38th President

August 9, 1974-January 20,1977

"When I heard about Congressman Ford’s proposal I had to shake my head and laugh. An open hearing would be a circus and I didn’t want any part in it." Lt. Col. Hector Quintanilla, Director of U.S.A.F. Project Blue Book 1963-1969

Prior to becoming President Gerald Ford was a Representative representing Michigan in the U.S. Senate, and also Minority Leader in the Senate. In 1966 Michigan experienced hundreds of UFO sighting. The reports of weird dancing light produced quite a furor. To handle the demands for an explanation the Air Force held a quickly arranged news conference where J. Allen Hynek, an astronomy advisor to Project Blue book, made a statement he would regret the rest of his life. He declared that a sighting made by Frank Mannor on March 16, 1966, in Dexter, Michigan was probably "swamp gas."

The comment made Hynek an instant celebrity. It did not, however, calm the calls for answers to the mystery, or for Hynek’s head. In fact, it made the calls for an investigation louder. One of those who came to the help of the public in their demands for answers from the government was House Republican leader Gerald Ford, who would later become President.

Dexter, the town involved in the sighting declared to be "swamp gas" by Hynek, happened to be in Gerald Ford’s district. Like any good Congressman Ford came to the defense of his constituents.

"In the firm belief that the American public deserves a better explanation than that thus far given by the Air Force, I strongly recommend that there be a committee investigation of the UFO phenomena. I think we owe it to the people to establish credibility regarding UFOs and to produce the greatest possible enlightenment of the subject."

"I have taken special interest in these (UFO) accounts because many of the latest reported sightings have been made in my home state of Michigan...Because I think there may be substance to some of these reports and because I believe The American people are entitled to a more thorough explanation than has been given them by the Air force to date, I am proposing either the Science and Astronautics Committee or the Armed services Committee of the House, schedule hearings on the subject of UFOs and invite testimony from both the executive branch of the Government and some of the persons who claim to have seen UFOs...In the firm belief that the American public deserves a better explanation than that thus far given by the Air Force, I strongly recommend that there be a committee investigation of the UFO phenomena. I think we owe it to the people to establish credibility regarding UFOs and to produce the greatest possible enlightenment on this subject."

Ford’s letter were passed on to the House Armed Services committee and the House Science and Astronautics Committee in hopes that one of the two groups would hold hearings. Neither would do anything to start. One member of the Science and technology Committee explained that as he knew the Air Force didn’t come under his jurisdiction. Ford then asked the committee if flying saucers were under their jurisdiction and received no reply.

The Armed Services Committee on the other hand thought that there might be troubles holding hearing. It had been tried before and never took place.

The House Committee on Foreign Affairs did take up the issue in response to the call for hearing made by Ford. It was not the hearing full hearings that Ford had asked for but it was an airing of the issue in public.

He questions were raised by committee representative Cornelius E. Gallagher who had questions for President Johnson’s Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman General Earle G. Wheeler.

McNamara: Of course we have an interest in it. We treat each of these reports as though it were a report of a sincere individual, and we seek to find the explanation of what it was that led to the report. It is our responsibility to defend the country against potential aggressors. We don’t know what form the aggression might take. We recognize the possibility that it might take a different form than anyone has anticipate in the past. I have complete confidence in the Air Force’s objectivity in this area. If anything the investigations are more extensive than actually required.

Gallagher: Is there anything at all to any of this?

McNamara: I think not. I have talked to the Secretary of the Air Force and the (AF) Director of Research and engineering, and neither of them place any real credence in the reports they have received to date.

Gallagher: People are beginning to attach significance to this.

McNamara: There is no indication that they are anything but illusions.

Gallagher: Including the Michigan reports?

McNamara: Yes, sir.

Gallagher: What about the photographs, Mr. Secretary?

