Showing posts with label Flying Saucer Swindlers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Flying Saucer Swindlers. Show all posts

Thursday, August 31, 2023

A Lost UFO Book Discovered

The Venusians, text and images © Harold J. Berney Estate, 1960 and 2023.

The first person convicted to prison for UFO-related crimes was the subject of an in-depth April 9, 2020, article at The Saucers That Time Forgot, “Harold J. Berney: The FBI's Flying Saucer Fugitive.” There’s been a new development, but first, for those who need it, a recap of the UFO-related part of his story. 

In the mid-1950s, Harold Jesse Berney approached a few individuals and confided that he was working on a top-secret project based on alien technology. Once a prototype was manufactured, the U.S. government contract would guarantee any early investors an enormous return. Hal was an interesting character, charismatic, an inventor, a talented artist, but all of that was overshadowed by his lifelong penchant for fraud. He’s remembered chiefly as a sign painter and swindler. The key thing that led to his downfall and conviction was a book he had written about flying saucers and aliens.

Berney’s story was the same thing he was telling investors, that he’d been hired by the U.S. government to study the technology of a captured flying saucer. Shortly after setting foot on the craft, he was contacted by an alien and accepted the invitation to go to Venus to learn about their technology. Upon his return, he worked with a major government contractor to build the powerful Magnetic Flux Modulator for the defense of the United States

In 1956, Berney worked with Pauline E. Goebel, a major investor, a legal secretary by profession. She typed up his story into a 118-page manuscript, Two Weeks on Venus, saved until the Modulator project was no longer secret. When she got word that Berney had died on another trip to Venus, Pauline tried to recoup the investment of her life savings by taking the manuscript to a publisher. After hearing her story, they suggested she call the police because she’d been swindled. From there, the FBI took over, and when they caught Berney, he claimed to be innocent of fraud, the book “just fiction.” To avoid the maximum penalty, on October 3, 1957, Berney agreed to a guilty plea for lesser crimes, two charges of fraud. He spent about three years in prison, and after his release he went back to work as a sign painter in Silver Spring MD, until his death in 1967. Hal’s name stayed out of the papers, and as far as the world knew, he had no other UFO-related activity.   

Other than a patent application, none of his drawings, paintings or writings are known to have survived. The sole manuscript for Berney’s Two Weeks on Venus was never published, taken by the FBI as evidence in Berney’s trial, afterwards filed with case records. UFO historians have never gotten to examine the text to see if it was merely derivative of early 1950 Contactee tales or was an original science fiction story. Depending on years of waiting for a FOIA response seemed the only hope of seeing it. It came as a delightful surprise to learn, "No, there is another." 

A Warehouse Find

In August of 2023, The Saucers That Time Forgot received an unexpected message in reply to our 2020 article on Berney. It stated, “I have a copy of the actual draft The Venusians by Hal J Berney… with hand painted art…” I texted the number provided, and the following conversation revealed that the book had been found in a Virginia warehouse (over 100 miles from Berney’s last home) and the owner knew nothing about it, or how it got there. Pictures were also sent, about a dozen photographs of a massive manuscript bound in a scrapbook. 

The scrapbook has a hand painted cover of the title, The Venusians, and the book itself is about 525 (single-sided) pages long, including hand-painted illustrations. The author is listed as Hal J. Bernéy, emphasizing that his last name was pronounced not like burn-ee, but like burr-nay.

Examining the photos of the text and illustrations, it indicates that this was Berney’s second attempt at a book. It was made after his conviction, and some of the paintings were made while he was incarcerated. One of the illustrations includes the year 1960 next to Berney’s signature.


An introductory page stated:

“The Venusians

A web of uncontrollable circumstances

This book is the culmination of the controversial manuscript… though at the time was called ‘Two Weeks on Venus’ was merely the outline basis for the now completed book named ‘The Venusians’.

A Fiction Novel by Hal J. Berney”

A following page emphasized the story as presented as a work of fiction:

“There are no true names of persons used in this book. Any similarity to names of persons living or dead is coincidental and not intended as such. The use of names of hotels, corporations, laboratories, Army and Navy personnel, Governments or courts are used fictionally, and do not imply their true connection in any actuality; while the laws in court procedures are correctly stated in a degree in their use, and then surrounded by fiction. The book is written in ambiguous obscureness, and is endowed with intricate, scientific facts. It is felt compulsory by the author to so state here, for his welfare, that the contents of this book are fiction.

