primarily as a U.S. Army installation, it is also home to several U.S. Air Force facilities,

and also - the U.S. Navy:

Navy at White Sands

The Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division, White Sands Detachment, is a tenant command of the U.S. Army-operated White Sands Missile Range.

Navy History
The Navy was established on range on June 14, 1946, to participate with the Army in research studies and test firing of captured German V-2 rockets...

Today´s Mission
Today, the Navy´s mission is three-fold:

land-based weapons system testing,
directed energy weapons testing
and research rocket launch support.

...The detachment´s High Energy Laser (HEL) activity is responsible for

the Mid-Infrared Advanced Chemical Laser (MIRACL)
and the Sealite Beam Director (SLBD).

Tests using the MIRACL are done in support of the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization, the Navy, and other Department of Defense agencies.

Link

So apparently the Navy is not relegated to just pushing battleships around the bathtub.

... in March 1950, a True magazine article written by U.S. Naval Commander
Robert B. McLaughlin, a rocket specialist at White Sands Proving Ground, revealed that UFOs had been sighted at the highly secret base during the test of a modified V-2 rocket.

Referring to the incident, McLaughlin wrote, “This day [June 10, 1949] we were firing a Navy upper atmosphere missile.

Shortly after its take-off, two small circular objects, guessed to be approximately 20 inches in diameter, appeared from no place and joined the Navy missile on its upward flight. (Similar small disks have also been previously reported as well as the larger types mentioned earlier.)

At about the time the Navy missile was doing well over 2,000 feet per second, the object on the west side passed through the exhaust gases and joined its friend on the east. They then apparently decided the missile was not going fast enough for them. They accelerated, passed the Navy missile and sailed off upward and eastward.”

In addition to the striking similarities between this 1949 case and the Big Sur UFO Incident, which occurred some 15 years later, there is another commonality:

According to an Office of Special Investigations (OSI) report in the declassified Project Blue Book files, the U.S. Army’s Public Information Officer at White Sands, Captain Edward Detchemendy, tried to suppress UFO sighting reports at the base and actually chastised Commander McLaughlin, on July 6, 1949, after overhearing him discussing a radar tracking of another UFO with an individual who had no “need-to-know” about it.

According to veteran UFO researcher Richard Hall, McLaughlin was later punished by the Navy for writing the article—losing his job at White Sands and being shipped off to sea duty.

link

Uh oh, battleship duty in the bathtub for him!

However this at least confirms and establishes the 1949 Naval presence, clearance and "participation" in Top Secret programs at The White Sands Proving Grounds, the original 'Area 51' if you will.



[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/dd78390f52f5.jpg[/atsimg]



I would add that there were also several accounts besides this one, of small (20 - 30 inches on average) silver discs displaying outlandish flight capabilities in newspaper articles during the 1947 wave, along with the more prevalent accounts of aircraft- size silver flying saucers. Military pilots even made official reports of these seen during their flight, judged from various angles in- flight. Also Military Police on-duty at a 'sensitive' installation reported these probing the base.

If we accept the size estimate and veracity of these sightings, one can only surmise that these were perhaps remote control drones/probes.

Originally posted by A51Watcher
Hi Karl,

So if this is indeed a "fact...

Then why is the Commanding Officer and Director of "The Special Devices Center" filing a UFO sighting report over what is classified a "sensitive military installation" -directly- to the ONI?

A51Watcher, you raise an extremely pertinent point there mate and it's certainly a pleasure to have you on this thread - I don't think we'll see an answer to that question any time soon and, I don't know if you've seen this presentation, but John Greenewald Junior also makes some very astute points about blatant inconsistencies, discrepencies and contradictions in the USAF 'fact sheet'.

Jan Aldrich also asks some very important questions below about US Naval UFO documents and O.N.I. UFO investigations - point 5 and 9 make for very interesting reading.

The sister Services, Army, USAF and CIA, DIA and NSA have released UFO files as have the British, Danes, French, Brazilians, Australians and even Uruguayans. Now the Russians.

It seems the US Navy’s turn. What specifically? For starters:

1. WWII study of ususual radar returns.

2. 4th AF documents concerning with air intrusion of Hanford, Navy radar and aircraft assets tasked to intercept same

3. About 50 AAF and Navy documents formerly TS and below refer to an equal number of other documents on the Scandinavian Ghost Rockets

4. A small amount of Navy documents in the USAF Project Blue Book files refer to other Navy documents not seen

5. AIR 203 was a Joint TS USAF/Navy study of UFOs. Yet Navy claims no records

6. BurAero analysis of AF document released not by Navy but DOD.

7. In 1951 Dr. Urner Liddel ONR claims after studying 2000 cases that UFOs are Skyhook balloons (USAF does even have 2000 cases in 1951. What does ONR have?

8. Korean War radar cases in OP322V, OP322V2 and COMNAVFE. (Some incomplete reports this era in Project BB)

9. Navy Sec Dan Kimball set UFO project in ONI in 1952

10. CIA document enumerating intel asset dedicated to UFOs refers to analyst in ONI

11. The old Hydrographic office was a published source of reports for the US Navy, merchant shipping and aircraft over waters. These were not investigated?

