Ufology in the Sensational Seventies:  Saucers, Science, Space and Secrecy

By Dr. Raymond A. Keller, author of the international awards-winning Venus Rising book series, available on amazon.com, while supplies last.

You can find all of Dr. Raymond A. Keller's books at Amazon

21 January 1975

Central Intelligence Agency Declassifies Historic UFO Document 

Artwork Source:  KUTV television station news broadcast, Salt Lake City, Utah, 21 January 2021.

Ann Druffel (1926-2020) was one of the early members of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP), directed by Major Donald E. Keyhoe, United States Marine Corps (USMC), Retired, having joined the organization in 1957 and serving as one of the then few female UFO investigators for that group in Southern California.   Residing in Riverside, California, and working by day as a social worker and therapist in Los Angeles, she spent her nights sky watching for UFOs and writing articles about all aspects of ufology for the NICAP UFO Investigator as well as many other periodicals dealing with the flying saucer mystery.  

By mid-1969, another UFO group had started up in Quincy, Illinois.  Called the Midwest UFO Network (MUFON), it was headed up by Walter H. Andrus, Jr., John F. Schuessler, Allen R. Utke, and other ufologists apparently unsatisfied with the then two major extant UFO organizations of NICAP in Washington, D.C., and the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) in Tucson, Arizona.  MUFON initially gained a reputation for credibility with its objectively scientific newsletter, Skylook, published in Stover, Missouri; and after a period of five years had eclipsed both NICAP and APRO in membership.  The international scope of the enlarged MUFON organization prompted the leadership to keep the acronym MUFON, but simply change the group’s name to the Mutual UFO Network to reflect its new status as the preeminent UFO group in the United States, if not the world. MUFON is currently headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, has chapters in every state of the United States, and claims to have over 4,000 members worldwide. It holds an annual international symposium and publishes the monthly MUFON UFO Journal.  While NICAP struggled on until 1980, by 1975 Ann Druffel had ceased writing exclusively for the NICAP UFO Investigator.  She could see the “writing on the wall,” so to speak and joined up with MUFON, writing a monthly column for Skylook.  She would eventually become an associate editor of the MUFON UFO Journal in 1980.   

One of the major feats accomplished by Druffel and the others at MUFON was to secure the declassification of the Robertson Panel UFO Report by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on 21 January 1975 under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) for the purpose of obtaining additional UFO material for a projected television documentary on varied aspects of the phenomenon. This action on the part of MUFON was considered a stepping stone toward a greater government disclosure on UFOs, which has, unfortunately, been carried out at an incremental turtle’s pace ever since.  

Ann Druffel (1926-2020), pioneer female ufologist who in early 1975 helped break the CIA’s silence over the Robertson Panel UFO Report.

The Air Force brass quickly realized that they would require the help of the CIA if they were going to get anywhere in determining the true point of origin of the flying saucers or in the process of formulating any hypothesis as to their nature from the collected data at Project Bluebook.  Druffel, in reviewing the status of ufology in the United States up through 1975, realized that the time had arrived for government investigators of the phenomenon to consider, “an open approach to scientific inquiry, adequately financed at that.”  Druffel firmly believed that, “Now positive proof is available that the CIA is the agency directly responsible for the inane and inhuman ‘debunking policy’ used by the government agencies for far too long.  This policy of ridicule and de-emphasizing was employed to embarrass UFO witnesses, deny reports and to confuse the American people about the importance of this intriguing phenomenon.”  

Druffel would further note that, “In 1953, the United States Air Force had an immense problem on its hands.   The 1,900 UFO reports which had flooded in during 1952 had choked military communications channels.  Officials surmised that a potential enemy might possibly create a fake UFO flap to give them advantage while launching an unexpected missile attack against our nation.”

Of course, at the start of 1953, higher-ups in the Department of Defense were becoming quite concerned about the matter of UFOs.  At the very least, they were starting to view the subject as one of “scientific interest.”  To this end, a group of prestigious scientists was selected, and the Robertson Panel was convened at the request of the Director of Scientific Intelligence, with administering oversight authority granted to the Assistant Director of Scientific Intelligence (AD/SI, CIA).

CIA Assistance Requested

The Robertson Panel was officially listed as a “scientific advisory panel of the CIA.”  However, the findings of the panel, as presented in the Robertson Report, seemed to lack any evidence of scientific credibility, at least insofar as the hierarchy at MUFON was concerned.  “If anything,” opined Druffel, “the findings set back meaningful research on UFOs by twenty years, maybe more.”  

The panel members consisted of Dr. H. P. Robertson, a mathematical physicist whose specialties included cosmology, relativity and wartime intelligence missions; Dr. Luis Alvarez, a nuclear physicist who, among other achievements, coinvented the ground-controlled approach aircraft tracking system, specifically designed for following and guiding aircraft in conditions of inclement weather; Dr. Thornton Page, astronomer and underseas weapons expert; Dr. Samuel A. Goudsmit, author of the theory of electron-spin; and Dr. Lloyd V. Berkner, the world’s then leading authority on ionospheric research and terrestrial magnetism.  