Author: Hal J. Berney

Edited by:  Lorene D. Wells”

The Venusians was greatly expanded from the tale begun in Berney’s unpublished Two Weeks on Venus, and the second half of the book continued the story far beyond the events of including his trial for “Conspiring to Defraud through False Pretense.” Harold J.  Berney’s character is called “Albert J. Carlton,” and his company, “The Venusian Corporation of America.” 

Here are a few pages and illustrations from the manuscript that were sent as examples:

Double-page fold out: “Milky Way and our Galaxy Map.”

Figures approaching to examine a landed flying saucer.

“The ship had a flat concaved circular orbit-like band around the center of its ball shape.”

A scene discussing the scientists who would manufacture the Venusian technology on earth.


In Berney’s fictionalized trial, The Grand Jury charged Al Carlton of perpetrating:

“a scheme that disrupted and stagnated the Corporation and its investors and the deliveries of the necessary ships to the United States Government, thus not only depriving the Government, but his investors, and leaving the entire Nation unprotected by the lack of the Venusian ships, and at the mercy of other foreign powers who might obtain the invention from the Defendant.”

The “North American Nebula”

There wasn’t enough shown to reveal the entire story, but it seems the existence of the Venusians visitors were revealed in some kind of public disclosure. There was a s
cene of a crowd of people gathered under a phenomenal night sky.

“As they sat huddled together, the air seemed filled with soft strange music, as if some great choir of thousands of people were singing heavenly praises."

I AM

Part of the story involved an ill-fated interplanetary romance. Al Carlton had fallen in love with a Venusian princess, but they were separated by her untimely death. Somehow, after his trial, Berney’s character traveled back to Venus. At the end, Al died in an accident and was buried beside the princess. The closing page describes their bittersweet reunion with a religious acknowledgment of “the great ‘I AM’.”

There’s been no documentation found, but there seems to be some overlap between Berney and the spiritual Contactees and the I AM followers, even if they were only among his prey in his investment schemes.

Lost and Found

Prior to this discovery, no one had a clue that the book existed. So far, no further information has been found about it, or Lorene D. Wells, the woman who helped Berney produce it. What will happen to The Venusians? The people who found the manuscript contacted me to get information on the author for the purpose of selling it. I gave them the background on Berney and put them in touch with his surviving relatives. Ideally, the manuscript will find a home with Berney’s family, and that scans of the document are made and made available to researchers. As of this writing, the final fate of the book has yet to be determined. 

. . .


Connections? Two Flying Saucer Corporations

I've been unable to connect Hal Berney to any saucer club, but there was a lot of UFO-related activity nearby. Berney lived in Washington, D.C., but conducted business in Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. Flying saucer inventor Otis T. Carr's home and office was in Baltimore, Maryland, and there’s some interesting similarities between the two. They both had studied art, but neither of them had a formal education beyond the eighth grade. In the early 1950s, both started developing flying saucer technology, were granted patents for inventions, and incorporated businesses.

Harold J. Berney’s Telewand Corp. sought investors for his “Magnetic Flux Modulator.”
Otis T. Carr’s OTC Enterprises Inc. sought investors for his “Utron Electric Accumulator.”

Berney’s Modulator was a box unit that produced "its own power by drawing energy from the atmosphere.” Carr’s Utron produced “free energy” to power “a fourth dimensional space vehicle... the OTC-X1 circular-foil spacecraft.”

Carr holding Utron Electric Accumulator, 1957.

Both attracted believers in Contactee lore, but Carr was far more public in recruiting investors. Carr employed a publicist, Margaret Storm (author of Return of the Dove - a Theosophical biography of Nikola Tesla as a Venusian). Alice Beulah Schutz as a stenographer, and as A.D.K. Luk, she wrote Law of Life, a book for the “I AM” saucer-related religious cult. Whether through her or another source, Berney was aware of the religion and prominently featured a mention of “I AM” in the closing line of his book.

A Distinctive Saucer Design

The typical UFO of the day was pictured like a saucer or an automobile hubcap. Another distinctive saucer design debuted around 1957, a windowless elliptical fuselage ringed by an orbit-like band around its center. In Carr’s colorful spiral-bound pamphlet, published in October 1957, “OTC Enterprises, Inc, Brings You Atoms For Peace,” there was a spectacular illustration of his concept for a “Fourth Dimensional Space Vehicle.” The original art hung in his office and replicas and 17 x22 inch lithographs of the picture were offered to the public.