12. Large resevoir of “war stories” by old Navy salts, esp., aircrews and radar operators and other CIC personnel.

Further, Project Blue Book record indicate numerous contacts thru Air Attaches with foreign govt on UFOs. Naval Attaches have not such contacts even with Navies that UFO significant UFO incidents or Navy UFO project, Argentina, other incidents Chile, Brazil?

In reviews for the Clinton Executive Order declassifying records over 25 years old, Army and AF comes up with hundreds of UFO documents even though these were not specifically required for index. The Navy nada.

“We do not investigate UFOs.”

“We do not keep records filed for such a topic as UFOs.”

“If we had any records on UFOs, they were destroyed.”

“If we had any records on UFOs, we transferred them to the USAF.”

The dog eat my home work. Lost at sea!

Jan Aldrich, Project1947.com

link

I think the stats in this FOIA UFO document article just about sums things up:

Ever wonder what the U.S. Government has in their filing cabinets? Search more than 530,000 pages of declassified documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and find out..

This section contains batches of documents that have been received from multiple agencies. The FOIA request was for all documents relating to UFOs... the following is what was released:

Army - 355 Pages - 22 megs

Central Intelligence Agency [2,763 Pages]

Defense Intelligence Agency UFO Files Through 1979 [204 Pages]
Defense Intelligence Agency UFO Files from 1979-1989 [12 Pages]
Defense Intelligence Agency UFO Files From 1990 to date [30 Pages]

Department of Defense [270 Pages]

Federal Bureau of Investigation UFO Documents [1,600 Pages] - [ Part 01 | Part 02 | Part 03 | Part 04 | Part 05 | Part 06 | Part 07 | Part 08 | Part 09 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 ]

John F. Kennedy Library [127 Pages]

NASA Headquarters [131 Pages]

National Reconnaisance Office UFO Documents (No Records)
National Security Agency's UFO Files [159 Pages]
National Security Agency's Once Exempt From Release [254 Pages]


Navy (No Records)


Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense [132 Pages]

Space Command [7 Pages]

Wright Patterson Air Force Base [910 Pages] - All documents relating to Project Sign and Grudge[ January through August, 1948 | September through December, 1948, 1949.

link

Cheers.

reply to post by karl 12


Interesting stuff there about the Navy, and had never seen the MAPIT site or The Black Vault before either, so cheers for the link!

I came across this study that focused on some interesting questions:

The study focused on UFO reports that were submitted by ships in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to the USAF Project Blue Book. Ships submitting reports to Blue Book included Navy, US Coast Guard and Commercial Vessels. Some of the questions that this study wanted to answer were:

1. What was the mechanism used to report UFO sightings to Blue Book by the US Navy ships?

2. What was the most common reporting mechanism used by commercial shipping and by the US Coast Guard?

3. How many US Navy ships reported UFO sightings to Blue Book and what types of sightings were these?

4. How did the US Navy sightings compare to those from commercial and USCG ships?

5. Are UFO reports at sea very similar to each other or do they differ? Was the type of UFO report dependent on the agency making the report?

link

Which comes from Carl Feindt's site: waterufo.net

Where he also mentions:

...In 1971 Ivan T. Sanderson published the book “Invisible Residents”. This is as far as I know the only book exclusively devoted to UFOs entering or exiting bodies of water. The end result of his investigation was his conclusion that UFOs had bases underwater.

Here is one that also documents reporting procedure:

June 22 1947 - Greenfield, Massachusetts - 11:30 A.M. EST

USAF Project Blue Book Files - Weekly Intelligence Summary, ATC 7/30


Edward L. de Rose reported seeing a "brilliant, round-shaped silvery-white object" moving in a northwesterly direction over Greenfield.

It traveled at a high rate of speed somewhere at around 1,000 feet of altitude and "streaked across the sky" in a matter of only eight to ten seconds before vanishing from view.

He felt certain the mysterious craft could not have been a balloon and represented something very real when later filing this report with the A-2 section of Army Intelligence of the Atlantic Division.


(Case secretly investigated by the FBI)

link

So here we see the A-2 section of Army Intelligence being the recipient of this report. We have also seen the ONI as the recipient in the previous case posted by Karl.

This begs the question of "where does the buck stop" with sighting reports as Karl put it. Obviously we can not have each agency with their own set of unique reports, and all agencies just sharing copies with each other would not make sense, so if we can find instances of one official agency passing or forwarding a case or report to another, that would help establish the pipeline and who was the designated keeper and end of the road for these reports.

Originally posted by A51Watcher
Obviously we can not have each agency with their own set of unique reports, and all agencies just sharing copies with each other would not make sense, so if we can find instances of one official agency passing or forwarding a case or report to another, that would help establish the pipeline and who was the designated keeper and end of the road for these reports.

A51Watcher, great stuff and although it's not about active reporting, Project 1947 have some great work tracking down the U.S. intelligence communities early UFO documents in an effort to 'understand how early policies and opinions on the UFO subject evolved' - there's some interesting reading about the ONI's role and I'll certainly keep an eye out for the 'pipeline' on specific documents.

