Major Keyhoe's Letter: His Plan in 1977

I only met the late Maj. Donald E. Keyhoe (USMC, ret.) once, at the Washington, D.C. office of NICAP in the summer of 1965. I was a teenager then, thrilled to spend even those few minutes at the old Connecticut Ave. office. I guess the experience was something like going to a mini theme park in an office space, so much to see -- and, unfortunately for the office staff, so much work to do. The U.S. was right in the middle of a flurry of UFO reports, and desks were piled high with clippings and files.

The highlight for me was meeting Maj. Keyhoe himself, the NICAP director whose books about UFOs were amongst the first I ever read on the subject. Keyhoe, the Marine Corps veteran who astounded readers of True Magazine in 1950 with exciting UFO reports obtained via official sources. Keyhoe, whose first book about UFOs in 1950, Flying Saucers Are Real was followed by several more in addition to articles in major magazines. Keyhoe, personal aide to Charles Lindbergh during a cross-country flight, documented in his book, Flying with Lindbergh. Keyhoe, who knew Admiral Richard Byrd personally and realized Byrd would have been outraged over fabrications about his relationship to "hollow earth" tales.

I was greeted by Richard Hall, NICAP's assistant director who, as many of you must know, remains active in UFO research and has authored numerous articles in additon to his well known books. The 1964 NICAP publication intended for every member of Congress, The UFO Evidence, was very much Hall's literary baby and remains one of the most respected and most consulted UFO compilations ever produced.

The third person of three whom I met that day and the first whom I encountered was Lelia Day, NICAP's secretary, and she was a very nice lady. In fact, more than a decade later I was searching for her because I never doubted the extent of NICAP knowledge she must have absorbed over the years, and I was working on a writing project longing for her insight. Sadly, however, I learned that she had been long dead even before I began the search. Of interest, however, is the fact that I learned this and other things of significance from Maj. Keyhoe himself in a letter, the only letter I ever received from Keyhoe personally. By 1977, Keyhoe and Hall had departed NICAP, the organization had seemingly been taken over by people with perhaps more than passing government affiliations (see the NICAP.org site and read the NICAP history) and there remain numerous questions about NICAP's eventual administration and downfall that may rival the UFO mystery in some ways.

So, here's Maj. Keyhoe's letter, dated December 4, 1977, with an intriguing reference on the letterhead to his role as NICAP's "former director." Note also my re-posting from an early blog entry of Al Chop's 1953 letter to Holt publishers, vouching for Keyhoe's integrity and actions (though Chop's incredibly open-ended admission regarding some government people accepting the ET theory is the real high point of the letter -- which Holt printed on the jacket of a Keyhoe book, much to Chop's surprise and the Dept. of Defense's probable chagrin).

I had also forwarded a copy of a newspaper review I wrote for Keyhoe's final book, Aliens From Space, referenced in his letter. But of considerable interest here are Keyhoe's comments and plans regarding the Jimmy Carter presidency as it might relate to UFO information release. Based upon information Keyhoe accumulated from official sources, he was poised to write another book, a project of no eventual publication, unfortunately. Keyhoe had briefly outlined his plan to me here in confidence, though I certainly see no point in staying silent 30 years later. Actually, as is the case with so many other documents on this blog, even I hadn't seen this letter since receiving and filing it away.

Not So Official Anymore

I wanted to offer a quick update on my previous comment relevant to the magazine, Official UFO, now long deceased. I did locate a news release sent out by very concerned, more likely outraged, editor Dennis William Hauck, and it served as his resignation letter as well as a further indictment of the publisher-enforced workings of the magazine. The two visuals displayed will tell the story.

I've included additional space on this situation because I wish it to serve as a caution to those who sadly believe that if something is in print it obviously must be true. Editors serve publishers as a rule, and the situation is seldom the other way around.