1957 Carr publicity photo.

The photo of Carr in front of the picture seems to show the artist’s signature in the bottom right corner, but it was cropped out of the published versions. While the identity of the artist is unknown, his space scene and the distinctive flying saucer design look very much like the work of Hal Berney, and an identical design appears on the cover of The Venusians. Berney and Carr’s flying saucers looked like they all came from the same factory on Venus.

Berney was arrested in March 1957 and was sentenced to prison in Oct. (about the time Carr printed the brochure). The book and art apparently began during or after his prison sentence, one picture is dated 1960. Without documentation, all we can say is that it’s possible Berney saw Carr’s saucer and copied it for his book cover. They are too similar in style and design to ascribe to coincidence.

Similar Fates

Both Berney and Carr were charged with crimes related to their flying saucer investment schemes.


Berney and Carr share the rare distinction of being among the few Saucer Swindlers to ever serve time behind bars in punishment for their crimes.

Thursday, May 19, 2022

UFOs: Crimes and Punishment


Our earlier article, The U.S. Government’s UFO Hoax Policy talked about how the Air Force developed a policy that no matter what the nature of the report, the names of witnesses were to be kept confidential. Interviewed in 1966 about his retirement from Project Blue Book, TSgt. David N. Moody talked about the problem with UFO hoaxers. “The Air Force has no means to take action against perpetrators. That it’s a matter for civil authorities.”

Especially after 1957, the Air Force did declare some UFO cases hoaxes, but they were not in the business of exposing the hoaxer themselves or of punishing them. If the hoaxer committed a crime, that was up to local law enforcement or the FBI to press charges. The number of UFO hoaxers who have faced justice by the law is very small. Below is a partial list of the few that paid for their crimes, as well as some examples of those that escaped prosecution.

 

1947: The Maury Island Hoax

Shortly after the news of Kenneth Arnold's famous sighting in June 1947, Harold Dahl and Fred Crisman reported an amazing story of seeing giant doughnut-shaped flying discs near Maury Island in Puget Sound, Washington. 

Fred Crisman and a depiction of his story.

Captain Edward J. Ruppelt covered the investigation in his 1956 book, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects. Ruppelt's chapter, "The Era of Confusion Begins," stated that the government had thought seriously of prosecuting hoaxers Dahl and Crisman:

"At the last minute it was decided, after talking to the two men, that the hoax was a harmless joke that had mushroomed, and that the loss of two lives and a B-25 could not be directly blamed on the two men. ...By the time the facts were released they were yesterday's news."

Dahl and Crisman avoided charges and prosecution for their hoax.



1949/1950: The Aztec Crashed Saucer Hoax

Silas Newton and Leo Gebauer were partners in the Aztec UFO hoax which was the basis for Frank Scully's 1950 book, Behind the Flying Saucers. The saucer story was the backdrop for an oil fraud scheme: the duo was selling "doodlebugs," phony mineral detectors that they claimed used magnetic technology from the Venusian saucers. 

Newton and Gebauer were charged with fraud, and found guilty and convicted in 1953, but for selling the bogus devices, not the saucer hoax itself. The two managed to dodge any prison time. 

 

1953: The Little Green Man Hoax
On 
July 8, 1953, three young men, Edward Watters, Tom Wilson, and Arnold Payne claimed their truck hit and killed a small alien from a flying saucer. They had the body, and subsequent examination by a veterinarian revealed the "Martian" was a monkey that Watters had killed and mutilated. The men confessed it was a prank stemming from a $10 bet that Watters could get his name in the newspaper. 

Incidentally, the case has the only "alien autopsy" mentioned in Air Force files.

A jurisdictional technicality prohibited Watters from being charged for animal cruelty, but he plead guilty to a charge of highway obstruction and was fined $40. For more details see, the Project Blue Book Case File.


1958: The Little Blue Man

For several weeks in early 1958 motorists around Elkton, Michigan, reported seeing a blue man on or near the roadway, possibly a being from outer space. Witnesses accounts varied, describing the creature as two to ten feet tall, and one said, "It ran faster than any human." The stories persisted, and when a busload of kids witnessed the blue man, their parents pressured the authorities to investigate. Facing the the heat from the law, the "alien" turned himself in.

