36th President

November 22, 1963 - January 20, 1969

NICAP has been informed by a high-level Government source that very important UFO information is classified ABOVE “Top Secret.” According to this unimpeachable Source, this information is unavailable even to top ranking officers and officials who do not have a high priority “Need To Know.”

The UFO Investigator, published by the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena - June-September 1963

You know this was a damn mistake back then (around the time he was running for President) the way this was managed, and it’s a damn mistake now. And it’s time for this nonsense to stop.

1964 Republican Presidential Candidate Barry Goldwater speaking late in his life of the Secret government UFO program in the early years

The new adventures in space that lie ahead with bring with them excitement and new accomplishments as great as anything we have witnessed in the epic period just past, when we proved ourselves once more to be the sons of pioneers who tamed a broad continent and built the mightiest nation in the history of the world.

President Johnson writing in his memoirs

Of all the presidents, no president had a longer and more sustained interest in space than did Lyndon Johnson. His interest began as a Senator as he watched Sputnik 1 fly over on the day of its launch, as he stood along the banks of the Pedernales River that ran through his ranch.

Johnson clearly understood the importance of controlling technology involving outer space in light of the Sputnik launch. On January 7, 1958, as Senate Majority Leader, Johnson made a key political speech on the subject.

First, it is obvious that the Soviet valuation on the significance of control in outer space has exceeded that of our officials.

The sputniks now orbiting the earth are not military weapons, but have military potential.

Control of space means control of the world, far more certainly, far more totally than any control that has ever or could ever be achieved by weapons, or by troops of occupation.

The race we are in- or which we must enter- is not the race to perfect long-range ballistic missiles. There is something more important than any ultimate weapon. That is the ultimate position- the position of total control over earth lies somewhere out in space.

This is the future, the distant future, though not so distant as we may have thought. Whoever gains that ultimate position gains control, total control, over the earth for purposes of tyranny or for the service of freedom.[i]

While a Majority leader in the Senate Johnson sat on three space committees

• The Investigating Subcommittee of the Committee on the Armed Services.
• The Special Committee on Space and Astronautics.
• The Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences.

Once he became the vice-president, Kennedy appointed him as the first vice-president chairman of the National Aeronautics and Space Council. This appointment came at a critical time for the space program in the race to put a man on the moon. The first rockets had just been launched, and now there was a race to the moon.

President Nixon ended up being the president in office when man finally walked on the moon. He was able to bring the Apollo astronauts to the White House for the important public relations spin-offs. Kennedy was the President who got credit for the decision to go to the moon. Johnson, on the other had, was written up as the president of the most unsuccessful war in American history.

Even though Kennedy and Nixon got all the credit for the moon landing, there is no doubt, however, that Johnson as vice-president and then president was the essential White House force in putting a man on the moon. For a good portion on the sixties NASA was the “number one government agency.” Today it wouldn’t even be in the top ten.

Johnson as Congressman

Prior to becoming President Lyndon Johnson was a proponent of getting the true UFO story out to the public. At least that was the image he put out into the public. This would have put him in a position where the “officials” controlling the UFO secret would have great reservations about telling him the UFO secrets once he became president, lest he tell someone else.

Johnson as President

Based on the available UFO documents that have been made public it would appear that the Kennedy administration was cut of out any involvement in the management of the UFO problem. This would mean Johnson probably didn’t have much more involvement with his follow-up Democratic administration. After all most of the Kennedy people were held over by the Johnson administration. It was basically the same administration with a different figurehead.

Take for example, the actions of Johnson’s vice-president Hubert Humphrey, on the UFO situation. He received a letter from a NICAP questioning statements being made by Project Blue Book. Vice-president Humphrey queried the Air Force on the citizen’s behalf, and received a letter back from the Air Force stating incorrectly “that no UFO reports remained unsolved.” Humphrey, not knowing the difference, simply forwarded the letter to the citizen thinking the query had been handled.

Another strike working against Johnson once he became president there was only 15 months till the next election making him a lame-duck president. Further, Johnson was handcuffed with the war in Vietnam, which limited his ability to deal with such esoteric items such as UFOs.

Congressional Hearings

The Johnson presidency was a time when there was a great deal of pressure being exerted on Congress to hold congressional hearing on UFOs. One set of brief hearings was actually held. There were a great number of UFOs being sighted and reported to the press. The public Project Blue Book people were being inundated with mail.

In 1967 and 1968, for example, they sent out 40,000 Project Blue Book Booklets to citizens writing to report sightings, or ask for an explanation. The few members in the Blue Book office were handling an average of 1,500 UFO letters a month.

Col. Hector Quintanilla, who headed the U.S.A.F. Project Blue Book in the late sixties, was personally receiving 30 letters that he had to personally answer from congressmen and American citizens. He spoke of the pressure being placed on the Air Force during the Johnson years.

The pressure was on Congress and every week I’d hear rumblings and rumors that a congressional investigation was imminent. Most of these rumors were circulated by NICAP members, but they were taking their toll. My staff was overworked and I was near a nervous breakdown from worrying about the politics of the program.[ii]

The heavy influx of mail began in 1964 shortly after the Socorro sighting.[iii] An internal Air Force memo stated that inquiries into the dramatic New Mexico sighting included an inquiry from congressmen and President Johnson office, even though there is no record of such an inquiry in the Johnson files.[iv]

Quintanilla however blamed Major Donald Keyhoe for hyping the Sorocco case, and for the influx of mail that arrived in his office and in the office of the President.