McNamara: The photographs are of natural phenomena that can be explained more readily and more realistically as other than foreign objects. The explanation of the objects photographed in Michigan is an illustration. It was marsh gas that caused a refraction of light and indicated that a physical object was present when it was not. (The official Air Force explanation was that the photos were of Venus. McNamara probably filed to read that AF explanation)

Gallagher: There are witnesses that say that it was something other than marsh gases and the marsh gas theory was on someone who was not there.

McNamara: I am relying on an outside investigator (Hr. Hynek- who was Air Force, not an outsider) with scientific objectivity and some experience in these matters.

Gallagher: Does the Air Force accept this over the so-called witness report?

McNamara: I believe so.

Gallagher: What is your explanation as to this?

McNamara: It varies. The condition of the viewer and the physical circumstances in the environment at the time generally create optical illusions.

Gallagher: There is an allusion that no one wants to think talk about it because they point out the Manhattan Project, things are going on that no one wants to discuss.

McNamara: I think that every report so far has been investigated; and, in every instance we have found a more reasonable explanation then that it represents an object from outer space or a potential threat to our security.

Gallagher then asked General wheeler for his opinion.

Wheeler: As the Secretary said, we have thousands - hundreds, anyway- of these reports over the past years. They have always been investigated very thoroughly. From time to time, when we have had a number of reports of this kind, these incidents have been discussed by the Joint Chiefs. Every time the chief of Staff of the Air force has reported to the other chiefs that there was nothing to the reports.

Gallagher: A lot of us are getting a lot of letters on this type of thing, and we would like to be in a position to say to the secretary of defense categorically denies there is anything in it.

McNamara: We categorically deny it.

The Director of the U.S.A.F. Project Blue Book, Lt. Col. Hector Quintanilla, viewed Ford’s involvement in a different light. He expressed his bitter view of Ford’s action in an unpublished manuscript written prior to Gerald Ford becoming president.

"Congressman Gerald Ford got on the UFO bandwagon. It just so happens that Dexter was in Congressman Ford’s district. It was pure politics and he made the national news by demanding that either the Science and Astronautics Committee or the Armed Services Committee schedule hearings on the subject of UFOs....Congressman Ford did get his wish, a congressional hearing was imminent. Someone should ask Congressman Ford what it cost the American taxpayer to hold that hearing and ask him if he would like to reimburse for the expense; because that hearing was totally unnecessary."

Once Gerald Ford became President following the resignation of Richard Nixon on August 9, 1974, Ford never spoke again about UFOs, until he left office, and then only on one occasion. The commitment to UFOs seemed to be gone.

Why Ford changed is not certain. After all he did raise the NASA budget after years of cutbacks, and did restore the post of Science Advisor to the President. Perhaps I was because he did not have any space role while Vice-President under Nixon, as other Vice-Presidents had performed. Maybe he had become overwhelmed by the post war and economics that he inherited following President Nixon’s resignation.

Ford’s actions as congressman, senator, Vice-President, and President became the subject of a letter written to Ford after he retired. The letter, asking Ford what he had done about the UFO problem during his various government roles, was addressed to him by George Filer, UFO researcher and former Air Force Intelligence officer.

In his response to the letter Ford stated that if the UFO secrets had been given to some Presidents, he was not one of them:

"During my public career in Congress, as Vice President and President, I made various requests for information on UFOs. The official authorities always denied the UFO allegations. As a result I have no information that may be helpful to you."

Ford did not identify who he was referring to by "official authorities" who he claimed to have asked. The reference to "official authorities" is also very strange in that as President, one would assume that Ford would, or should, be the top official authority.

Ford’s comments and actions as a congressman to get an official investigation into UFOs probably didn’t do much to encourage those who might have the official answers to the UFO mystery to be giving them to Bush. Ford’s questions about UFOs prior to becoming president probably made him a poor risk for keeping the "Most highly classified secret" should he be told the truth about the UFO situation.

The same situations may have existed with the heads of the various agencies that Ford appointed. Chances are that if "officials" did not trust President Ford they would have held back critical information from his head of the CIA appointed by Ford.

