The UFO Controversy In America by David M. Jacobs

Author:David M. Jacobs [Jacobs, David M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780253190062
Goodreads: 713136
Published: 2012-03-15T07:16:24+00:00

1 64

The UFO Controversy in A merica

ports and examples of Air Force secrecy and by its letter writing campaign.115

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The Air Force’s public relations problems remained—even though the Office of Information, the Office of Legislative Liaison, and the Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence tried to avert congressional hearings, discredit NICAP

and Keyhoe, and transfer the UFO project. And the sighting

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reports continued to come into A TIC at a steady rate of between 500 and 600 a year. ATIC received 474 reports in 1 962, and this was far from the desired goal of no reports at j

all. Consequently, in 1 962 ATIC made one final effort to

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transfer the UFO program. lis

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Edward R. Trapnell, assistant for public relations to the secretary of the Air Force, had become interested in the UFO program and requested a briefing from Lieutenant Coionel Friend ( recently promoted from major) . At the briefing, Friend and Hynek told Trapnell · about the Robert-

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son panel’s recommendations and the Air Force’s attempts to educate the public by stripping the UFO program of its “aura of mystery” and putting it in “its proper perspective.” Trapnell “was amazed to learn” that UFO reports were, as Friend and Hynek had told him, three times higher in 1 962 than the yearly totals in the 1 947 to 1 9 5 1 period, and he observed that

“this could grow into a lifetime job unless headed off in some manner.“57

Afterward, Trapnell met with the Secretary of the Air Force Zuckert, Dr. Brockway McMillan (head of Air Force research and development) , and Dr. Robert Calkins (president of the Brookings Institution) ; they suggested several transfer plans. The Air Force could transfer the UFO program to an agency such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Science Foundation, or the Smithsonian Institution. Or the Air Force could contract it out to a private group, such as the Brookings Institution, which would operate the program under the auspices of an Air Force scientific complex such as, for example, the Office of Aerospace Research. Or, third, the Air Force could contract the project to a private organization and not keep it under Air Force auspices. The organization could “make positive statements regarding the program. and the Air Force’s handling of it in the past and make recommendations regarding its future, i.e., disban[d] the program completely” or transfer it to NASA or the like. liS

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