Elkton Review April 24, 1958

The Little Blue Man was the creation of Don Weiss, Jerry Sprague and LeRoy Schultz. The three created a glowing blue costume with blinking lights to look like a space visitor. They confessed to the police who were amused by the prank and left them off with a warning. For further details, see: Last surviving ‘Blue Man’ prankster amused by interest in tale six decades later, from the Huron Daily Tribune, Feb. 25, 2022.


The Crackdown on Saucer Swindlers

While the law didn't care much about typical hoaxes, there were some serious saucer-related swindles that drew their attention. In the late 1950s, the Air Force's Office of Special Investigations (OSI) began informing the FBI about saucer-related crimes. Major James F. Byrne (from the Pentagon’s Press Desk) sent a memo on May 10, 1957:

“The subject of U.S. persons using the UFO hysteria for personal gain has been informally brought to the attention of the FBI. Documented cases where illicit or deceptive devices or methods are used by individuals to arouse public interest in UFOs should be made available to the FBI through the OSI. This subject is being studied by AFOIN-X1 and further development will be brought to your attention." 

The result? The FBI checked up on some sketchy characters.

There were several scoundrels scamming saucer fans, and three were caught and convicted from 1957 to 1961, most notably Harold J. BerneyOtis T. Carr, and Reinhold O. Schmidt


Hard Time was a Rarity

Getting back to typical UFO hoaxes, police were often involved in local UFO investigations, but seldom punished the perpetrators of false reports. Below is a rare exception, but take notice of the light penalty involved.

1965: The Glassboro, New Jersey, Saucer Landing

Michael Hallowich or Hallowitz was fined $50 for hoaxing his Sept 4, 1964, sighting of a UFO landing, but it was suspended. He was just ordered to pay $10 in court costs.

Project Blue Book files contain the news story from the clipping above from the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin Jan. 19, 1965


Post-Project Blue Book

There was a lull in UFO activity following the closure of Project Blue Book, but things picked up in 1973 with the Pascagoula abduction case, and many phonies sprung up in its aftermath. 

The NICAP UFO Investigator, Nov. 1973, “Flap Yields High Noise Level” covered several of the 1973 hoaxes, including those below.


1973: The Silver Saucerians

From an Associated Press story, October 23, 1973:

'Little men in silver suits' fined by judge for their gag 

JONESBORO, Ark. (AP) — Two men accused of "impersonating visitors from outer space" have been fined $25 each, plus $24.80 in court costs on charges of malicious mischief. Municipal Judge John States suspended 30-day jail sentences for the two — Stanley Burdyshaw, 18, and William Wilson, 21, both of Bono. State Trooper Daniel Oldham and a sheriff's deputy, Bill Finley, said about 20 motorists reported Sunday night that "little men in silver suits" were obstructing traffic on U.S. 63 near Bono. Oldham said he and Finley found the two standing at the edge of the highway "covered from head to toe" with aluminum foil. The motorists had complained that the "little men" had been jumping in front of cars, the officer said. 


1973: The Delaware Saucer Landing

On Oct. 16, 1973, traffic backed up as drivers stopped to take a look to see if it was really a flying saucer landed on the hill by the road.  When the police came they discovered it was a saucer-shaped circle of flashing lights powered by portable generator. The perps were five young volunteer firemen who had set it up as prank. Since the distraction could have caused a traffic accident they were arrested, but only charged with disorderly conduct.

An imaginative depiction from UFOs Flying Saucers #4, Nov. 1974

This concludes our sampling of UFO hoax-related crimes. In a future article, we’ll take a look at crimes committed while under the influence of ufology, from the comedic to the truly tragic.

. . .


Thursday, May 5, 2022

The U.S. Government's Policy on UFO Hoaxes

Why aren't UFO hoaxers sent to jail? Making false reports to law enforcement agencies is a punishable offense but hoaxing a UFO is not a crime under any known local, state, or federal statute. Even if it was, the United States Air Force has never had law enforcement jurisdiction except on their own bases and installations. Project Blue Book was given the job to investigate UFOs including reports from civilians, but there was a policy preventing them from exposing hoaxers. 

Our investigation began while pondering a statement from the Department of Defense’s Office of Public Information (OPI). Pan American pilot Captain Bill Nash was a witness and UFO advocate with questions for the Air Force. In a reply dated July 16, 1954, Captain Robert C. White replied saying:

"As stated in the enclosed fact summary, it is contrary to our policy to identify hoaxes in order to avoid embarrassing innocent parties."

