Les Crane was neither the first, nor the last, broadcaster to inject humor or ridicule into the UFO issue. In a way, he was a victim of circumstance. At any other time, the events of the evening may have gone unnoticed, but the country had been on high-interest alert about the UFO issue because of so much publicity about the wave of sightings engulfing public concern. The viewing public judged The Les Crane Show harshly that night, assuring more negative ratings for a show probably already in trouble. If there's one thing that everybody connected with the broadcast industry realizes, it's that viewer ratings are everything. Everything.
LES CRANE begins the show’s UFO segment:
[First several words were not recorded]. . . flying saucers, and there is a lot of interest in that, and they constantly kept referring to Mr. Keyhoe, Major Keyhoe, Mr. Keyhoe, who apparently is the authority of authorities on flying saucers, or unidentified flying objects, in America.. So, we thought for fun, just for a short while, it would be fun to bring him back. So here is Major Donald Keyhoe, ladies and gentlemen. [Applause] And over on this side, this is Col. J. Bryan, Col. Bryan. [Applause] Major Keyhoe is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis. You were an aircraft and balloon pilot in the Marines, you were, lecturer, author of four books about UFOs - is that right?
MAJ. KEYHOE:
That’s correct.
CRANE:
And you are currently the director of NICAP. [Mistakenly pronounced as kneecap]
KEYHOE:
NICAP.
CRANE:
NICAP?
KEYHOE:
Yes, National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena.
CRANE:
The National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena, NICAP, okay. Col. Bryan is a graduate of Princeton, a former special assistant to the Secretary of the Air Forced - uh, Air Force. What did I say - Air Forced? I was in it for four years, can you imagine that? I’m mispronouncing it already! A distinguished magazine editor and writer, and he’s an editor for Town and Country and Saturday Evening Post. So, you know that these gentlemen are not just [whistle] “I saw one over there in my garden! Oh,” [whistle] “there goes another one!” You know, it’s not that type. These are distinguished gentlemen who really believe that there are such things as extraterrestrial explorations of our planet.
KEYHOE:
That’s correct.
CRANE:
You really believe this?
KEYHOE:
We agree with the Air Force. They have a top secret conclusion that these thousands of objects that have been seen by pilots and tracked by radar are real and are superior to anything we had, so there’s, somewhere, someone ahead of us.
CRANE:
Do you agree with that, sir?
COL. BRYAN:
Completely.
CRANE:
You really do?
BRYAN:
Always.
CRANE:
Always? [Laughs]
BRYAN:
Always.
CRANE:
Well, [turning his attention to Keyhoe] you charge that the Air Force has been suppressing information, deliberately withholding back facts about these?
KEYHOE:
Well, that’s right. They have an order, Air Force Regulation 200 [reference to AFR 200-2] which orders anyone in the Air Force to withhold information unless they are okayed by headquarters.
CRANE:
Well, information about ob. . .
KEYHOE:
About UFOs - unidentified flying objects.
CRANE:
Yeah. I was a pilot in the Air Force for four years - well, it was about three years - it took me a year to learn how. [Laughs] Well, that’s alright. That’s the right time. [Laughs] The right length of time. And I never heard anything about, you know, I never heard anybody ever tell me if I spotted something, I couldn’t tell anybody.
KEYHOE:
What time was that, what year?
CRANE:
I - my pilot training class was 57-0, which means I got my wings in 1957, and I flew through ’60.
KEYHOE:
Well, the order was in effect then, but it probably hadn’t been circulated by that time.
CRANE:
Oh.
KEYHOE:
We have a copy of it, in case you’d care to see it.
CRANE:
No.
BRYAN:
Mr. Crane, you know, your producer has seen one, did you know that?
CRANE:
My producer has seen one? First of all, it’s not my - I think you’re talking about Mr. Norman [Clenlan?] of our staff.
BRYAN:
Yes.
CRANE:
Who, A, is not my producer, forgive me, I didn’t know, and, B, is a little weird. [Laughs] He is just a little bit funny, you know, but we humor him. I mean, we don’t - as a matter of fact, if he’s around, he may be coming out to get me - or they may be coming to get him. Okay. Do we have time to show the slides or do we have a commercial first? We have got pictures. We have a commercial first, is that what you’re getting at? [Talking to audience.] We have some pictures of some - you figure it out. We’ve got some pretty strange pictures to show you in about a minute from right now.
[Commercial]
Continued in the next blog entry. “The Les Crane Show,” produced for ABC-TV, prerecorded program aired January 27, 1965.