I believe Congress should thoroughly investigate the rash of reported sightings of unidentified flying objects in Southern Michigan and other parts of the country.

I feel a congressional inquiry would be most worthwhile because the American people are intensely interested in the UFO stories, and some people are alarmed by them.

Air Force investigators have been checking on such reports for years but have come up with nothing very conclusive.

In the light of these new sightings and incidents near Ann Arbor, Michigan, and elsewhere, it would be a very wholesome thing for a committee of the Congress to conduct hearings and to call responsible witnesses from the executive branch of the government and other witnesses who say they have sighted these objects.

I think the American people would feel better if there was a full-blown investigation of these mysterious flying objects, which some persons honestly believe that they have seen.

Press Secretary and Speech File, Ford Congressional Papers 1947-1973 Box D37

Ford News Release Regarding 1966 Michigan UFO Sightings

Congressman Gerald R. Ford
House Republican Leader
News Release
For Release Tuesday, P.M.
March 28, 1966

NOTE TO ALL NEWS MEDIA: House Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford, R-Michigan, today sent the attached letter to the chairman and the ranking Republican members of the House Committee on the Armed Services and Science and Astronautics, urging that one committee or the other investigate the subject of Unidentified Flying Objects. (UFO’s)
Ford is not satisfied with the Air Force explanation of the recent sightings in Michigan and describes the "swamp gas" version given by J. Allen Hynek as "flippant."
Ford has recently received a number of telegrams and letters from individuals anxious to see a congressional investigation of UFO’s.

March 28, 1966

George P. Millar, Chairman Rep. L. Mendel Rivers, Chairman
Science and Astronautics Committee Armed Services Committee
U.S. House of Representatives U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C.

Dear Chairman Millar and Rivers:

No doubt you have noticed the recent flurry of newspaper stories about unidentified flying objects (UFO’s). I have taken special interest in these accounts because many of the latest reported sightings have been in my home state of Michigan.

The Air Force sent a consultant, astrophysicist J. Allen Hynek of Northwestern University, to Michigan to investigate the various reports; and he dismissed all of them as a product of college student pranks or swamp gas or an impression created by the rising crescent moon and the planet Venus. I do not agree that all of these reports can or should be so easily explained away.

Because I think there may be substance to some of the reports and because i believe the American people are entitled to a more thorough explanation that has been given them by the Air Force to date, I am proposing that either the Science and Astronautics Committee or the Armed services Committee of the House schedule hearings on the subjects of UFO’s and invite testimony from both the executive branch of the government and some of the person’s who claim to have see UFO’s.

I enclose material which I think will be helpful to you in assessing the advisability of an investigation of UFO’s.

May I first call your attention to an column by Roscoe Drummand, published last Sunday in which Mr. Drummond says, " Maybe all these reported sightings are whimsical, imaginary or unreal: but we need a more credible and detached appraisal of the evidence we are getting."

Mr. Drummond goes on to state, " We need to get all the data drawn together to one place and examined far more objectively than anyone has done so far. A stable public opinion will come from a trustworthy look at the evidence, and not from belittling it."

"The time has come for the President or Congress to name an objective and respected panel to investigate, appraise, and report on all present and future evidence about what is going on."

I fully agree with Mr. Drummond’s statements. I also suggest that you scan the enclosed articles of six articles by Buckley Griffin of the Griffin-Larrabee News Bureau here. In the last of his articles, published last January, Mr. Griffin says, " A main conclusion can be briefly stated. It is that the Air Force is misleading the public by it’s continuing campaign to produce and maintain belief that all sightings can be explained away as misidentification of familiar objects, such as balloons, stars, and aircraft."

I have today just received a number of telegrams urging a congressional investigation of UFO’s. One is from a retired Air Force Colonel Harold R. Brown, Ardmore, Tennessee, who says, " I have seen a UFO. Will be available to testify."

Another from Mrs. Ethyle M. Davis, Eugene, Oregon, reads, "Nine out of ten people want the truth of UFO’s. Press your investigation to the fullest."