From UFOs: A History 1954 June-August Supplemental Notes by Loren E. Gross, page 30.

The reprint of the letter didn’t not include the “Fact Summary,” so the hunt was on. The Air Force UFO files mainly concentrate on their investigations, not policy, but a few examples were found. The following material is best viewed as exhibits in an evidence folder. Not a comprehensive collection, a folio of some of the key suspects and prime offenders.   

 

The 1949 Flying Saucer Cover-Up 

Project Blue Book files contain a report from Nov. 3, 1949, about the Air Force’s investigation of Mikel Conrad’s UFO story. Conrad starred and directed in the film The Flying Saucer and he promoted it with the claimed that it featured real footage of a real saucer filmed in Alaska. 

The Pittsburgh Press, Sept. 18, 1949

When questioned, Conrad admitted it was to promote the movie, “not a reality.” The reports stated that Conrad asked them not to reveal “the fact that the saucer is a hoax,” which would hurt its take at the box office. They agreed. “OSI had no interest in his picture, since he had not actually sighted any unconventional object in the sky.” 

By the early 1950s, the Air Force estimated that less than 2% of UFO reports were due to hoaxes, but the phonies caused a disproportionate amount of effort to investigate. A review of the UFO cases listed in Project Blue Book files shows that the hoax label was most often applied to cases where photos or alleged UFO physical material were determined to be false. Many of the cases without physical evidence were evaluated as “Insufficient Evidence,” or Psychological.” The USAF developed a policy that no matter what the nature of the report, the names of witnesses were to be kept confidential.

 

The Public Disclosure of the USAF Hoax Policy

Science Service Staff Writer Allen Long interviewed an unnamed spokesman for the Air Force on the saucer issue for a Oct. 12, 1953, syndicated newspaper article. (Later reprinted as Science Digest Jan. 1954, "The Air Force Looks at 'Saucers'" and in Great Adventures in Science, 1956.) Long wrote:

“… the mystery apparently is made to grow deeper by an Air Force policy of not discrediting a person or organization. ...If the experts conclude that the sighter had hallucinations or that he deliberately concocted a hoax, the Air Force remains silent rather than discredit the person who turned in the report. No official statement is issued saying the sensational sighting was bunk. 

This assures the Air Force that other persons will continue turning in legitimate reports without fear of other persons will continue turning in legitimate reports without fear of public ridicule. It also means the Air Force will continue receiving a certain number of red herrings.” 

As reprinted in  in Great Adventures in Science, 1956.

 A few months later, this policy acknowledged in an official disclosure. The "Fact Summary" sent to Capt. Nash mentioned in our opening was actually the "Fact Sheet" issued in late 1953 (reprinted as “Plenty Going on in the Skies” in US News & World Report Jan. 1, 1954) which stated:

"The names of the persons involved in the sightings are withheld in respect of their privacy. They are free, however, to say what they please." 
[And three paragraphs later,] Although hoaxes comprise but a small percentage of total reports, some of them prove to be the most, sensational and the most publicized. However, to insure that the Air Force will not embarrass individuals or groups who are sincere in their beliefs or who may be victims of such hoaxes, the facts brought out in the investigations of these false reports are generally not made public. Unfortunately, this policy has often given the erroneous impression that the Air Force is deliberately denying or withholding. information which, if revealed, would prove the existence of ‘saucers'." 

US News & World Report Jan. 1, 1954

Captain Edward J. Ruppelt

In 1951, Captain Edward J. Ruppelt took over as head of the UFO investigation by the U.S. Air Force, and in 1956 wrote a book, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects

In the foreword he stated:

“In many instances I have left out the names of the people who reported seeing UFO's, or the names of certain people who were associated with the project, just as I would have done in an official report. …This policy of not identifying the ‘source,’ to borrow a term from military intelligence, is insisted on by the Air Force so that the people who have co-operated with them will not get any unwanted publicity.”

Ruppelt’s personal files included material used in the preparation of his book, and a few of them shed light on the policy. Ruppelt got into hot water over a hoax accusation in 1952.

