Sandwiched in between the explosive publicity surrounding the 1964 Socorro, NM UFO incident and the 1966 UFO "flap" in Michigan and other parts of the country, this 1965 episode of The Les Crane Show consumed the remainder of its nearly 20-minute segment on UFOs by bringing in a professional astronomer who did everything but chew the furniture to both deny the UFO mystery and dismiss established knowledge that fellow astronomers ever saw the truly unexplainable in the skies. Mind you, this was also the time period when Air Force chief UFO consultant and astronomer Dr. J. Allen Hynek experienced a gradual change in attitude about the enigma. Officer Lonnie Zamora's Socorro UFO encounter served as the impetus for that transformation.
Frankly, if we may wander a bit here, the fact that members of the press almost always seem to consult an astronomer as the "first choice authority" whenever a UFO is reported in the news is disturbing in itself.. Astronomers spend considerable time and effort concentrating on teeny-tiny fields of telescopic vision in the sky, thus negating their chances of ever seeing any UFO activity passing before their field of view. Yet, these are the sources the media desire for quick answers, and a quick, obliging "solution" from the "experts" is what they generally get.
I wish Les Crane had interviewed somebody such as professional astronomer Hubert J. Bernhard, lecturer at California's Morrison Planetarium. Within two years after Crane's program, Bernhard recorded a record album entitled, The UFOs -- The Planetarium Lecture Series No. 3. When I heard this LP for the first time, expecting the worst, I think I really did almost fall out of my chair as Bernhard offered an extraordinarily fair insight into the UFO phenomena from ancient to modern times -- and he wasn't about to exclude the possibility of an intelligent extraterrestrial identity.
What lessons can be learned from the transcript's final portion below? Here's a brief summary of the qualities necessary to insure a bad talk session: First, when a broadcast program invites people to talk about UFOs, and they appear in good faith with the best of intentions, make sure you surprise and blind-side them with some debunking member of the scientific community. Remember that getting laughs is always more important than getting truth, and if you really believe that something is impossible just because it can't possibly be possible -- well, you just go by the standard recipe. Find that well-credentialed authority figure who really knows nothing about UFO evidence and put that person right out in front. Then, after all is said and done, and you've insulted and crushed the opposition with unreliable statistics and science as you perceive it to be, don't forget to pull out and read that "damned impressive" letter from an official source. After all, who can argue with government denials? Governments never mislead. . . do they?
CRANE:
Okay, we’ve heard about UFOs, or whatever they are, and I’m going to be neutral for a minute or two more. However, you mentioned astronomers, reputable astronomers, have corroborated your sightings and your documented evidence. I would like to introduce to you now, and to my audience, Dr. I. M. Levitt. Dr. Levitt, would you come out here, please? [Applause] Have you met these gentlemen before, Major Keyhoe and. . .?
DR. I. M. LEVITT:
Yes.
CRANE:
All right. Dr. Levitt is the director, gentlemen, the director of the Fels Planetarium in Philadelphia, probably one of the most famous planetariums. . .And what do you think about all of the pictures you just saw and all the evidence in Major Keyhoe’s books, the UFO books?
LEVITT:
Well, I haven’t had very much chance to go through this book, [reference to “The UFO Evidence.”] but from what I have, there are some very striking examples of taking too much for granted. Astronomers have seen them. In the book they list two, Clyde Tombaugh, Seymour Hess. Clyde Tombaugh did not say he saw a flying saucer, he said he saw something. Seymour Hess also said “I saw something.” Now, no one is going to say to you that you do not see anything, for us to do so is to say that 5,000 people or so who have contributed to this book, except for those who have played deliberate hoaxes, and there are those -- those people are suffering from hallucinations, we will not say that. They are seeing something, but what they are saying is, you describe precisely what you saw in great detail, and chances are we can tell you what this was is the operation of a natural law. The Air Force has done this in Project Bluebook, and I think 97% of the sightings have been identified, and have been explained as the operation of a natural law. And of course, the first thing the people who have fostered flying saucers and who would like to believe this may be extraterrestrial life will say, well, it is not the 97% I’m thinking about, it is the three percent. And my answer for that is, if it was 99.99%, they would say it’s that one-hundredth of one percent. That’s the bunch we’re talking about, not the others. And so, in an argument like this, you cannot lose. You must say these people are seeing something, and the scientist will say, tell us what you are seeing, precisely.
CRANE:
Let me cut through, because we do have a time problem, doctor. In all your years, looking at pictures - most of astronomy today is studying photographs, is it not?
LEVITT:
Well, in my case, studying the sky.
CRANE:
Okay, and looking at the sky, and discussing astronomy and phenomena with all of your colleagues, have you ever, in your entire career, ever come across an instance that would lead you to believe that there was an object manufactured on some other planet, and now in our…[Levitt responds before the question is finished]
LEVITT:
It is not only that, I have never seen it. But I don’t know of a single astronomer, other than those two, and there must be several thousand of them in the country who have seen one of them. You must recall that these people look at the sky each night. I do. I run an observatory, and I take several hundred people up occasionally, and I point out constellations, and if there should be a star there that doesn’t belong there, I can tell you. And if there should be a star missing, I can also tell you, if it’s a prominent one. [Much conversation occurs between Crane and Levitt, each tries to talk at the same time. Levitt continues.] This has never happened, but should there be, again, where there should be a star, the chances are I would know it. I know the constellations very well.
