The ceremony and ship itself serve as a fine tribute to President Ford's career, but if government authorities could somehow be imbued with a curious desire to honor Ford's memory to the max, they would re-initiate a scientific investigation of the UFO issue.
With more science and less government, if you know what I mean.
My 1968 letter from Ford, shown here (extracted from an article I wrote for what turned out to be the final issue of Argosy UFO magazine back in the seventies), represents a time when then-House Minority Leader Ford was inundated with demands for an investigation, as UFO reports poured in, not only from his home state of Michigan, but from across the country as well.
As press releases and TV interviews portraying Ford as nothing less than insistent upon a serious UFO inquiry saturated the national media, public interest eventually culminated in congressional hearings which led -- unfortunately -- to the inadequate and, dare we suggest, fraudulent government-funded Colorado University UFO project headed up by the late Dr. Edward U. Condon. Indeed, Mr. Ford's suspicions turned out to be justified, and Look Magazine's bombshell revelations about negative project conclusions intended, despite scientific evidence suggesting otherwise, proved accurate.
Then again, the roughly $300,000 dollars appropriated for the study were far from adequate for the scope of actions required.
If the United States government really wants to honor President Gerald Ford, a new UFO investigation, this time properly funded, should be considered.
A phenomenon observed time and again to put commercial and military aircraft passengers and personnel in danger during close encounters; a scientific enigma which repeatedly exhibits an apparent ability to produce electromagnetic-like effects on aircraft, automobiles and power grids; and a confounding mystery observed to leave behind instrumentation, radar, photographic, and ground indentation effects and other evidential traces remains wanting, crying out for a truly scientific inquiry.
Of all the congressional representatives who ever called for UFO studies, Ford was the most vocal. Forging ahead with a fair scientific project having no connection whatsoever to the sloppiness and dishonesty of the ill-fated Colorado project could be as important to a new scientific golden age as the U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford should be to national defense.