These experts, along with unidentified CIA personnel who had gained first-hand field experience in working alongside Project Blue Book personnel investigating UFO cases around the country, came together on 14 January 1953 to analyze the phenomenon.  In just four days they assembled in eight meetings.  The so-called “results” that this distinguished body agreed upon were amended to the Robertson Panel Report as “Tab A” and included the following:

1. That UFOs were not hostile and did not indicate a need for revision of current scientific concepts.

2. That the emphasis on UFO reports would be a threat to the orderly functioning of the protective organs of the body politic.

3. That national security agencies should strip the UFOs of their aura of mystery.

4. That national security agencies should institute policies of intelligence training and public education (with respect to the UFO phenomenon).

Classification Issues

The second results of the so-called “Final Report,” amended to the Robertson Panel Report as “Tab C,” still remain under review in 2021.  Interestingly, the CIA has continued to refuse its declassification.  However, in late 1966, the late Dr. James E. McDonald, a professor of meteorology at the University of Arizona at Tucson, stumbled upon an unsecured, loose copy of the Robertson Panel Report in the offices of Project Blue Book at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, where he was studying the UFO problem first-hand.  When McDonald asked why the document was just sitting openly on top of a desk, he was informed by Project Officer Lieutenant Colonel Hector Quintanilla, Jr., that, “The Report had been routinely declassified under the twelve-year rule, under my own authority.” 

McDonald, being the diligent scientist that he was, took extensive notes.  He was the first to discover that the CIA was responsible for the “debunking policy” of Air Force during the period of 1953 through 1969.  The visiting meteorologist requested a Xerox copy of the Report; however, before it could be handed to him by the Air Force Lieutenant Colonel at the Project Blue Book headquarters, an agent of the CIA entered the room, snatched the document and reclassified it right on the spot.  McDonald was then warned by the CIA agent to not disseminate the information he gleaned from his review of the Robertson Panel Report.  However, the scientist would later proclaim, that he felt that he should treat the Report as “open information,” insofar as it in no way seemed to affect the national security of the United States.  He also believed that knowledge of the CIA’s early involvement with UFO research should be shared with other scientists in the academic community attempting to investigate UFOs as well as interested members of the media.  

Not long after McDonald’s visit to Project Blue Book headquarters, the Air Force issued a “sanitized version” of the Robertson Panel Report.  This was in response to a formal request by aircraft manufacturer John Lear.  In this modified version, however, any mention of the CIA’s early involvement in UFO research was deleted.  It wasn’t until January 1975 that a spokesperson for the CIA openly admitted, through the declassification of portions of the document, that it did, indeed, play some part in the establishment of a “debunking policy” on the part of the Air Force and other military branches.

Records Management Office

MUFON representative Ann Druffel, wrote of her great surprise when requesting a copy of this controversial report:  

“While writing a segment of a projected television documentary, a segment concerning the part the Robertson Panel played in this history of UFO research in the United States, on a whim I wrote the CIA in November 1974, requesting a declassified copy of the Report.  I was aware of the sanitized version, but I felt it was unsatisfactory and therefore ‘played dumb’ in writing for the declassified copy.

“It was a great surprise to receive a letter from a Mr. Robert Young, Records Management Officer, stating that the Agency could provide a declassified copy, consisting of 28 pages, for ten cents per page.  The necessary $2.80 was speedily transmitted to the CIA; and in late January, the declassified Report arrived.  However, though plainly showing CIA involvement, including specific names of CIA personnel and departments involved in the debunking policy, the Report was missing ‘Tab B’ and ‘Tab C.’”

The MUFON investigator went on to say, “I inquired about this, and Mr. Young wrote back on February 19th.  He now signed himself, ‘Freedom of Information Coordinator.’  It is wondered whether the trouble the CIA was facing concerning illegal interference in domestic affairs had anything to do with this change of title?  

“The 19 February letter confirmed that ‘Tab B,’ which was described in the Report’s ‘Index’ as a ‘list of personnel concerned with meetings,’ could not be declassified.  However, he (Young) sent the sanitized version, which is already available in the Condon Report. But ‘Tab B’ of the sanitized version turned out to be a brief list of the evidence presented to the Robertson Panel during the eight meetings.

“Mr. Young also stated that ‘Tab C’ was still under review; that is, still classified ‘Secret Security Information.’  He stated he would notify promptly of the results of that review; but I have not heard from him since.  According to the ‘Index’ of the classified Report, ‘Tab C’ was supposed to be a ‘list of documentary evidence presented.’  This, however, is covered in the sanitized ‘Tab B.’”