KEYHOE:
I would like to say that there are far more than two, doctor, that you are simply not acquainted with.
LEVITT:
Well, I am only taking what is in this book…
KEYHOE:
Just A minute, please. You said that Dr. Hess did not say that he saw a UFO. We have a report from him in which he says he saw a powered disc. The report is here and I’ll be glad to show it to you. There is another planetarium up in Boston, the Hayden Planetarium. One of their staff, Mr. Walter Webb, had a sighting up there which was reported to us. Dr. James. . . [interrupted by Levitt]
LEVITT:
What did he report? Did he report he saw . . . [both start talking over one another for a moment.]
KEYHOE:
He reported an object moving at tremendous speed under intelligent control, making maneuvers faster and tighter than anything that we had.
[All four start talking at once and finally Les Crane gains control]
CRANE:
I’m not going to get in here, either, right, come on, I’m the leader out here. Simon says [audience laughter] that we only have a minute left.
KEYHOE:
I know - I was trying to get half of it.
CRANE:
So, I’m - no, what I’m - but I just want to ask to cover it. Number one, this is a non-profit organization, is that right?
KEYHOE:
That’s right, in Washington, D.C., and we have thousands of reports from people.
[More confusion erupts as all talk at once.]
LEVITT:
And also, Major Keyhoe, you earn a good part of your living by writing books and talking about flying saucers?
KEYHOE:
No, I lost money on that. You know that I have written. . .[Levitt interrupts]
LEVITT:
I wish I got your fee for this TRUE story magazine. I’m going to plug it, but I sure wish I got your fee for that.
KEYHOE:
Now, I wrote a story 15 years ago on this cover. Now, I made a lot of money on those two articles in 15 years for that.
CRANE:
[Noticing that Bryan said something] What did you say, Colonel?
BRYAN:
I said I think the doctor is getting a little off the subject and time is running out.
[Cheers from the audience]
KEYHOE:
Don’t you get paid for working, too?
LEVITT:
Oh, yes, but I’m trying to find out if you get paid for this, can you view it as objectively as someone who is completely divorced from it? This is the question which I am asking.
KEYHOE:
Doctor, of course it's only a minor thing, I have a bachelor of science degree which doesn’t match yours, of course. But I regard myself as a very careful reporter. I have examined and interrogated over 400 pilots, foreign pilots and American pilots. We have signed reports, almost 1,000 of them, and they include reports by astronomers. And I would challenge you to come down to our organization sometime. We will show you these records, and if you can explain them satisfactorily and the Air Force can’t, we will disband our organization.
LEVITT:
Do we have one more minute for a comment on this? A few seconds.
CRANE:
Okay.
LEVITT:
You know, for someone to sit here and say we can prove everything, and to say that there is no more necessity for research - now, there are aerial phenomena taking place of which we have no knowledge, simply because we have not yet discovered what are the basic laws, the natural laws under which these operate. And so, there could be many of these things which have been sighted by intelligent people, by people of integrity. And this is right, except for one thing, and that is that it is still the operation of a natural law, perhaps a natural law that we do not understand at the moment.
KEYHOE:
Doctor, did you ever hear of Admiral Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter, former head of the CIA? He was the chairman of our board, he was on our board for five years. He issued a statement that these things were real and were under intelligent control and it was a dangerous situation because, several times, there have been scrambles of the Strategic Air Command, where these things were mistaken for a Soviet attack.
CRANE:
Well, that could be a danger. Scrambling our Air Forces to run after something that could be a danger, especially if there's nothing there. . .
KEYHOE:
These things have been picked up on radar repeatedly and these disc-shaped objects have been seen at the same time.
CRANE:
Before we attribute all sorts of things to the Air Force, let me conclude, uhh, we’re out of time. I want to thank you gentlemen, all. I want to conclude just by -- we contacted the Air Force, and this is the - from Major Maston Jacks, who is the Pentagon UFO project officer. [Crane reads Air Force letter:]
“The Air Force has a responsibility for the air defense of the United States and is also interested in aerial phenomena. In 16 years of tracking down reports, 9,000 of them, not one [Crane repeats, “not one”] has ever turned out to be a threat to American security or an example of advanced technology, nor of interplanetary or extraterrestrial origin.”
I just thought I’d throw that in because . . .[audience laughs and Keyhoe counters quickly]
KEYHOE:
That’s a special policy which has been carried out. We have on our board one former monitor of the entire project, and he says that for years the Air Force has been hiding the facts from the American public.
CRANE:
Well, in any case, it was interesting, right? RIGHT? [Applause] We’ll be back in a minute from right now.
[Fades to commercial] - END -
“The Les Crane Show,” was produced for ABC-TV, and this prerecorded program aired on January 27, 1965.