Shell Alpert - Sunday Herald Aug 3, 1952

Seaman Shell R. Alpert supposedly photographed four UFOs above the Coast Guard Air Station at Salem, Massachusetts, on July 16, 1952. The New York World-Telegram and Sun reported on July 30, 1952, “Without questioning anyone’s integrity, Capt. Ruppelt said his first impression was the picture is a fake. He said the alleged saucers appear to have been painted in.” The Blue Book card for the case selected the box, “Unknown,” with comments stating, “open to doubt.” The monthly case listing booked it as “Unidentified.”

Ruppelt’s notecard on the Shell Alpert case:

Photos

Coast Guard - I got into trouble on these. I said that I thought they were fakes. The CG didn’t like it. The photo lab didn’t believe that they were kosher because of the highlights. They were missing from the cars. They set up lights on the building and got highlights from them.”

Specific to hoaxers, there were two notecards, one by hand, one typed, with nearly identical comments. 

"Hoaxes:
Very few hoaxes, about 2%. They are usually elaborate and draw a lot of attention. The press helps out a lot in digging them out. Some cost the government a lot because of investigations or because they 'kick off' other reports. I wanted to really slap somebody. Photos are biggest hoaxes. Difficult to prove it unless the person admits it.”

The typed version included another line: "We are stymied because we can't give it away." 

1957: Public Accusations

Sometime in 1957, the new Blue Book head, Captain George T. Gregory, prepared a lecture for the Air Technical Intelligence Center, “The UFO Program.” In the brief section on “Hoaxes,” Gregory said, “Public relations must be maintained; we cannot, nor do we desire to initiate legal charges.” 

During the 1957 flap, the Air Force was bombarded by UFO reports, and Project Blue Book was busy trying to investigate and explain them. 

The Nov. 15, 1957, Department of Defense press release presented the Air Force’s “evaluation of recent Unidentified Flying Objects reports.” They made an unusual policy exception of labelling James Stokes’ and Reinhold Schmidt’s stories as a hoax, but did not name the men, just identified the incident locations: 

Alamogordo, New Mexico: "EVALUATION: Hoax, presumably suggested by the Levelland, Texas ‘reports.’" 

Kearney, Nebraska: “Investigation revealed that local officials consider originator wholly unreliable… EVALUATION: Hoax…”

See pages 16 &17 of UFOs: A History 1957 Nov. 13th-30th by Loren Gross. Information from the DOD was used in newspaper stories.

The Plain Speaker, Hazleton, Pennsylvania, Nov. 16, 1957,

More 'Objects' Reported In Region; Air Force Discredits Space Stories


The Rocket from Russia 

While not a typical UFO case, the following incident provides insight into how the Air Force usually dealt with hoaxers. On Oct. 29, 1957, Angelus Crest Hwy, California, a man made a phony Russian missile as a prank on his boss, but it went out of bounds when the authorities were called in. The man confessed and the investigator agreed not to expose hoaxer’s identity. Blue Book discussed featuring the case on a television show program along with other examples of hoaxes.

San Bernardino Sun, Oct. 31, 1957

The Air Force was taking a harder line with hoaxers and bluffed on a television show to deter hoaxers. The Armstrong Circle Theatre “UFO: Enigma of the Skies,” was broadcast live on January 22, 1958, and Colonel Spencer Whedon, Chief of the Air Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC) implied committing a UFO hoax was a federal crime:

“The important thing here is that this type of hoax besides being a violation of federal law, is a rather expensive joke. A single UFO investigation may well cost the government $10,000.”

The Hector Quintanilla Years

Hector Quintanilla came in as Blue Book head in 1963. During his tenure, the policy of not prosecuting hoaxer continued, but he was more active in exposing them publicly.

In The Skywrighter (Dayton, Ohio) April 15, 1966, TSgt. David N. Moody was interviewed about his retirement from Project Blue Book. On the topic of UFO hoaxes Moody said, “The Air Force has no means to take action against perpetrators. That it’s a matter for civil authorities.”

Dr. J. Allen Hynek echoed that impotency in a report dated June 4, 1968, to Blue Book chief, Lt. Colonel Quintanilla. Discussing Carroll Wayne Watts' claim that a hypnotist had manipulated him into hoaxing a UFO story, Hynek said (emphasis added):

"One of the original reporters called up, quite incensed, and asked whether I couldn’t get the Air Force to prosecute the hypnotist for unethical practices, etc., for having made a dupe of [Mr. Watts] and subjected him to public ridicule. I told him that first of all the Air Force did not prosecute in such cases, and that furthermore in such lawsuits it is the injured party who brings suit and that I hardly felt that the Air Force or I had been injured by the purported hypnotist’s actions."