Keyhoe decided to dislike the Air Force and he has been on their back ever since. He has used his organization to harass the Air Force, the Congress, Blue Book, and SAFOI...In 1964, after the Sorocco sighting they began a drive for a congressional hearing.[v]

The Keyhoe planned to create public call for a congressional investigation. In 1964 Keyhoe approached both the Committee on Science and Astronautics, and the House Armed Services Committee. President Johnson had sat on both prior to becoming vice-president. Both committees turned Keyhoe and NICAP down. Carl Vinson, the chairman of the Armed services Committee wrote:

In view of the continued and thorough investigation made by the Department of the Air Force of all reliable reports of Unidentified Flying Objects, I believe that the matter is adequately being studied by the Department and there is no reason for a congressional investigation of this matter.[vi]

Meetings On Alien Intelligence

In 1964, according to the CIA, high-level meetings occurred in the White House “on what to do if an alien intelligence was discovered in space, and there was a new outbreak of reports and sightings” The meetings may have been initiated by the Socorro sighting which generated massive media coverage. It is not known yet what level of participation Johnson had in the discussion.

In support of these discussions the CIA was called in. Johnson’s DCI John McCone “asked for an updated evaluation of UFOs.” Richard Hall, acting director at NICAP, was approached to provide samples from the NICAP database. Hall was given a direct phone line to an agent inside the CIA. As researchers Barry Greenwood and Lawrence Fawcett later wrote the CIA action to gather UFO sightings showed “an inordinate amount of interest in (NICAP), considering the CIA’s function is foreign intelligence.” Furthermore, the CIA had long maintained its only involvement in UFO research was the 1953 Robertson panel.

Later in the 1980s Hall filed a FOIA to obtain the documents related to his CIA involvement. He was given some of the documents, but was denied the paper trail, and some of the material related to a background check that the CIA had performed on him.

The Hot Line

One of the stories that surround President Johnson is that he took a call on the hot line at the time of the Kecksburg UFO crash in Kecksburg, Pennsylvania on December 9, 1965. At the time of the crash Johnson was at his ranch in Texas on a working vacation.

Records of the president’s daily activity do not show any direct call coming in at the time of the crash that would indicate he had been immediately notified. The hot line was never mentioned, and records of the hot line show no call to the president outside the standard political situations in Washington. In fact, presidential official records show that the ‘hot line” was installed on August 8, 1963, but it was not used (other than testing) until the June 1967 Middle East crisis. Furthermore, the U.S. terminal had Fax/Teletype capabilities, but no voice capabilities.

The only thing that might indicate some involvement related to the crash by Johnson was the appearance the next morning at the ranch by the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff, and nine cabinet secretaries. There was no indication of what was discussed except the 1966 military budget and Vietnam.

The hotline was a direct phone connection that was installed between Washington and Moscow. It has always been a rumor in the UFO community that one of the reasons it was put in was to protect both sides in the cold war from misinterpreting a UFO for an incoming missile from the other side, and starting a nuclear war.

Major Donald Keyhoe, in his UFO writing indicated that the threat of misinterpreting UFOs for missiles was a real threat that had already occurred during the Eisenhower Administration.

“In 1958, the Air Force admitted that Strategic Air Command bombers more than once had been launched against Russia when defense radar tracked mysterious objects in seeming formation which never have been identified. The errors were caught...the admission was given to the president of United Press, Frank Bartholomew, after a top-level conference at SAC headquarters. It was cleared by the AF, at the Pentagon. The original purpose was to inform the Soviets, through the approved UP statements, that we had a powerful Early warning system that would detect any sign of an attack and cause quick retaliation. Why the disclosure about UFOs was included has never been explained.”[vii]

The development of submarine launched missiles in the late 1950's and early 60's increased the threat of radar detected UFO’s. A submarine could launch a missile from just off the American coast, or anywhere for that matter, which meant any UFO that appeared from anywhere could be mistaken as a Soviet nuclear missile. This particular problem was even raised with Dr. Condon who was doing a study of UFOs for the Air Force. He rejected the threat stating that this was strictly a Defense Department problem.

President Lyndon Johnson had also openly discussed the problem of the American Early Warning system picking up an unknown object that might lead to war. “The western allies,” he stated, “Must be prepared for every possibility - deliberate or accidental.”[viii]

Senator Lyndon Johnson was given NICAP’s confidential report. He sent it to the Senate Preparedness Subcommittee.[ix]

New York City Blackout

When the blackout occurred in New York City, President Johnson was immediately contacted at his Texas ranch known as the “Texas White House.” To prevent panic the President told the Office of Emergency Planning not to declare a national emergency. Instead Johnson took personal control over the situation. He received reports every five minutes throughout the night.[x]

“During the night, President Johnson had ordered a full investigation by Federal Power Commission. At AF headquarters it was expected that the FPC would concentrate on the technical problem, but several early newspapers spot-lighted the UFO angle, revealing that unknown flying objects had been sighted before and after the blackout.”[xi]

The University of Colorado-Condon Committee Report on UFOs

In October 1967, under heavy pressure for another Congressional Investigation into UFOs, the United States Air Force was able to move the debate about what to do about UFOs, by awarding a $500,000 reevaluation of Project Blue Book by the University of Colorado. Physicist Dr. Edward Condon was selected to head up a balanced scientific appraisal of the UFO problem.

The choice of Condon did not bode well for the objective character of the investigation. Some felt that Condon owed the government one because of his having been targeted as one of “an enormous Soviet spy ring in Washington.” Even though Condon had managed to get his security clearance back following all the investigations and allegations, he was still not trusted by some top government officials such as J. Edgar Hoover who referred to Condon as “nothing more or less than an espionage agent in disguise.”[xii]

As Condon began his investigation leaked particulars of certain cases that indicated the analysis would not be objective, and would in fact center on the “wacko” side of the UFO field. When one of these reports reached the FBI, it was apparent Hoover had not changed his impression of Dr. Condon. Condon wrote at the bottom of one report from Condon, “Condon is a publicity hound.”