Ronald Colier of Los Angeles, who identifies himself as " a scientist from M.I.T.," urges that you " do everything in your power to make the Air Force Project Blue Book ( The AF name for its study and verdicts on UFO reports) known to the people."

Are we to assume that everyone who says that he has seen UFO’s is an unreliable witness?

A UPI story of of Ann Arbor, Michigan, dated march 21, 1966, states that " at least 40 persons, including 12 policemen, said today that they have seen a strange flying object guarded by four sister ships land in a swamp near here Sunday night."

Matt Surrell of Station WJR, Detroit, cites an eye witness account of a recent UFO sighting near Emile Grenier of Ann Arbor, an aeronautical engineer employed by Ford Motor Company. He points out that an aeronautical engineer can hardly be considered as an untrustworthy witness.

In the firm belief that the American public reserves a better explanation than thus far given by the Air Force, I strongly recommend that there be a committee investigation of the UFO phenomena.

I think we owe it to the people to establish credibility regarding UFO’s and to produce the greatest possible enlightenment on this subject.

Kindest person regards.

Sincerely,

/s/

Gerald R. Ford, M.C.
GRF:plr
Enclosures
UFO Folder 1966, Press Secretary & Speech File 1947-1973 Box D9

Ford Radio Broadcast Regarding 1966 Michigan UFO Sightings
Radio Tape for Fifth district Stations March 30, 1966

My friends of the fifth congressional district, this is your congressman, Jerry Ford, speaking to you from the nation’s capitol.

As you know, I have requested a congressional investigation of unidentified flying objects, UFO’s, as they are called.

I am most serious about this; this is the kind of subject that lens itself to some flak, a little criticism, and a shower of compliments.

One day this week, I felt an unidentified flying object whiz past my ear--my right ear naturally. Upon close inspection, I had no more trouble identifying this particular UFO than the Air Force did in telling the people of Michigan they have been seeing swamp gas.

The UFO I encountered was a brickbat tossed by an irate gentleman who believes Congress could use its time to much better advantage than in investigating what he calls "UFO hysteria."

But this is one of the few criticisms I encountered in the more than 50 letters that I received since first proposing that UFO’s be investigated by either the House Armed Services Committee or the House Science and Astronautics Committee.

Many of the letters I have received are from Michigan — from Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor, Kalamazoo, Lansing, Algonac, Petroskey, Port Huron, Utica, Grosse Pointe, Bay City, and other points.

But there is interest all over the country, and everyone but the weilder of the aforementioned brickbat is urging that I follow up on my proposal that there be a congressional investigation of UFO’s. I fully intend to do so.

A few of the letters are pretty far out — like the one which suggested that UFO’s caused the failure of the Gemini 8 spacecraft, the electric power blackout last year in the East, and the recent Boeing 727 airplane accidents.

This letter writer informed me that planet people are piloting the UFO’s, have superior abilities, have the anti-gravity secret, and fly about in spacecrafts that travel at 50,000 miles an hour or better. He wants a Minute Man alert whenever UFO’s are sighted anywhere in the country.

Another gentleman sent me a copy of a letter he had dispatched to a friend of his in the Central Intelligence Agency.

He wrote, " Well, the Air Force has done it. By its ridiculous ‘solving’ of the UFO’s in Michigan in a day or two, they may have doomed the Air Force. Brilliant, Absolutely brilliant. They ( the planet people) were trying to establish their reality...for it must be done, if they are trying to help us. Now they are angry at being called ‘swamp gas’ and are going on the record that they are going to harass the Air Force just as they have been doing to NASA. Knowing what I do, if I were the Air Force, I would be scared witless. But, of course, who ever heard of marsh gas being dangerous/ To make it clear, The SI’s ( Saucer Intelligences) are now going to teach the Air Force a lesson it will never forget. They are turning their attention to harassment of the Air Force in a big way."