California Sunshine

1977 continued to be a busy year. True Magazine printed issue no. six of True Flying Saucers and UFOs Quarterly, containing a piece I wrote about the infamous "Robertson Panel," which (in basic terms) set the stage for downplaying UFOs officially in the U.S. to the current day. Argosy Magazine's companion periodical, Argosy UFO, published another of my articles, "How a Ufologist Came to the Aid of the Air Force," mentioned in a previous blog entry.

In the meantime, the letters continued to arrive. APRO forwarded the letter shown here, something from a California writer who seemed to pay more attention to my I-wish-I-hadn't-written-this article, "How to Conduct Yourself Inside a UFO," than I did. He seemed a very loving person, including two hearts on the page (of course, I took out his name here), offering advice for my UFO course students in the mix. I particularly liked the part where he states: " 'How to Conduct Yourself Inside a UFO' is How to Conduct Yourself Inside your Outside! The UFO is your Outside, Inside your Inside, Outside your Outside, Inside."

I know what you're thinking. But I must say, these contemplative letters far surpass the ones that start out, "Let me tell you all about my trip to the Crab Nebula. . .with Elvis. . ."

Well, yeah, except for the true, real occasions where people really, absolutely and undeniably did go there with Elvis. And what kind of souvenirs would people bring back from the Crab Nebula, anyway? I don't want to know.

The Triangle and Rumors

There are a couple of nagging little fragments of intrigue I wanted to touch upon as we prepare to exit 1977 for a bit.

The April 18 issue of U.S. News & World Report (as I recall, we're into the "Washington Whispers" column of that date) casually mentioned this little tidbit:

"Before the year is out, the government -- perhaps the President -- is expected to make what are described as 'unsettling disclosures' about UFOs -- unidentified flying objects. Such revelations, based on information from the CIA, would be a reversal of official policy that in the past has downgraded UFO incidents."

Yes, we continue The Big Wait thirty years later.

And around Central NY in late February and early March there were reports of UFOs around a golf course, near a water tower and in other areas. WSYR-TV (now WSTM, though the call letters WSYR currently designate another Syracuse TV station) News reported on March 6, 1977 of witnesses at a golf course seeing a large triangular object in the sky around 10:00 p.m., only about 300 feet in the air. One corner displayed a red light while another corner was lighted in green. People in vehicles with CB radios chattered about this and other UFOs. Local Air Force authorities insisted there were no test vehicles in the area, but a WSYR reporter suggested, not entirely serious, that maybe test vehicles were involved -- in an attempt to prepare us for contact with real UFOs in the future.

The Library of Congress and UFOs

With so many people consumed by UFO interest in the 1970s because of some rather exceptional reports, members of Congress, too, often exhibited concern -- or were forced to -- when queried by their constituents. In fact, by 1976-77, two of the hottest publications available from the Library of Congress' Congressional Research Service, each produced under the guidance of Marcia S. Smith, were The UFO Enigma and Extraterrestrial Intelligence and UFOs: A Selected, Annotated Bibliography.

Like many CRS publications, these were intended primarily for members of Congress, but once word "hit the streets" they became a must-have for UFO researchers, the media and the curious. In those days, even for these bulky, book-sized documents, there was no charge, you just asked your member of Congress for copies.

But aside from these historically impressive documents, the single-page letter accompanying them contained all the ingredients in that second paragraph (click to enlarge) to make one look twice. When Congressman William Walsh's office enclosed the letter with the two publications, it apparently had not been seen by most researchers or UFO organizations, and I quickly distributed copies of the page to interested parties. In his (former) UFO Research Newsletter, Gordon I.R. Lore, Jr. wrote, "In response to inquiries about UFO information, the Library of Congress' Congressional Research Service suggests UFOs may be ET."

Time and again, we know that numerous members of Congress have evidenced a sincere concern about the UFO phenomenon, and some of them were quite vocal, while others wanted no public attention whatsoever. The very existence of this letter, and the extensively researched publications it accompanied, indicated that UFOs were and likely still are more than a moot subject amongst congressmen and senators privy to information of note.