A letter sent to President Johnson seemed to enforce Hoover’s impression of Hoover as a publicity hound. Just prior to the awarding of the UFO contract to the University of Colorado, President Johnson had sent Condon an autographed photo taken at the White House on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the signing of the Atomic Energy Act.

For Dr. Condon the photo itself was not enough. As well as now heading up the USAF UFO review he was running for election to the Board of regents at the University. Condon wrote to Juanita D. Roberts, the Personal Secretary to the President asking Juanita to see what she could do about getting specially autographed photo that he could use in his election campaign at the University of Colorado.

“As the Chief well knows it would be very valuable to me to have a print of the same picture that was autographed by him. Would it be too much of an imposition to ask to have another print made, and then, some day, when he has nothing more important to do for a few seconds, for you to slip it in front of him when he has a pen in hand and have him write something like, “With best wishes to Dr. Condon, from Lyndon” or whatever he chooses to write in similar vein? I ought to get it, of course, well before November 8. [xiii]

In addition to the signed letter Dr. Condon stated that in a couple weeks he would be awarded the USAF contract for the UFO review. He asked if President Johnson would be willing to make an announcement to that effect in a news conference.

The Condon letter was bounced around the White House until October 13 the day before the USAF announcement about the UFO study. Paul Popple, Assistant to the President, wrote the president’s secretary back and stated that he did not know about the USAF plan, and that “it would not have been advisable to release this from the White House, in any case.”

As to the special photo from the President to help Dr. Condon in his election campaign Popple wrote, “The attached file is self-explanatory. I see nothing more to be done now except send the whole works to Central Files and forget it.”[xiv]

Once the Condon investigation began, Condon ran into more trouble that indicated objectivity would be lacking in the conclusion. A memo from Condon’s assistant Robert Low was leaked. It read, “The trick would be, I think, to describe the project so that, to the public, it would appear a totally objective study but, to the scientific community, would present the image of a group of non-believers trying their best to be objective but having an almost zero expectation of finding a saucer.”

This disclosure led Major Donald Keyhoe, Director of the National Investigations Committee for Aerial Phenomena to write to President Johnson protesting the government support of such a white wash. He urged Johnson to ‘create a new, impartial organization, free from any military or other government agency.” Keyhoe further suggested that the new investigation report directly to Johnson and that the secrecy be ended.

Unfortunately President Johnson never saw Keyhoe’s letter, as it was redirected to the Secretary of Defense. The reply came from Col. B.M. Ettenson, in the AF Secretary’s office, who claimed he was answering the letter on Johnson’s behalf. Colonel Ettenson wrote:

The Air force awarded the unidentified flying object contract... convinced that an impartial, open-minded, independent and objective scientific report would be forthcoming and we expect Dr. Condon will fulfill the terms of the agreement.[xv]

Keyhoe assumed based on past events that Johnson was an honest man who would come to the rescue and cancel what he termed the “Colorado Fiasco.” After all, the head of the U.S. information Agency, and a close friend of both the president and first lady, Leonard Marks, had told Keyhoe in 1965 “considerably more scientific research on UFOs is already in progress than the public generally realizes.”[xvi]

While he was a Senator and vice-presidential candidate in 1960, Johnson had written Keyhoe that “the staff of the Preparedness Investigating Subcommittee (which Johnson headed) is keeping a close watch over new developments in this field, with standing instructions to report to me any recent significant sightings of unidentified flying objects along with an analysis of the conduct of the Air Force investigation of each sighting.”[xvii]

As Johnson had promised to watch “the conduct of the Air Force investigation of each sighting,” Keyhoe assumed this would be an open and shut case for Air force misdeeds.

The problem with Keyhoe’s plan was that the letter to Johnson was like most sent to the White House, read by a staffer who then transferred the letter to the Defense Department. The letter got nowhere near Johnson for his action.

President Johnson Answers his Mail

Like Presidents before and after Johnson, the president received many letters written by citizens expressing their views on UFOs, or asking questions. Like Presidents before him President Johnson never personally answered any mail on the topic of UFOs.

During six months, October 1966 through March 1967, Johnson received 123 letters dealing with UFOs. As with other White Houses, very few of these letters were actually answered by the White House. The letters to the President were usually sent to the Defense Department for handling where Col. Hector Quintanilla and his staff replied.

On the few times when the White House answered the letters, Paul Popple, a special assistance to the President, handled them. The White House replies were basically non-committal, but never negative in tone.

Johnson did, however, answer a UFO letter while Vice-President. This may be significant in the fact that there has always been a rumor that John Kennedy, once he became President, supposedly put Johnson as head of the UFO program.[xviii]

[i] Salkeld, Robert, “War &Space” Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, Prentice Hall 1970, p.135

[ii] Quintanilla, Lt. Col. Hector “UFOs - A $20,000,000 Fiasco” (unpublished 1975- reproduced on the web site of National Institute for Discovery Science 2001) p.47-48

[iii] On April 24, 1964 a New Mexico policeman, Lonnie Zamora, witnessed the landing of an object in Socorro, New Mexico. Behind the object Zamora saw two people, just before the object took off. Left behind was smoldering bushes and landing imprints in the soil. The FBI investigated the sighting within days, and Air Force Blue Book Director Quintanilla declared the case to be the “best documented case in Air Force files.” Inquiries from the media and public was so great the Air Force released a public statement declaring that they were working on the incident and the investigation was continuing. It remained unidentified in Air Force files.