Now, Dr. Hynek and the Air Force may not be disturbed by that letter, but they’d better beware of some astronomers in the nation. A chap in Seattle, wash., says he has absolute proof that the Air Force was dead wrong in describing Michigan pictures of an alleged UFO as " The rising crescent moon and the Planet Venus."

Well, happy landing to the Air Force. And I do think that the American people want a better explanation of UFO’s than they have been getting. If my mail is any indication, there are many, many people who find it extremely difficult to believe some of the stories put out by the government on this and other subjects.

This is your congressman, Jerry Ford, saying--so--long for now, and I’ll see you nest week at this same time, same station.

Jerry Ford Papers, Press Secretary& Speech Files 1948-1973, Weekly Radio reports, Box D35

Congressman Gerald R. Ford
ws ReleaseFor Sunday A.M. Release April 3, 1966

Statement by House Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford, R-Michigan

As I had expected, some persons have been ridiculed by the call for a congressional investigated of unidentified flying objects (UFO’s). These people are a fraction of those who have given their reaction to my proposal. The overwhelming majority of those expressing a view in letters to me believe a congressional investigation would be useful and is needed. 

Those who scoff at the idea of a congressional investigation of UFO’s apparently are unaware that the House Armed services Committee has scheduled a closed- door hearing on the matter Tuesday with the Air Force and that rep. Joseph E. Karth, D-Minn., headed a three man sub-committee which held two days of hush-hush hearings five years ago on behalf of the Science and Astronautics Committee. Karth has confirmed in conversation with a member of my staff that he conducted these secret hearings.

The present Science and Astronautics Committee chairman, Rep. George P. Millar, D. Calif., has shied away from the UFO problem at this time, saying his committee does not have the jurisdiction over the Air Force. But the late Rep. Overton Brooks, D.La., obviously had different ideas because he tapped Karth to summon Air Force witnesses and question them after a flurry of sightings in 1961.

Karth has informed me that his subcommittee made an oral report to the full committee but never released anything to the public. According to Charles F. Ducander, the committee staff director, no record was made of the conversation between Karth subcommittee and the Air Force witnesses. The hearings, he said, took place in Karth’s congressional office.

I have never said that I believe any of the reported UFO sightings indicate visits to earth from another planet. Apart from the pranks and natural phenomena, some of these objects may well be products of experimentation by our own military. If this is so, why doesn’t the Air Force concede it and in this way reassure the American people/ There would be no need to go into detail on the nature of the experiments.

Jerry Ford papers, 1947-1973, Folder UFOs 1966, Press Secretary & Speech File Box D9

Congressman Gerald R. Ford             House Republican Leader                For Release on Thursday, P.M.      April 21, 1966

Statement by House Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford, R-Michigan

The Air Force has informed me it is arranging for a study by high-caliber scientists of some of the UFO sightings which have never been explained.

This study will be placed under contract soon after July 1, start of the new fiscal year. It will be carried out by a university which has no close ties with the Air Force so that the findings will be completely objective, Air Force officials tell me.

Those people engaged in the study will be high-caliber scientists who have never taken a position on UFO’s, the Air Force said. It will be made clear to them that they are not being hired to come up with findings in support of previous Air Force statements regarding UFO’s, I am informed.

The Air Force said there is too much effort involved to ask these scientists to make this study without pay.

The report will definitely be made public, The Air Force assured me. The whole purpose of the study is to make clear the air as far as the public is concerned.

This, of course, was my purpose in recently requesting that public hearings on the subject of UFO’s be conducted by either the Armed Services Committee or the House Science and Astronautics Committee.

It was as a result of my call for a congressional investigation that the Air Force now is arranging for a study of UFO’s by topflight scientists not connected in any way with the Air Force.

I would have preferred a congressional investigation with witnesses to include reliable persons from among those who say they have seen UFO’s. I still think this would be beneficial. But the UFO study by a panel of scientists, with the report to be made public, is a step in the right direction.

