From: Gary Alevy <galevy@pipeline.com>
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1999 00:12:02 -0500
Fwd Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1999 09:33:16 -0500
Subject: The State of Ufology Yesterday


Below are the 14 questions Donald Keyhoe wanted answered by
Edward Ruppelt before a Senate investigation Committee.  The
answers Keyhoe provided are from the record of Ruppelt's written
and public statements.

Is it any wonder Ruppelt never got to testify?

All of this was on the record over 40 years ago.  It certainly
makes one wonder what goal there is in the continued piling up
of sighting reports by individuals and UFO organizations.

Gary Alevy

Below quoted from Donald Keyhoe's "Flying Saucers Top Secret",
1960.

"Ruppelt was already on record, and any variation from his
published statements of fact-because of Air Force pressure -
would certainly backfire.

To estimate the impact of Ruppelt's appearance at a hearing, I
had listed fourteen questions a Congressional committee was
certain to ask him, with the exact answers he had already
stated:

Q. Were you ever told to hide the truth from the public?

A. Yes. I was continually being told to "tell them about the
sighting reports we've solved-don't mention the unknowns." (Page
89, Captain Ruppelt's published 'Report on Unidentified Flying
Objects.")

Q. Do you mean the Air Force policy was to explain away the
sightings, regardless of the facts?

A. After the Air Force order of February 11, 1949, which renamed
the project as "Grudge," everything was evaluated on the premise
that UFOs couldn't exist. No matter what you see or hear, don't
believe it (page 87) .

Q. Does that policy exist now?

A. There have been definite indications that there is a movement
afoot to get Project Blue Book to swing back to the old Project
Grudge philosophy of analyzing UFO reports -to write them all
off, regardless (p. 315), Some good reports have come in and the
Air Force is sitting on them (p. 312).

Q. Have any experienced Air Force investigators opposed this policy?

A. Yes. Some were "purged" because they had refused to change
their original opinions about UFOs (p. 87),

Q. Do you personally consider any UFO reports as serious evidence?

A. Yes. Many reports are made by experienced pilots and radar
operators, scientists, and other people who know what they're
looking at. These reports were thoroughly investigated and
they're still unknowns (p. 3 14).

In a full answer to this question, Ruppelt could cite scores of
unsolved reports he had listed, from official records: detailed
visual, radar and photographic evidence from Service and airline
pilots, White Sands missile trackers, airport-tower operators,
Weather Bureau observers, balloon experts and other technically
trained persons. The photographic evidence would include
gun-camera and other motion-picture films showing UFOs moving at
speeds far beyond any our planes had achieved.
 Q. Did the Air Force ever conclude that the UFOs are real?

A. Yes, in a confidential letter ATIC told the commanding
general of the then Army Air Forces that the "reported phenomena
were real." This letter was sent by ATIC on Sept. 23, 1947. The
only problem that confronted the people at ATIC was, "Were the
UFOs of Russian or interplanetary origin?" (pages 31-32) .

Q. Do you know of any high Air Force officers or Project
scientists who accepted the second explanation?

A. One group in Intelligence circles thought the UFOs were
interplanetary spaceships. They ranged down from generals and
top-grade scientists (p. 84). And "maybe they're
interplanetary"-with the "maybe" bordering on "they are" - was
the personal opinion of several very high-ranking officers in
the Pentagon, so high that their personal opinion was almost
policy (pages 177-8) .

Q. Didn't any of these people attempt to tell the public their
conclusions?

A. There were two factions. One believed the spaceship answer
but felt we should clamp down on information until we had all
the answers. Another group favored giving more facts to the
public, including the best cases, the unsolved movies of UFOs,
and the Air Force conclusions. A press showing of the
"Tremonton"  UFO movie-which the Navy analysts said showed
unknown objects under intelligent control -  was planned early
in '53 (pages 202-3; 286-90; 294; 297).

Q. What happened to this plan?

A. A new publicity policy went into effect -- don't say anything
(p. 315).

Q. Are we to understand that the Air Force has officially -that
is, publicly-explained away UFO sightings which they actually
were seriously investigating?

A. In 1952, the press was led to believe the famous Washington
Airport radar-visual sightings were only weather Phenomena.
Actually, they're still carried as unknowns. The press
conference did take the pressure off Project Blue Book -but
behind the scenes it was only the signal for an all-out drive to
find out more about the UFOs (pages 211-26; 229).

Q. The Air Force insists that its Special Blue Book Re. port 14
is proof that UFOs don't exist. What do you think of this?

A. That report was a shock to me. I was the one that had the IBM
system tried out. It didn't prove a thing, and I had written it
off as worthless before I left the Project. . . . Also, this
report was drawn up in 1953, yet the Air Force released it as
the latest hot dope in October, 1955. (Statement by Captain
Ruppelt to Mr. Max Miller, for Saucers magazine; copy at NICAP,
confirmed by Ruppelt.)

Q. If the "flying saucers" are real, do you personally believe
they could be interplanetary?

A. If they are real there is no other alternative, staggering as
the implications may be. (Statement in True magazine, April,
1954.)

Q. Has there ever been any official conclusion as to what the
UFOs are?

A. In 1948 ATIC sent the Air Force Commanding General an
Estimate of the Situation. It was a black-cover document,
stamped TOP SECRET (p. 62) .

Q. What was the ATIC conclusion?

A. That the UFOs were interplanetary (p. 62). 2  [2 This was
based on the ATIC analysis of unexplainable reports from
scientists, pilots and other trained observers]

Besides these answers, other significant Ruppelt statements were
on record in his letters to me. If he were called by a
Congressional committee, other Air Force officers who knew of
the cover-up were almost sure to be summoned. As long as this
threat to the secrecy existed, attempts to discredit or silence
Ruppelt would continue. So far, they hadn't worked."