[iv] Emenegger, Robert. “UFO's: Past, Present and Future” New York: Ballantine Books, 1974 p.70.

[v] Quintanilla, Lt. Col. Hector “UFOs - A $20,000,000 Fiasco” (unpublished 1975- reproduced on the web site of National Institute for Discovery Science 2001) p.47

[vi] ibid.

[vii] Keyhoe 1973 p.140

[viii] ibid.

[ix] Keyhoe 1973 p.140

[x] Keyhoe 1973 p.209

[xi] Keyhoe 1973 p.211

[xii] Redfern, Nicholas, “The FBI Files”, p.141

[xiii] Letter – Edward Condon to Juanita D. Roberts, September 20, 1966

[xiv] Memo – Paul Popple to Juanita Roberts, November 4, 1996

[xv] Keyhoe, Donald, “Aliens from Space” 1973 p. 178.

[xvi] “UFO Investigator” November/December 1965 p.6

[xvii] “UFO Investigator” July/August 1960 p.1

[xviii] Letter from Armen Victorian to author dated July 16, 1991

Like Presidents before and after Johnson, the president received many letters written by citizens expressing their views on UFOs, or asking questions. Like Presidents before him President Johnson never personally answered any mail on the topic of UFOs.

During six months, October 1966 through March 1967, Johnson received 123 letters dealing with UFOs.

Very few of these letters were actually answered by the White House. The letters to the President were usually sent to the Defense Department for handling where Col. Hector Quintanilla and his staff replied. On the few times when the letter was answered by the White House they were handled by Paul Popple, an Assistance to the President. The White House replies were basically non-committal, but never negative in tone.

Johnson did, however, answer a UFO letter while Vice-President. This may be significant as the facts become known as there has always been a rumor that John Kennedy, once he became President, had supposedly made Johnson the head of the UFO program.

A new, Vice-President Johnson, UFO letter has surfaced. This is one of a couple rare White House UFO letters in existence.

The September 21, 1961 letter was addressed to Canadian UFO researcher Ronald Anstee. Anstee, who told me years back about the letter, lent the original to someone in Europe and never got it back.

Anstee felt that one of the photos taken by UFO contactee George Adamski showed being looking out the window, and that this evidence is something that the Vice President should look at.

Asked about this claim, Adamski researcher C.A.Honey told me in a November 27, 2002 E-mail,

"His second book published in New York had a couple of the cigar shaped pictures that show white blobs in the portholes. While Adamski said one was him looking out the porthole it is impossible to identify the photo as showing a human or anyone else looking out the porthole.. .I feel it is more than likely that the photos are not genuine. If, however, they are genuine, it is impossible to prove it. Sorry."

The Johnson library provided a copy of the Vice President's letter to me from their files.  One more Vice President Johnson letter may have been found and will be posted when confirmed. It like the first letter deals with flying saucer contactee George Adamski.

Latest Vice President Lyndon Johnson UFO Letter

The third UFO letter was very short. It was written by Vice President Johnson to Leon Davidson, a prominent UFO investigator in the late 1950s.

It can be seen at: www.presidentialufo.com/johnson_pictures.htm

Researcher Leon Davidson is probably most famous for helping to expose the CIA as they tried to recover an "alien message" by impersonating Air Force officers.

The case was even written up in the CIA paper "A Die-Hard Issue: CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90." This appeared in

Studies in Intelligence Vol. 01 No.1, 1997

I have written up a review of the Maier case at

www.presidentialufo.com/maier_sisters.htm

The Johnson library told me that they do not have the October 8, 1961 Davidson letter. I would appreciate hearing from anyone who knows what happened to Davidson's files.

Another letter still being sought from Johnson's files is one where Johnson replies to a letter talking about a story dealing with the George Adamski Saturnian spacecraft.

In the letter Vice President Johnson says,

"Thank you for your letter of October 11, 1962. My reply to your enquiries about a Saturnian spacecraft landing on a U.S. airbase is simply that there is no factual basis for such a report. There is, however, no law which prevents such imaginative ideas being reported. The alternative would be a type of censorship over freedom of speech and expression which would do more harm than good."

At this point we don't know who the author is, which is preventing the recovery of the letter.

Johnson, however, signed the bill reluctantly. According to his then Press Secretary Bill Moyers, "He dug in his heels and even threatened to pocket veto the bill after it reached the White House." The bill had not been a presidential initiative but rather a bill that had come out of congress. The chief catalyst behind the Act was US Rep. John Moss (D-CA). Moss was a leading consumer advocate, who had begun his crusade of investigations, reports and hearings on government information policy in 1955."

"This legislation springs from one of our most essential principles: a democracy works best when the people have all the information that the security of the nation permits."

"I have always believed that the freedom of information is so vital that only the national security, not the desire of public officials or private citizens, should determine when it must be restricted."

"I am hopeful that the needs I have mentioned can be served by a constructive approach to the wording and spirit and legislative history of this measure. I am instructing every official in this administration to cooperate to this end and make information available to the full extent consistent with individual privacy and with the national interest. I signed this measure with a deep sense of pride that the United States is an open society in which people's right to know is cherished and guarded."

Not much happened in terms of UFO documents getting released following the creation of the FOIA. The vast majority of UFO documents were released during the Carter administration which profited from the 1974 amendments inspired by the events of Watergate.