Reclassification

In reality, ‘Tab C’ constitutes the classified ‘Final Report’ of the Panel, which has never been made public, even to this very day.  Perhaps Dr. James E. McDonald himself never even saw this ‘Tab C;’ but as he passed away in 1971, we will never know.  According to the actual text of the Robertson Panel Report, ‘Tab C’ was the ‘Final Report.’  There are definite differences in the unclassified results listed in ‘Tab B’ with the classified results enumerated in ‘Tab C.’  But like the information pertaining to the John F. Kennedy assassination, it will probably continue to be reclassified as SECRET or higher in the interests of national security into the next few decades, at least.  Demands put upon the CIA by ufologists and others interested in the affairs of the intelligence community have availed little so far in regards to the recovery of UFO information from their files.  This doesn’t mean that we should give up, however.  Once in a while, a kernel of truth manages to escape the clutches of this complex, overextended bureaucracy.

Below:  According to the contents of this letter obtained in 2011 by paranormal researcher, William Lester, ten days before President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, he requested the CIA Director to divulge any information pertinent to the existence of UFOs that his agency held in its files.

9 February 1975

U. S. Navy-Contracted Electronics Company Develops UFO Detector

From a San Diego, California, electronics company, Precision Monitoring Systems (PMS), comes a report that 35 members of their research team, consisting of engineers and scientists from various disciplines, have developed a delicate mechanism that detects UFOs.  Called a “magnetometer,” the device is but one in a series of UFO detectors being planned by the Southern California, electronics firm.  According to Neal Davis, then 38, the technical coordinator for PMS, it works on the widely accepted principle that UFOs can cause, when in close proximity, temporary local changes in the Earth’s magnetic field.  Davis, whose specialty is physics, also works for the United States Navy Research and Development Laboratory in San Diego, who noted that one of the major problems that team members on the UFO detector project were running into, was that so little was known about UFO activity, due to the unpredictability factor in the occurrence of sightings.  “For example,” explained the physicist, “if someone reports a great deal of magnetic activity at the time of a UFO sighting, it is hard to tell whether the alien craft generated it or whether it is normal.”  One of the aims of the PMS project, however, is to build scientific equipment capable of helping UFO investigators make this distinction.  

PMS deals only with interested, but serious, scientists from around the world.  These are men and women of knowledge, to be sure, who want to probe deeply into the UFO phenomenon.  “Our message is to spread the knowledge,” Davis told a reporter from the National Tattler (Chicago, Illinois), adding that, “We are not in the business of manufacturing this electronic equipment; although we would construct it if someone requested us to.  But we will provide plans, drawings and the complete information necessary; and scientists can create their own UFO watch posts.  

“Once we have got the cost down to the lowest possible figure and developed effective techniques and instrumentation, there is no reason why we couldn’t have a network of listening pots across the globe.  Then we can start to build hard evidence of what is normal, and abnormal, when a UFO shows up.”  

The National Tattler revelatory article, published in their 9 February 1975 issue, reports that PMS funding for the UFO detector project began with a $500 contribution from one benefactor.  Other employees of PMS, however, believing in the project, have also contributed money and time to the project, even forming an association that solicits membership dues to help additionally finance the detector development program.  Of this, Davis announced that while, “We haven’t found another group of scientists doing the sort of work we are, this is largely due to the efforts of our director, J. F. ‘Ben’ Herr, who got the thing moving and kept it moving.  And we are developing our first set of instruments, the magnetometer and accompanying recording system, for about $500.  We believe we now can turn to other problems in this very complex, highly scientific research project.”

Among the other projects being developed by PMS are the design of equipment to measure and record abnormalities in electrical fields and equipment to handle radio frequency interference.  “In many cases of UFO sightings, we have received reporters about considerable interference with radio and TV sets and other electrical equipment.  This equipment will help us pin it down.  We suspect UFOs give off a very high output of ultraviolet light.  That is why we will be working on equipment to measure that, too, as well as a gravimeter to measure gravity. In numerous UFO reports, there has been the possible presence of a very strong gravitational field.”  Davis further elaborated, “In another case, when a UFO took off, a large area of Earth went upward with it for some distance.  And we heard one report that a horse was lifted off its feet by the gravitational field of a UFO.”

Sign warns of “Moo-FOs” out over open range land in the Australian Outback.  The antigravitational effects of flying saucers in the vicinity of range land has been known to levitate larger animals like cattle and horses.   Photo credit:  https://7news.com.au

UFO-Associated Phenomena

A PMS press release announced that the organization would also be working to develop additional equipment that would investigate eleven other areas of phenomena associated with UFO reports.  As to the difficult of this task, Davis remarked, “All we have to go on are verbal reports, going back thousands of years, describing some of the things that happened.  Until the formation of PMS, nobody had ever got down to developing the equipment and techniques to detect, measure and record these many different manifestations.  It is even more difficult, because some of the manifestations, such as anti-gravity, totally contradict our scientific laws.  So nothing was done with the in the past.