Jerry Ford papers, 1947-1973, Folder UFOs 1966, Press Secretary & Speech File Box D9

From the Rense Radio Show November 10, 2003

Allen Hynek had told me a very interesting thing many years ago and he said he simply didn’t know what to make of this particular remark. He found it both intriguing that he could consider it a blowhard kind of remark.

At any rate he somehow had gotten to know Donald Rumsfeld, and I know at one time was a congressman. I don’t know if he was Allen Hynek’s congressman. I’m not sure but Allen said that at some point when Rumsfeld was Secretary of Defense under Gerald Ford so this would be in the seventies. He went to Washington. Allen was on a visit, and he got an appointment with Rumsfeld. He had been for many many years a consultant for the Air Force on UFOs phenomena. He actually knew Rumsfeld. He said that they chatted about this and that in Rumsfeld’s office and then he said. "I turned to him and I said, Don I have to ask you something. I have been in this for years looking at the UFO phenomena. I feel like at this point in my life I am in a position of "need to know" what you know or what some agency might know that I don’t know. I have a ‘need to know’ I feel."

He said that Rumsfeld stood up and pointed a finger at him and said, "You have no ‘need to know’ and then sat down again. That was the end of it.

This is what Allen said to me, and mind you this was a first hand story. This is what he was telling me one day while we were having a drink. He said, "Bud I have two ways of interpreting that."

"The first is what seemed to be the case that he did know something about it and that if I was going to be informed about it that I have no ‘Need to know’ about it. It was a very firm thing."

"On the other hand I got the idea that he perhaps didn’t know either and felt that he should know and that this was a kind of blustering thing."

Of course we do have a man who blusters, as we know from his present day role. So, he said, "I never knew how to take it."

I said did you ever decide what you thought and he said, "No, I vacillated between two different interpretations." I find it very interesting that the scientific consultant on UFO phenomena – after his tenure was told this by the Secretary of Defense.

For this brilliant remark to a press briefing Donald Rumsfeld was awarded the "Foot in Mouth" Prize by the Plain English Campaign.

Below is a letter from Gerald Ford written to George Filer who was a former intelligence officer for the Air Force. It clearly seems to indicate that the President may not know what is going on. If this is the case it would mean that either 1) There is nothing to the UFO mystery beyond misidentifications of natural phenomena as the Air Force has maintained for years 2) Someone other than the President is running the UFO situation and possibly the country as well.

There are other comments made by President Bill Clinton that seem to support what Ford said to George Filer in the letter. In a chance encounter with UFO researcher Dr. Steven Greer the President answered about his UFO knowledge.

“President kind of chuckled about it in a sense....” Greer told radio show Coast to Coast. “The President said even he didn’t have the background on it. That he couldn’t get this information out...that there were people beyond him.”[i]

In an encounter with long time White House reporter Sarah McClendon President Clinton made a similar statement, “Sarah, there’s a government inside the government, and I don’t control it.”[ii]

Lastly in a speech in Hong Kong in 1995 Clinton seemed to clearly state to the audience that he had tried to get the UFO information but had been stymied. “I did attempt to find out if there were any secret government documents that revealed things. If there were, they were concealed from me too. And if there were, well I wouldn’t be the first American president that underlings have lied to, or that career bureaucrats have waited out.”[iii]

Despite this there is still a chance that the President is in control and does know what is going on. After all no President is going to come out a reveal secret classified material especially if it involves Top Secret black budget technology.

This notion is supported by the fact that a friend of mine (who I trust implicitly) actually had a short conversation with Gerald Ford. In that conversation Ford confirmed that he had received a briefing on the subject, but that he would never acknowledge publicly that he had received it.

Another source that I have much less faith in told me the Ford briefing took place on August 2, 1973 in one of the War Rooms.

Let us hope the President is told, because if he is not told about this subject, there is a good chance that there is a lot more he is not being told by those who would ultimately be running the country.

[i] Steven Greer on radio show Coast to Coast

[ii] ibid

[iii] Lara Wozniak “Clinton’s Worldview: Part Two, September 14, 2005