The "Analysis" was a joint USAF Directorate of Intelligence (DI) and Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) document. At the time it was common for both organizations to cooperate in aviation intelligence matters, and in this case the Navy invited itself in.

In November, 1948, the Navy sent the USAF a letter stating that they wished to assist in the analysis of UFOs. DI using the Navy's letter as a supporting document then directed Project Sign to make copies of all their material and send it to ONI..


Draft Copy of the "Analysis of Flying Object Incidents in the United States" Control Number (CN) 2 6167 is a typed draft of the document. The other copy, Control Number 2-7341. (There are several other control numbers on the document, perhaps for different organizations. However, this is the last one.) The draft (CN 2-6167) was produced in five copies which went to:


USAF: Air Intelligence Requirement Division
#1 and #3

USAF: Air Estimates Branch
#4

Office Of Naval Intelligence
#2

USAF: Air Intelligence Division
#5

link

Cheers.

Originally posted by Hitoshura
reply to post by karl 12

 

Interesting stuff there about the Navy, and had never seen the MAPIT site or The Black Vault before either, so cheers for the link!

Hitoshura, no probs matey - John Greenewald Junior has done a sterling job collating all those documents and he makes some good points here about more government contradictions when it comes to the UFO subject - this time from NORAD..

Greenewald said he received a stack of 100 pages from the Canadian government about UFOs which included reports of light balls, discs, and other aerial objects, up through the year 2003.
The documents indicated that both commercial and Air Force pilots should report UFO activity to NORAD. This was also confirmed in a US Air Force manual, yet NORAD continues to claim that it stopped collecting UFO reports in 1965,

Category: UFO Phenomena

Pity there's not much declassification from the U.S. Navy though.

Cheers.

Originally posted by A51Watcher


I would add that there were also several accounts besides this one, of small (20 - 30 inches on average) silver discs displaying outlandish flight capabilities in newspaper articles during the 1947 wave, along with the more prevalent accounts of aircraft- size silver flying saucers. Military pilots even made official reports of these seen during their flight, judged from various angles in- flight. Also Military Police on-duty at a 'sensitive' installation reported these probing the base.

If we accept the size estimate and veracity of these sightings, one can only surmise that these were perhaps remote control drones/probes.

I also recall Major Keyhoe saying that the (early- on in the 1947 wave) public and private reports of these small discs were of major concern and caused quite a stir in the Pentagon, because it was suspected that these were remote control bombs that could be guided into place and detonated, and were showing up at several "sensitive" installations. These military base sightings were not reported to the newspapers, but had "The Brass on the edge of their seats" is how he described it if memory serves.

So just exactly who were "The Brass" in the Pentagon in 1947 -before- President Truman changed the entire chain of command structure on July 24 1947?

Information on who held what post is readily available from September 17 1947 forward here:

link

but who held what positions there before this date? I find details on this hard to come by so far.

None the less, the above link provides a least a good starting point for known Sept 47 personnel and positions.

Now here is a rather telling declassified document I found in the USAF Project Blue Book:



[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/d4292f559f79.jpg[/atsimg]


We can see it was prepared by:
The Commanding General (4rth AF) at Hamilton Field, (California)

and sent to:
The Commanding General, Army Air Forces, (Washington, D.C.)

"in compliance with letter from: Headquarters Air Defense Command"
(Mitchel Field, New York).


And what was attached to this report, as indicated, are actual -hand typed verbatim copies- (not copies of the clippings or the clippings themselves) of the flying disc newspaper reports from my home town (in Oregon), the ones shown in my thread with the headlines -

PORTLAND POLICE SEE DISCS SAIL

Also attached are in- depth, follow- up interviews conducted privately by unknown personnel, with each of the officers and the harbor- master listed in the articles.


All of which indicates what was to be done (discreetly), as laid out in the "letter" referenced above,
as ordered by - Headquarters Air Defense Command (New York).

Has anyone seen this letter?

The dates shown, and also the designation -Army Air Forces- clearly indicate that this is -just before- the Truman total restructuring of the entire military, and secret service organizations.

Now did this "letter" contain a Directive, or a personal request (unlikely), as to how to deal with sighting reports and investigations. How many other units or departments also received this "letter"?

Odd that he would not reference a Directive number that he was responding to. And how many other reports did Army Air Forces, Washington, D.C. also receive from various days and locations as a result of this "letter".

Or was this a method to discreetly subvert the official chain of command, perhaps even on orders from the top, considering the fear that these things might originate from Russia.

And who did these guys take their marching orders from? Did the buck stop there at Air Defense Command in that period? And what happened to the pipeline after the restructure order.


Major Keyhoe also seemed to be wondering these same questions, as evidenced by a couple of his chapter titles:

"Saucer Saucer, Who's Got The Saucer?"

and

"Why doesn't one of the damn things just land in the water so the Navy can take over!"

He and his contacts in the Pentagon seemed puzzled about who was truly -in charge- of the UFO situation during this period, followed by the sudden change of attitude and "silence from the top" regarding the urgent need to discover what these things really were, that happened coincidentally right around the same time of the Roswell "incident".