“For example, we intend to develop tools and techniques to examine the odors, gas, possible X-rays, hard radiation, etc., given off by UFOs.  But who knows anything about an odor given off by a UFO?  This gives you some idea of the extent of our work.

“Our biggest job is to develop sensors capable of screening out normal Earth activities and recording only the unexplained, abnormal phenomena.”

Exclusive Membership

PMS membership was limited to engineers, scientists and others involved in the technical sciences.  “It’s very easy to find people who are interested in UFOs,” said Davis, but emphasizing that, “Our sole objective is scientific research.”  Naturally, all at PMS were hoping that they would make contact with scientists and electronic design engineers to further expand the scope of their work.   Lack of funds, however, was one of the biggest obstacles that PMS faced in accomplishing this.  Insofar as membership dues were needed to sustain the PMS projects, progress was a little slower than Davis and others in the company would have liked it to be.  “It has taken us two years to reach our present stage with the magnetometer,” chimed Davis, pointing out that, “The frustrating thing is that the technology is available and the equipment isn’t terribly costly; but time is the precious commodity.”

Nevertheless, PMS membership investment has been paying off.  A magnetometer sold to a San Francisco buyer already resulted in the recording of one UFO sighting; and from that recording, much valuable data had been collected.  Despite this intriguing development, however, no information on that case has been released.  The close association that some of the company’s officers in other-contracted non-UFO-related projects with the United States Navy, casts a shadow of doubt on PMS’ ability to retain an overall, long-range objectivity with respect to the UFO phenomenon.  

April 1975

George Adamski Recalls Visit from Lady Orda

Lady Orda, the present Queen of Venus, first contacted California amateur astronomer and metaphysician George Adamski, on the physical plane, 20 November 1952 in Desert Center, California.  Of course, there were many other encounters with Lady Orda and Adamski that never made it into any of Adamski’s UFO books; but rest assured, they occurred on a continuous basis.  

One such encounter was relayed by Adamski to retired Danish Royal Air Force Colonel Hans C. Petersen when Adamski visited Petersen’s home Vejle, Denmark, during his European tour in 1963.   According to Petersen, “Lady Orda came to Adamski’s house in Vista, California, just when the latter had set out in an inspection and repair of some of the conduits under the house.  The various installations were quite a lot of trouble to Adamski, who was not a young man any longer; and he was just tinkering with them when Lady Orda arrived. 

“‘Come out, George,’ she said.  ‘Let me do it for you!’  

“Adamski accepted the offer with thanks and crawled out, whereupon Lady Orda crawled in.  It took her only a moment to fix up the problems, and she started to crawl out.   

“When she was almost out, and other people had come to the house at the same time, Lady Orda ran her head against the house, with her beret torn off her head with the result that her long blonde hair to her shoulders was let down completely.  She quickly withdrew under the house, where she got her hair rearranged, and came out as a young handy-worker coming in from San Diego to affect the repairs.

“Of course, women carpenters were a rare sight back in 1963, so some of the visitors to Adamski’s home that day suspected that she might be a Venusian, but said nothing to challenge her.  After all, George himself taught that the Venusians live and work among us, going about largely undetected in their sundry missions to redeem planet Earth’s inhabitants.”

Various sketches of Lady Orda (a.k.a. Orthon) from www.unariunwisdom.com.

20 April 1975

End of the World Predicted

Dr. George Mendenhall, a professor of Ancient and Biblical Studies from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, predicted that the world would come to an end by the turn of the century.  But it would not end with a global war or some momentous catastrophe.  “Rather than go with a bang,” the eminent historian noted, “it will pass away with scarcely more than a whimper.  Our world will collapse as governments stop working and lawlessness takes over.”  When interviewed by a reporter from the tabloid newspaper, the National Tattler (Chicago, Illinois), for an article that appeared in the 20 April 1975 issue of that periodical, the professor explained that his use of the term “end of the world” did not mean the literal end of everything, only of the financial, geopolitical, religious and social system of things “as we have come to know it.”  In other words, there will be nothing mysterious or unusual in the end of the world.  It has happened hundreds of times in the past, at least insofar as Mendenhall’s studies of both ancient and recent history indicate that it comes at the conclusion of cycles lasting approximately 250 to 300 years.  “We are now at the end of a cycle and the signs of another collapse are all here.  The possibility of our world ending within a generation is even stronger than the kooks and prophets of doom realize,” the prestigious professor elucidated.  

Mendenhall opined that once governments fall apart, civilization will enter a new dark age.  The cities will be abandoned and the population will shift to small villages in fortified areas.  Small, warring bands will form, killing and robbing each other.  Without public education, future generations of many people will lose the ability to read and write.  Probably one-half to two-thirds of the world’s population will die off from disease, starvation and mini-wars.  Such cycles, following the pattern described above, have persisted throughout recorded human history, going back to the ancient Babylonians.  Of this dismal cycle, the professor said, “The Persians, during the Iron Age, lasted about 250 years.  Then the Greek Empire, from Alexander to the Roman takeover, existed another 300 years.  The Roman Empire stuck it out for 300 years, and then came the Dark Ages.  The Renaissance period followed and broke down in the Reformation after still another 300 years or so.  The Reformation was followed by the Thirty Years War, during which Europe lost a third of its population.  That was about 1650.  Now we are in 1975.  Time is just about up.”