Eventually the UFO types became the biggest group using the FOIA. Michael R. Lemov a Washington attorney a former staffer for Moss "I don't think this was something that was contemplated in the legislation, although it certainly wasn't excluded. I must say it wouldn't have been one of the priorities."

President Johnson's Press Secretary Bill Moyers was involved with the 1966 FOIA Act. He has taken a strong position against the recent Bush moves towards secrecy. (See transcript)

During an April 2003 visit to the Lyndon Johnson library in Austin Texas; I spent a week looking at the possible White House UFO connection to the 1965 power blackout in the northeast, and the role of the Johnson White House in the crash of an object in Kecksburg, Pennsylvania. I knew the Kecksburg search would be the most important item to find in the 44 million pages of Johnson White House files, if it was there.

Based on information supplied by Kecksburg UFO crash expert Stan Gordon and journalist/researcher Leslie Kean I was looking for information that would support stories, showing the attendance of such groups as NASA (now being sued by the Coalition for Freedom of Information for their Kecksburg records), NORAD, army, air force, and the Office of Emergency Planning at the crash site.

My library research involved checking the movements of the president and key White House officials during the day of the rumored UFO recovery, and in the days just after.

The Kecksburg crash occurred around dinnertime on Thursday December 9, 1965. At the time of crash President Johnson was at his White House ranch outside of Austin, Texas. There was no significant call recorded at the time of the crash. In fact, at the time of the impact in Pennsylvania the president was taking his afternoon nap.

Even though Johnson spent a great deal of time at the ranch, it did not cut him off from important events that might be occurring around the world. He was almost as connected to the key government agencies as when in the Oval office.

Even starting as a congressman Johnson had begun to create a communications network unparalleled by many before or after. As a heavy user of the phone to conduct his political affairs, records show that by 1964 Johnson had over 120 phones at the ranch. With this came a staff of aides and White House personnel.

The ranch included secure coded transmission facilities, a communications switchboard, and a cryptographic section. A telephone communications center and three microwave towers were erected providing 120 channels to Austin, and a fifty-thousand-kilowatt emergency generator was diverted from it’s intended use at the 1964 World’s Fair provided backup.

The White House records of December 9th did not show anything significant to tie Johnson into the Kecksburg crash, like it had for the NYC blackout the month before.

The morning after the crash, however, showed some interesting appearances at the Johnson ranch. The names had direct connections to the groups reported at the Kecksburg crash. These included:

James Webb, Director of NASA. On the day after the crash Webb left Washington at 7:15am and landed at the ranch at 9:50 the morning. Webb is important because Stan Gordon’s research indicated that a "NASA representative was sent to the site of the crash and interviewed some witnesses about the incident. " Men in white protective suits with NASA patches were also reported at the crash scene.

These strong indications of a NASA role in the Kecksburg recovery fly in the face of the Johnson White House NASA Records at the Johnson Library. They show no direct indication of a crash at Kecksburg, or any NASA involvement.

Furthermore, the records failed to even show any knowledge of the Soviet space probe Cosmos 96, which was proposed by some as the cause of all the recovery commotion at Kecksburg.

The NASA reports to the President do not even show the fact that the Venus 4 (immediately reclassified as Cosmos 96 once it exploded in its orbital holding position) had failed to launch, or that it had reentered the atmosphere. The only thing of interest, in NASA reports to the President in this December 1965 period, was a NASA report to the President mentioning at one point that there might be life on the moon.

Further support that NASA might have been involved came from an April 1995 letter that Stan Gordon received a reply from NASA. It indicated that "NASA Fragology Files consisting of reports of space objects recovery, analysis of fragments to determine national ownership and vehicle origin" for the years 1962 to 1967 were still at the Federal Records center.

These records would have been important, as they would have documented any items recovered at the crash site. They would have been connected to the Project Moondust quick recovery teams, which dealt with the recovery of "US space objects or objects of unknown origin." NASA was involved in finding and examining many cases in State Department Moondust files.

Records showed that the AFCIN intelligence teams supporting Moondust operations to recover space objects traveled in teams of three. The USAF Bluebook file on the Kecksburg incident states that a three-man Air Force team had been sent from Oakdale PA, 58 miles away, to recover whatever had come down at Kecksburg.

James Webb had always had an interest in Aviation. He gained his pilot’s license in the 1930s and was good friends with another weekend flier, rumored MJ-12 member Lloyd Berkner, who was also a weekend flier.

Strangely, the Kecksburg incident was not the first time Webb had met with the President following a rumored UFO crash. Webb also met with the President the two days following the July 8, 1947 Roswell press story of the recovery of a flying disk.

This post-Roswell meeting might have been related to other matters, but the record shows clearly that Webb was involved in aviation matters for the Truman administration. On July 2, 1947, for example William C. Foster, Under Secretary of Commerce was making a report to the President on Aviation and asked that Mr. Webb be attend the Cabinet group meeting.

Webb was also appeared to have been involved in a December 6, 1950 UFO air alert. Canadian early warning radar picked up UFOs (40 aircraft in flight at 32,000 feet near Limestone, Maine) according to a memo written in the afternoon by AF Col. Charles Winkle. . This story may also have involved a UFO crash on the same day along the U.S. Mexican border. 

Joint Chiefs of Staff The morning after the Kecksburg crash all members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff flew into the ranch. If the Kecksburg event had involved a UFO crash there is little doubt that the Joint chiefs would have known, because both the Army and Air Force were reported at the crash site. Moreover, the head of the Special facilities Division appeared to be involved in the recovery, and their key reporting contact was the Joint Chiefs of Staff Command Center.