Hector Quintanilla saw Blue Book through to its end in 1969. In his unpublished memoirs written in 1974, UFOs: An Air Force Dilemma, he said: 

“On a number of occasions, I was crucified because I labeled certain sightings as hoaxes. I always believe in calling a spade a spade, but sometimes in my position this became extremely difficult. What most critics didn’t realize at the time was that I had good evidence or good reason to label a sighting a hoax. Every sighting that I labeled a hoax turned out to be just that from the very beginning or was subsequently proven to have been perpetrated by an individual.” 

During Quintanilla’s tenure, several hoax accusations were made by the Air Force. Below are some prominent examples of Hector applying the heat to hoaxers: 

The April 29, 1964, multi-witness case involving five children at Canyon Ferry Village, Montana, was also called a hoax by an Air Force investigator.

The Billings Gazette, May 5, 1964

March 2, 1965: John Reeves of Brooksville, Florida, claimed to have seen a landed saucer and met the aliens. 

After Project Blue Book investigated Reeves story, “it is the opinion of the Air Force that an attempt was made to perpetrate a hoax.”

Rex Heflin took several UFO photos on August 3, 1965, and during the publicity that followed, Hector Quintanilla said Blue Book had investigated and, “We have classified it as a photographic hoax.”

Rex Heflin and one of the photos that brought him fame.

Dan and Grant Jaroslaw said they photographed a UFO on January 9, 1967, at Mount Clemens, Michigan. The Air Force didn’t say hoax, but after investigating, Dr J. Allen Hynek said there was “considerable doubt on the sighting and removes it from serious consideration.”

This Week, March 5, 1967


Immunity from Exposure

The findings of the government-contracted UFO evaluation led by Dr. Edward U. Condon was published as Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects. It essentially followed the Air Force’s policy by not naming the witnesses in discussing the cases it examined. The study reached a negative conclusion on the value of the government continuing UFO research. As a result, Project Blue Book was closed in 1969. For a few years the UFO business was quiet, but in 1973 things heated up again. Without Project Blue Book to serve as a scarecrow, hoaxers had the run of the field.

Hattiesburg American (Mississippi) Oct. 19, 1973

We’ll close with a quote from Ed Ruppelt. His files also contained the original and revised drafts for his 1956 book. After his section on the 1947 Maury Island case, on page Ruppelt wrote:

"So long ago that nobody knows why, the government established a policy not to comment on anything that is written or said by private citizens. People can make any fantastic claim with a relatively high degree of immunity to being exposed… 
This policy has been a bonanza to the writers of saucer lore. The basic concept of 'saucerism vs. the Air Force' warfare is to print or say anything and as proof of your honesty, dare the Air Force to contradict you."

For whatever reason, those paragraphs were cut from Ruppelt's printed book.

. . .


Bonus:

 Bad Science Fiction


There were a few times The Air Force commented on UFO authors and their books:

Kenneth Arnold
In a July 12, 1947, report the investigator stated:
"It is the personal opinion of the interviewer that… if Mr. Arnold can write a report of the character that he did while not having seen the objects that he claimed he saw, it is the opinion of the interviewer that Mr. Arnold is in the wrong business, that he should be writing Buck Rogers fiction.”

George Adamski
On October 30, 1959, Major Lawrence J. Tacker replied to an inquiry about The Flying Saucers have Landed by George Adamski. Tacker replied:
“Mr. Adamski is a popular science fiction writer, but he has never presented any proof of his claims to the USAF.”

Frank Scully
On June 24, 1965, Col. Eric T de Jonckheere replied to an inquiry about a UFO book:
 “The incident referred to in Frank Scully’s book, “Behind [the] Flying Saucers” is not based in fact. The Air Force has no connection with this alleged incident. The Air Force considers this incident and Mr. Scully‘s book as science fiction.”

Donald Keyhoe
On Aug. 25, 1965, Col. Eric T de Jonckheere suggested this reply to an inquiry:
“The Air Force regards the books by Donald E Keyhoe on flying saucers as science fiction.”



A Lost UFO Film: Attack of the Flying Saucers

  From Fliegende Untertassen to Attack of the Flying Saucers This is a “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” story, one about flying s...