Signs of the Times

The ancient history scholar explained his interpretation of this cycle in greater detail in his book, The Tenth Generation (Baltimore, Maryland:  Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975).  To sum up his conclusions, however, he told the National Tattler reporter:  

“We are finding fantastic similarities between ancient times and our own problems by studying ancient records.  We know now, for example, from ancient Babylonian myths and archaeological evidence, that ancient intellectuals and politicians knew they were being faced with overpopulation and urban renewal problems just before their world fell.  Other typical signs appearing before a fall, in ancient literature, include a sense of lost purpose and goals, increasing lawlessness and violence, especially a sense of foreboding and doom.  

“Overpopulation, poverty and starvation are other indications of a civilization about to collapse.  But the most striking feature is the breakdown of confidence in the social and political organizations, like government, the family, established religions and interpersonal relationships.  When I read these ancient translations, I am reminded of the same things happening today.  In those dying civilizations, there were wasteful excesses, extravagance and foolish military ventures.  Just before the falls, there was a nostalgic longing for glories of the past, for the ‘good old days of Egypt,’ for example.”

President Joseph Biden’s fiasco in Afghanistan is depicted in this New York Post photospread.  Professor Mendenhall noted in 1975, of cultures on their “last legs,” that, “In those dying civilizations, there were wasteful excesses, extravagance and foolish military ventures.”

Mendenhall believed that ancient Egypt presented us with a perfect counterpoint to modern America because in Egypt’s last days, there was a surge in the superstitious elaboration of old religious cults and offbeat oddities.  “We see a repetition of this tendency today,” he said, “in the rise of Satanism, witchcraft, food fads and astrology.  Americans spend more on astrology than they do on astronomy; and modern astrology is even more primitive than it was in the days of the ancient Babylonians.  The Babylonians knew perfectly well that these heavenly bodies could not really affect men’s destinies.  

“Kooky and offbeat religions sprung up left and right during the last days of Egypt, Greece and Rome,” he pointed out, adding that, “The same thing is happening today.  The need for an escape from the uncertainties of a falling civilization was there in the ancient world, as it is here today.”

A sad fact emerging from all of this is that even as the ancients’ world was falling apart around them, they continued to insist that their situation would improve and that their empires would last forever.  “This is common to all falling cultures,” remarked the professor, warning us that, “They reassure themselves by insisting, ‘It can’t happen to us.  We are too advanced, too smart.’  But, alas, it did happen to them and it could happen again.  There are strong indications that history does repeat itself.” 

Mendenhall, whose theories coincide with those of the great historians Edward Gibbons (1737-1794), author of the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire (London, United Kingdom:  Harper and Brothers, 1900), and Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975), professor of international history at the London School of Economics in the United Kingdom, is in good company, albeit his predictions with regard to the American-led Western Bloc of nations seems off by about 50 years if all the shouts of “Let’s Go Brandon!” on the home turf have any bearing here.  

In light of this deteriorating situation, as predicted by Dr. George Mendenhall, let’s hope the Venusians, working behind the scenes, have “got our backs,” so to speak.  

26 August 1975

Billy Graham: “Billions of angels surround us….”

The 26 August 1975 edition of the National Enquirer (Lantana, Florida), carried an interesting article by correspondent Harold Lewis concerning some controversial statements by the popular American evangelist Billy Graham.  At his various rallies held throughout the world, the firebrand preacher has emphasized the role that billions of angels play in protecting us from evil, occult forces.  In this interview with the tabloid, Graham noted that, “Unfortunately, we don’t recognize the power of angels as we recognize the power of demons and devils.  But their power is every bit as great.”  

Graham’s latest book, Angels:  God’s Secret Agents (Nashville, Tennessee:  Thomas Nelson, 1975), had just arrived on bookshelves nationwide, its theme underscoring his ardent determination to intensify the public’s awareness of the amazing cosmic powers that these exalted beings exercise in affecting human destiny, both individually and collectively, being arrayed, as they are, in the forces for good.  In explaining this to journalist Lewis, the evangelist noted that, “At various times in their lives, people come close to a brush with death.  They may escape from an auto crash and it might look like a miracle.  But I believe it was because an angel was sent to protect them.  And I believe that when you eventually die, an angel takes you into the presence of God.”