Although the president’s schedule for December 10 stated that the Joint Chiefs were there for a budget meeting on the Vietnam War, it would not have taken much for President Johnson to get the chiefs by themselves for a report on the events at Kecksburg. The Joint Chiefs and the President, for example traveled around in his limousine from 12:51 pm to 1:05 pm.

William Scranton The Governor of Pennsylvania showed up in the afternoon. Scranton was one of a number of governors who came to the ranch on December 10, so his arrival was probably coincidental. Reports from the Kecksburg crash site gave reports of the Pennsylvania State Police were key players in the recovery operation. It would have been interesting to know if Johnson called Scranton aside to talk about the event.

The correspondence between the two men was checked at the library and no connection was found. There was also no known contact between the two men on the night of the crash or at any time in the days following the crash.

Dr. Donald Hornig, Director of the Office of Science and Technology and LBJ's science advisor. Was familiar with UFOs, and received a two hour UFO briefing from Dr. James McDonald on June 29, 1966. Hornig met with the President, Charles Schultze (who maintained going to the moon "nothing but a big show) and James Webb while Johnson rested in his room from 2:15 to 3:00 pm.

Johnson Returns to White House

On Sunday night, three days after the crash President Johnson arrived back at the White House. The next afternoon, Johnson met off the record for almost 30 minutes with Buford Ellington. Ellington was the head of the Office of Emergency Planning, is inside the Executive Office of the President. This was one of the groups that appeared to have been involved in the Kecksburg crash.

One of the key people under Buford Ellington was USAF Col. J. Leo Bourassa. He headed up the "Special Facilities Division" within the Office of Emergency Planning.

His name appeared in the Blue Book file dealing with the Kecksburg crash. The USAF file stated,

(Time) "2323 – Mr. J.L. Bourassa, Chief, Special Facilities Division, OEP, code Blue Grass, called and advised that Mr. _______________had called him and advised him with this info. My man __________ has been given 2 pieces of aluminum type material near Lapier, Mich. Area. Mr. ______ was trying to be wary of a hoax. Mr. ___________ would like to be informed of the latest developments.

(Time 23:40) As a result of this call from Mr. Bourassa I called Mr. ______ to obtain a first hand account of what he thinks he has. The three pieces are to be brought to him in the morning by Mr. ______. He asked if we minded if he kept one piece to a spectral analysis on it. I said go right ahead but send the other two. The pieces were reported as not being very charred; however, the other people finding these "pieces" said they showered from the sky and are spread over a wide area. Mr. _____ said the sighting of the fireball was approximately 200 nm north of Flint Michigan.

While at the Johnson library I was looking for files on Bourassa and on the "Special facilities Division" to see how it fit into the Kecksburg crash. What I learned about Bourassa while at the library is that he, and the organization that he ran, had also been heavily involved in the 1965 blackout of New York City. Like the Kecksburg crash, the New York City power outage had a strong tie to UFOs. (See complete story)

It was not until I got home from the Johnson Library that I figured out exactly who J. Leo Bourassa was, and why this might be significant to his involvement in the Kecksburg crash.

Bourassa was a USAF colonel whose main claim to fame prior to the Kecksburg crash was that he claimed to have been the intelligence officer who handed President Eisenhower the note in 1959 stating that CIA U-2 pilot Gary Powers had been shot down over the U.S.S.R. The note reported that Powers was still alive, and being held by the Soviets. 

At the time of the Kecksburg crash in 1965, Bourassa had moved up and was now in command of Mount Weather. It was his job as President Eisenhower had told him "to save our government."

Mount Weather, also known as "high Point," is an underground facility that was so secret it was not discovered by the press until On December 1, 1974, when a TWA Boeing 727 jet crashed into the fog-draped mountain.

The facility is a 200,000 sq. foot nuclear attack proof bunker 48 miles outside of Washington D.C. It is the place where the president and top government leaders such as cabinet members and Supreme Court judges will be taken in case of nuclear attack.

Mount weather represents the key building block in the present "black" continuity-of-government operational plan. It serves as the place where the government will continue to operate in a nuclear war situation. In fact, on September 11 when the Trade Towers were hit, the top 15 government leaders were rounded up by the secret service and taken there, while Cheney directed things in the President’s Emergency Management Center bunker under the East Wing of the White House.

Bourassa, who at Mount Weather had instant access to the Joint Chiefs of Staff Command center, all the military services, fire departments, NORAD, and other key agencies, was involved in the Kecksburg recovery and may actually have been directing the proper units to the site behind the scenes.

Aerial photographs of Mount Weather show the presidential heliport where the president is dropped off. The tower that directs in the president’s flight is known as "bluegrass tower." In the Kecksburg Blue Book file right after J. Leo Bourassa’s name you will find (Code blue grass). Another connection to the code "bluegrass" is a paranormal CIA project started in 1955, which I haven’t confirmed yet.

The Special Facilities records I found at the Johnson library showed a few interesting items. The Special Facilities Division had a meeting for Special facilities Representatives, chaired by Bourassa, every Thursday. In fact they held a meeting only hours before the crash in Pennsylvania.

A week later, on December 16th, another meeting was held and in this meeting Bourassa made an announcement sounded interesting in light of the crash seven days before.

"The Chairman covered briefly the addition new responsibilities placed on OEP/SFD to secure and report information on significant incidents of possible national importance."

Another person who adds evidence for this role of Mount Weather in UFOs was Brigadier-General Steven Lovekin who testified for the Briefings held by CSETI for Congressmen and others in April 1997. Recounting a trip to Mount Weather with President Eisenhower in the late fifties he recalled what he had been told about UFOs and Mount Weather,

"I was fortunate enough to travel around Washington DC area, and I was fortunate enough to speak to one individual who was a government employee. He was not military. I only knew him as Frank, and I first met him at Mount Weather Virginia, Winchester, which is the place many of you might know where the president in case of attack. He told me at that time, the first time that I saw him, because he knew I was interested in this subject matter, that this place also had facilities to track these UFOs."