Of course, we all know that angels were created by God.  But as to their mode of existence, Graham pointed out that, “Sometimes they exist in spirit form.  Sometimes they take on physical form.”  He also noted that, “There are ranks of angels, divisions of angels; and they are assigned certain duties and responsibilities.”  And as to their abode, the evangelist declared that, “I believe that the Earth is not their only place in the whole universe.  There are probably billions of them (inhabited planets).”

Forces of Evil Abound

Turning his attention to the sinister forces of evil afoot in the world, Billy Graham stated, “I truly believe that what we are seeing in the world today- crime, violence and war- is due to tremendous demon activity.  If these forces were to prevail, the world would suffer upheaval of a magnitude it has never known before.  We would be living in a time more terrible than the Dark Ages.  What is happening is that tremendous interest is building up in the forces of evil, giving it the impetus that is bringing about all of this strife.  Go into any bookshop and you will find the shelves lined with works on demons, devils and Satan.  The world has become obsessed with such subjects; and this actively encouraged the growth of evil.”

Graham explained that all of these factors listed above are what compelled him to write the book on angels.  “I felt,” he said, “that in this way I could play my part in helping to stifle the forces of evil, forces which have been allowed to grow because there has been very little effective opposition to them.”

Growing Awareness

Graham discovered a “tremendous vacuum” existed among the American populace when it came to angels and their mission here on Earth when he preached a sermon about these illustrious beings and subsequently received over 200,000 requests in the mail for copies of his sermon.  “I then knew that I had to expand that sermon into a major book,” remarked the well-known clergyman to Lewis, who interviewed Graham in Keswick, England, immediately after the evangelist’s appearance as a guest speaker there at a religious convention had successfully concluded.  Graham encouraged the Enquirer’s readers to secure a copy of his new book, insofar as, “It contains a wealth of material on angels that has never been gathered before.  It sets right the score between evil and good.  No there is something to turn to that doesn’t just dwell on demonology.”

Angels and Aliens

For those in the UFO community who wonders what the evangelist has to say about any connection between angels and extraterrestrial aliens, Graham opined in his Angels book that, “Some reputable scientists deny and others assert that UFOs do appear to people from time to time.  Some scientists have reached the place where they think that they can prove that these are possibly visitors from outer space.  Some Christian writers have speculated that UFOs could very well be part of God’s angelic host who preside over the physical affairs of universal creation.  While we cannot assert such a view with certainty, many people are now seeking some type of supernatural explanation for these phenomena.  Nothing can hide the fact, however, that these unexplained events are occurring with greater frequency” (Graham, Angels, 21).  

That the evangelist felt a linkage of angels with aliens would have a positive impact on society at large was expressed in the following statement to an independent blogger in 2005, “From my studies of the Scriptures, I can find nothing that would change our faith in the Gospel if we discover (intelligent) life on other planets.  And our society would benefit greatly by the discovery.  We would have everything to gain!”  

Evangelist Billy Graham (1918-2018), preached that the appearance of flying saucers in our skies might be an omen of the End Times.

Future Predications

In concluding his interview in the National Enquirer with the correspondent Lewis, Graham spoke optimistically of the future.  Smiling, the evangelist said, “All the devils will be destroyed on Judgment Day.  God will triumph; and His angels will triumph in the great war between good and evil that has yet to come.”  With this age of pandemics, pollutions, wars and a wide variety of other tribulations taking place, one has to wonder just how close we are coming to the Lord Jesus Christ’s return to Earth?

October 1975

Potential of Radio Telescopes in Search for Extraterrestrials

By October 1975, top personnel in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), were pushing for the United States Congress to authorize eight billion dollars for the construction and installation of powerful radio telescopes with the capacity to establish ongoing communications with intelligent life on other worlds, as soon as the country pulled out of the economic malaise that it found itself in.  Dr. James Fletcher, a then 56-year-old physicist and director of NASA since 1971, told a reporter from the National Enquirer (Lantana, Florida), as published in the 28 October 1975 issue, that, “There must be intelligent life somewhere out in space and we should make an all-out effort to contact them.  The United States has only one radio telescope right now.  It is at Arecibo, Puerto Rico.  We used it earlier this year to send out a message which will travel through our galaxy.  It was in a universal code that can be understood by any intelligent form of life out there.  I’d like to see a whole network of telescopes like the one at Arecibo, huge scanners which would enable us to listen in on other worlds.  They would cost about eight billion dollars and it would take ten years to build them all.”

Fletcher further explained, “I think we should be spending money on radio telescopes and on a power source which would get us to distant worlds.  But I know the time isn’t right because of the economy and the way people feel about space projects right now.  Nevertheless, there is no way you could measure in dollars that gains we would make by contact with a superior civilization.  It is a practical certainty that there is intelligent extraterrestrial life.  I would give you odds of a thousand-to-one on that.”  Of course, there were some possible drawbacks to this plan, which the NASA director did acknowledge: “Any civilization out there may be millions of years more advanced than us.  They may view us the same way we view insects and we may end up being colonized.  But even so, we must try to contact them.  There is so much we could learn.”