Post Kecksburg and the Special Facilities Division

It may not be conclusive proof, but it is interesting to note that many of the key people that might have been involved in the Kecksburg crash all strangely showed up for tours at the very secretive Special Facilities Division in the days following the crash. These included:

James Webb, the Director of NASA at the time of the crash, visited the Special Facilities Division about six weeks after the crash. Col. Bourassa and Kenrick W. Hackett briefed Webb and key staff at NASA on January 28, 1966.

The special team from the Joint Chief of Staff visited the Special Facilities Division on January 20, 1966.

General Train (Commanding General of the U.S. First Army) was planning a visit to the SFD in January 1966. The 662nd Radar Squadron at the crash scene was an Army unit.

The 662nd squadron was responsible to Space Command at NORAD. NORAD officials announced an intention to visit the Special Facilities Division the month after the crash.

Special Facilities Division and the UFO Cover-up

Further information that identified the Special Facilities Division was a key UFO entity in the cover-up can be found in research done in the seventies and mid eighties by UFO researcher Bill Moore. He obtained this information from contacts with a series of high-level intelligence people who helped him piece together a flow chart showing which government agencies had been involved in the UFO cover-up.

In 1985 Moore released the flow chart showing the UFO chain of command. At the top of the chain was the President. Below him was as an advisory group known as the Special Advisory Committee to the President on Alien Matters.

Directly below the President in the chain Moore listed "MJ-12-FEMA-NSA." Making up this group was the "Special Facilities Division – FEMA – C-Group for the NSA"

This chart was posted on the Internet in 1996, following the release of the movie "Independence Day" by former USAF physicist Robert Collins. In addition to this chart he posted a message that made another key claim about the role of the Special Facilities Division.

"The following has been uncovered over the years of research. MJ-12 had a "cover" under which it operated and that cover was reportedly "The Office of Emergency Preparedness, Special Facilities Division."

More on FEMA and UFOs

In addition to this information, there is other information that indicates that the OEP (name changed to FEMA by the Carter administration) played a role in UFOs. According to the COMETA report, a report on UFOs written by top ranking French military people, FEMA prepared a UFO training manual for firefighters at its National Fire Academy.

Chapter 13 of the manual titled "Fire Officer’s Guide to Disaster Control" is called "Enemy Attack and UFO Potential." Dr. William M. Kramer, professor of Fire Science at the University of Cincinnati and an Ohio Fire Chief, wrote it.

The chapter warns firefighters of potential "UFO hazards" they might incur "in the event of the unexpected arrival of UFOs in their communities." The UFO hazards included power blackouts, air and ground disruptions by force fields, psychological effects, and the hazards of touching one that has landed."

I followed up on this possible MJ-12 role related to the Special Facilities Division, and in the possible role of the Special Facilities Division and the Office of Emergency Planning at the Kecksburg crash, during a recent trip to the National Archives in Washington. The Johnson archives people were sure that specific Special Facilities "Duty Action Logs" would be there and accessible. However, after a two-day search I was unable to come up with a single piece of paper on the unit. This was after reviewing almost every box of files from the Office of Emergency Planning available for review.

Supposedly a transmission line at the Niagara generating station failed and within seconds five other transmission lines became overloaded and tripped. At this point generators began shutting down and the entire the northeast power system became unstable and separated into isolated power systems. Within five seconds 30 million people were in the dark. It took up to thirteen hours to get the power back up.

There was a lot of evidence that showed UFO sightings being reported in connection with the New York City Blackout. In addition to the reported sightings prior to and during the blackout, there were reports that indicated the UFOs might actually have caused the blackout. If true this would have support from other historic UFO cases that indicated that electromagnetic effects from UFOs could cause power outages.

Even the news York Times covered the story of the sightings, and even published a photo with an apparent UFO in its publication of November 19.

Evidence looking at the possible UFO – New York City blackout connection was even brought in front of congress. Dr. James E. McDonald, a top Ufologist of the day and University of Arizona professor, testified on the possible UFO connection to the northeast blackout in front of the House Committee on Science and Astronautics at July 29, 1968, Symposium on Unidentified Flying Objects, Rayburn Bldg., Washington, D.C. Among the congressmen who listened in was the present Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

The congressmen were impressed enough with the evidence that they questioned Dr. McDonald on his theory of UFO electromagnetic effects being able to black out huge sections of the country. One exchange occurred with Representative William F. Ryan, a Democrat from New York City.

Mr. Ryan: Let me ask a further question: In the course of your investigation and your study of UFO sightings, have you found any cases where contemporaneously with the sighting of UFO's allegedly, there were any other events which took place, which might or might not be related to the UFO's?

Dr. McDonald: Yes. Certainly there are many physical effects. For instance, in Mr. Pettis' district, several people found the fillings in their mouth hurting while this object was nearby, but there are many cases probably on record of car ignition failure. One famous case was at Levelland, Tex., in 1957. Ten vehicles were stopped within a short area, all independently in a 2-hour period, near Levelland, Tex. There was no lightning or thunder storm, and only a trace of rain.

There is another, which I don't know whether to bring to the committee's attention or not. The evidence is not as conclusive as the car stopping phenomenon, but there are too many instances for me to ignore. UFO's have often been seen hovering near power facilities. There are a small number but still a little too many to seem pure fortuitous chance, of system outages, coincident with the UFO sighting. One of the cases was Tamaroa, Ill. Another was a case in Shelbyville, Ky., early last year.

"Then there are scattered instances in which substantial power distribution systems have failed at or very near the time of observation of aerial phenomena similar, broadly speaking, to one or another UFO phenomenon. I have personally checked on several such instances and am satisfied that the coincidence of UFO observation and power outage did at least occur. Whether there is a causal connection here, and in which direction it may run, remains quite uncertain. Even during the large Northeast blackout, November 9, 1965, there were many UFO observations, several of which I have personally checked..."

"I interviewed a woman in Seacliff, N.Y. She saw a disk hovering and going up and down. And then shooting away from New York just after the power failure. I went to the FPC for data, they didn't take them seriously although they had many dozens of sighting reports for that famous evening. There were reports all over New England in the midst of that blackout, and five witnesses near Syracuse, N.Y., saw a glowing object ascending within about a minute of the blackout. First they thought it was a dump burning right at the moment the lights went out. It is rather puzzling that the pulse of current that tripped the relay at the Ontario Hydro Commission plant has never been identified, but initially the tentative suspicion was centered on the Clay Substation of the Niagara Mohawk network right there in the Syracuse area, where unidentified aerial phenomenon has been seen by some of the witnesses."

This extends down to the limit of single houses losing their power when a UFO is near. The hypothesis in the case of car stopping is that there might be high magnetic fields, d.c. fields, which saturate the [ignition system solenoid] core and thus prevent the pulses going through the system to the other side. Just how a UFO could trigger an outage on a large power network is however not yet clear. But this is a disturbing series of coincidences that I think warrant much more attention than they have so far received.

Mr. Ryan: As far as you know, has any agency investigated the New York blackout in relation to UFO?

Dr. McDonald: None at all. when I spoke to the FPC people, I was dissatisfied with the amount of information I could gain. I am saying there is a puzzling and slightly disturbing coincidence here. I'm not going on record as saying, yes, these are clear-cut cause and effect relations. I'm saying it ought to be looked at. There is no one looking at this relation between UFO's and outages.

President Johnson at the time of the blackout was at his Texas ranch recovering from an operation to remove his gall bladder and a kidney stone. Johnson heard of the blackout while driving in his limousine some miles from the ranch on the car radio. His first reaction was to phone Buford Ellington. His second call was to Robert McNamara, his Secretary of Defense.

According to the New York Times, from 6:00pm till he went to bed at 1:00pm Johnson was on the phone every five to ten minutes with his Buford Ellington, the Director of the Office of Emergency Planning.

Buford Ellington’s organization was responsible for major national emergencies such as blackouts, sabotage, nuclear attack, and the like. The man under Ellington whose job it was to deal with the blackout, and figure out what had caused it was J. Leo Bourassa. He was the same man who exactly one month later would appear in the Blue Book file dealing with the crash at Kecksburg Pennsylvania.

According to the records at the Johnson library, Bourassa, using a direct to the Joint Chiefs of Staff Command Center, did direct the blackout emergency from his bunker at Mount Weather. A couple weeks after the event, he wrote his final report to Ellington about what had caused the blackout. The letter hinted at the possible role of UFOs.

From the November 23, 1965 Bourassa report on the blackout we read,

"The lack of specific information at the time, plus the state of confusion that existed in the Northeast U.S., the fact that sabotage, enemy action, and unknown phenomena were all considered possibilities…"

"Had there been any of the above possibilities proven an ATLAS condition would have been recommended," Bourassa wrote.

Although the Pentagon was reporting nothing had been seriously affected, there were facts that showed this was not true. There was secret information that indicated that the situation was much more complex than just a power blackout.

Only a couple days after the blackout a book called "Strike From Space" appeared in the bookstores. Conservative activists Phyllis Schlafly and Rear Admiral Chester Ward (Ret) authored the book. Although it dealt mostly with the growing threat of Soviet space weapons and the Johnson White House’s inability to deal with the problem, the book did describe some serious events that were never really made public.

Schlafly and Ward relied on the counsel of a cast of military advisors for their book. Some of those names that included some names that have become very prominent in the UFO community. One was General Cutis LeMay who told Senator Barry Goldwater that not only could he not see the rumored Blue Room at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, but he should never even ask about it again. The second key advisor to the book was Hoover Institution strategic theorist Dr Stefan Possony, who had been attendee at the 1953 CIA UFO Scientific Advisory Panel meetings.

The book claimed that not only had the lights gone out all over the eastern United States, in an underground command post called High Point, near Berryville, Virginia, Air Force Colonel J Leo Bourassa was picking up nuclear alerts from a national network of nuclear blast detection devices called System 210-A, or "Bomb Alarm." <http://www.ufx.org/fobs/bombalarm.html>

One recounting of the incident recounted,

"The Bomb Alarm display board at High Point was blazing with yellow lights, indicating that communications links to the BMEWS site in Thule, Greenland, as well as twenty-one other System 210-A sites, had gone down. But worse – much worse – two of the sensors, the ones for Salt Lake City and Charlotte, North Carolina, were showing red. Red for nuclear detonations. Bourassa assumed the worst – that a surgical nuclear attack was under way – and placed Mt Weather on full alert. It was the one and only time that the facility went on alert during the Cold War."

Bourassa called the full alert and called it off a couple days later. It was probably the type of action that he liked, in light of the fact that in November 1954 Bourassa quit his government job "because of not enough work to do."

Exactly one month later he would be busy again. This time it would involve the possible recovery of an object in Kecksburg Pennsylvania.