In 1975, the United States government maintained only one operational radio telescope, located at Arecibo, Puerto Rico.

Fletcher did take note that in the following year, on the Bicentennial Anniversary of the founding of the United States, NASA was scheduled to land space probe on the surface of Mars, and remarked that, “I believe we may find some form of planet life there.”  Also, speaking of future NASA missions, the director continued, “We are going to look at a moon of Saturn called Titan in 1979 as part of the probe of Jupiter and Saturn.  We know that Titan has the right temperature and lots of cardo dioxide, constituents which could give rise to life.  And we plan to send a probe to Jupiter in 1981, which may turn up primitive signs of life like algae and bacteria.  After we have covered these three places and discovered life, that will give us and everyone else the incentive to go for the stars.”  

Unfortunately for the public at large, when these NASA probes did arrive at the designated locations, the space agency reported that their searches for life on these orbs had proved “inconclusive.”  On 29 July 1968, the United States House of Representatives' Committee on Science and Astronautics convened a one-day Symposium on Unidentified Flying Objects, chaired by then-Indiana Congressman J. Edward Roush.  At that important conclave, Stanton Friedman (1934-2019) of the Westinghouse Corporation’s Astronuclear Laboratory in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, when asked if UFOs could come from our own solar system, testified, “They certainly could.  We have no data from any other body in the solar system which rules out the existence of advanced civilizations.”  Friedman, who authored many articles and books on the subject of UFOs,  maintained an unshakeable belief in the existence of these objects, with some of them as extraterrestrial spaceships, throughout his life, and felt that if intelligent life did not evolve on worlds in our solar system, to include the Earth, it was certainly transplanted here from another solar system.    

Nansen Class Anti-Submarine Warfare Frigate utilized by forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in conjunction with the Norwegian Navy.  In 1975, they were deployed to hunt Soviet subs; but in at least one case, were dispatched in search of an unidentified submarine object (USO). 

5 November 1975

Unidentified Submarine Object (USO) Off Coast of Norway

Slightly after daybreak on Wednesday, 5 November 1975, a 10,000-tons Bulgarian ship dropped anchor in the Bay of Ogna in the South-Jaeren area along the coast of Norway.  The ship was having engine problems and the captain, after consulting with the navigator and navigation charts, determined that the best protection from a rough sea could be obtained by anchoring at this point.  Coincidentally, at the same time the Bulgarian shipped dropped anchor to check on the engine and make repairs, Norwegians onshore reported seeing a submarine-like, cigar shaped object surfacing about two miles out into the Bay of Ogna. This was an object distinct from the Bulgarian ship.  The Norwegian Navy Headquarters, receiving the submarine sighting report, immediately sent a sub-hunting patrol boat into the bay to localize the alleged intruding submarine, but only came across the distressed Bulgarian ship, which was boarded by the Navy personnel, including experts who confirmed that the ship was undergoing engine repairs, provided what assistance they could, and then returned to base.

16 November 1975

Noted Scientists Finds Few “Kooks” Among UFO and Alien Spotters

The vast majority of people who claim to have seen flying saucers and/or their occupants are probably quite sane; or so claimed a prominent associate professor of psychology from the University of Wyoming at Laramie, Dr. R. Leo Sprinkle (1930-2021), in an exclusive interview with National Tattler (Chicago, Illinois) correspondent Cliff Linedecker that was published in the 16 November 1975 issue of that tabloid publication.  Sprinkle, the Director of Counseling and Testing at the time, noted that, “Witnesses to UFOs are normal persons who perceive and report abnormal phenomena.”  He cited a wealth of statistics from opinion polls and scientific surveys for the benefit of reporter Linedecker, serving to refute the popular hypothesis maintaining that UFO and ancillary alien reports are made by individuals with grave psychological problems.  “The available evidence just does not support the hypothesis that ‘kooks and cultists’ are the primary source of UFO sightings,” added Sprinkle, who further declared that, “In fact, the available evidence suggests that UFO reports are submitted by persons who represent a wide range of psychological and sociological characteristics.”

Dr. R. Leo Sprinkle (1930-2021), psychologist emeritus from the University of Wyoming at Laramie, attested to the credibility of UFO and/or alien witnesses.  He also wrote the introduction for Dr. Keller’s first book in the Venus Rising series.  

Facts Speak for Themselves

Dr. Sprinkle cited a Gallup Poll in the interview that backs up everything he was explaining concerning the UFO witnesses.  It seems that in 1975, if the Gallup Poll was correct, there were approximately 11 percent of the American adult population, or some 15 million adults, who claim to have sighted a UFO.  Also, about half of the population of the United States believed, along with the majority of leaders in 72 nations, that not only does life exist on other planets, but that it takes a decidedly human form.  The poll also indicated that younger and better educated individuals were the most likely to express a belief in flying saucers as extraterrestrial spaceships.  And about 15 percent of urban dwellers, with largely liberal political views, maintained that they had actually sighted a flying saucer.  In Dr. Sprinkle’s opinion, however, that the non-believers, or skeptics, still outnumbered the believers, could be explained in the context of the type of evidence being presented and not the amount of it.  “There is something very bothersome to many investigators about the weight of evidence of flying saucers or UFOs,” the Wyoming psychologist noted.  He further stated that, “The evidence rests largely upon the testimony of persons; the perception of UFO observers or UFO percipients.”

The seeming lack of hard evidence in the form of a captured spaceman or a crashed UFO causes many critics to doubt the sanity of the witnesses.  “This approach,” said Sprinkle, may be seen as a more sophisticated approach than that of ancient kings who, upon receiving bad news, would kill the messenger.  Now, in these more modern times, we need not kill the person who reports a UFO sighting.  We can ridicule the messenger and/or we can doubt the interpreter of the message.  With either approach, the message can be ignored.  In my experience, the personal and professional integrity of UFO investigators is high.  If they were not men and women of integrity, UFO investigators probably would turn to other fields of investigation where the social and professional rewards are higher and where knowledge is more certain.”

We have seen over the years that Dr. Sprinkle’s assessment of the UFO situation has proven true.  One motive for downplaying the credibility of the UFO and/or alien witnesses may be the interest of national security.  It is easier for government representatives to dismiss the observers as “kooks and cultists” precisely because admitting they were reliable, after all, might lead the investigators of these phenomena to discover that there really are captured interplanetary space travelers and crashed flying saucers.  The testimonies of the UFO percipients are indeed, more substantial than the rantings of conspiracy theorists that government authorities might like us to think they are.  

December 1975

Chemical Evolution of Life on Other Planets 

Did and do RNA molecules in outer space provide for the diffusion of life throughout the universe?  See https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/02/how-did-life-begin-its-chemistry-101-but-in-space/.  

In the closing month of 1975, more scientists were coming to the conclusion that life of some sort must surely exist on other planets.   Dr. Peter Godfrey, a prominent astronomy professor at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, reported that in October of 1975 he made a discovery, through the use of radio telescopes, of a complex molecule in outer space capable of forming life.  In an interview with an Australian correspondent for the National Enquirer (Lantana, Florida), published in its 16 December 1975 issue, Godfrey proclaimed that, “I’ve found that this organic molecule, thought previously to exist only on Earth, is actually a universal phenomenon.  And the discovery leads other scientists and me to say with almost complete certainty that life must have formed on other planets.”  The unique but complex molecule, methenamine (CH2NH), is a close chemical relative of the simple amino acids used to form protein, an essential building block for life as we know it here on Earth.

“Ten years ago,” said Godfrey, “scientists were sure such molecules did not exist in space.  Now we know that they do exist and could combine with other molecules to form life on planets similar to our own.  It’s a certainty, I believe, that they have done so.  Methenamine is much more complex chemically than the simpler molecules previously detected in space.  The existence of methenamine indicates, for the first time, the ability of elements to combine to form life in the universe.”  One of the first scientists to hail Godfrey’s discovery as strong evidence for the potential of life emerging on other worlds was Sir Bernard Lovell, the director of the United Kingdom’s Jodrell Bank Radio Telescope Station.  Lovell noted that, “The discovery confirms for me that life in outer space, similar to our own or even more advanced, can exist.  This is a tremendous, exciting discovery.  The evolution of life may have already taken place in countless parts of the universe; and it may only be beginning in other parts.  We already know that planetary systems similar to our own exist, and this recent discovery gathers further proof that all the ingredients needed for life could as easily have been present on those planets as on our own.”

Another to quickly jump on Godfrey’s bandwagon was Dr. Zdenak Kopal, the head of the Astronomy Department at Manchester University, also located in the United Kingdom, in England.  Kopal commented that, “This startling evidence dispels the theory that life began only on Earth and is exclusive to Earth.  Now we know that life could form in space under the conditions it did on Earth.”  And Dr. Ronald Bracewell, a professor of astronomy at Stanford University in California, added, “I believe the discovery of these molecules in space will lead more and more scientists to the view that we are not alone in the universe.  It is not certain that these elements would form to create intelligent life as we know it; but somewhere in this galaxy, or in another, I believe there is such life.”  As to the radio telescope component involved in Godfrey’s finding, Dr. Philip Cressy, a radio chemist at the Goddard Space Center on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., remarked that, “Dr. Godfrey’s discovery bolsters the conviction that humankind may reasonably hope to one day contact worlds that might be superior to our own.”

Returning to the process of detecting this molecule with a radio telescope, Godfrey noted that, “We know that molecules have individual, identifying microwave frequencies.  By aiming radio telescopes into deep space and looking for the exact same pattern of microwaves known to be given off by a particular molecule, we can establish that this molecule is present in the universe.  We were astounded by the huge number of methenami