Office of Naval Research

Office of Naval Research

Type	Organization
Also known as	ONR
On the Timeline	3 events, 1951–2012

The Office of Naval Research (ONR) is the organisation within the US Department of the Navy responsible for the science and technology programmes of the Navy and Marine Corps. It was established by Congress in 1946 and funds research at universities, government laboratories and companies.^[1] It also oversees the Naval Research Laboratory.^[1] In UFO history it is known chiefly for its "Skyhook" high-altitude research balloons. In 1951 an ONR physicist, Urner Liddel, said these balloons explained every reliable flying saucer report.^[2][3] It also received the strange annotated book that launched the "Philadelphia Experiment" legend.^[4] It has said it never conducted such an experiment.^[4]

The agency

The ONR was authorised by Public Law 588 and approved by President Harry Truman on 1 August 1946. Its stated mission is "planning, fostering, and encouraging scientific research in recognition of its paramount importance as related to the maintenance of future naval power and the preservation of national security".^[1] It reports to the Secretary of the Navy through the assistant secretary for research, development and acquisition. It has its headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, and ONR Global offices abroad.^[1]

• Departments. Six science and technology departments fund basic research, mainly at universities. Technology and demonstration work goes mainly to government laboratories and industry.^[1]
• Naval Research Laboratory. The Naval Research Laboratory, founded in 1923, developed the first US radar system, over-the-horizon radar and the first US surveillance satellite.^[1]
• Firsts. ONR funding has supported the first US intelligence satellite, the SEALAB undersea habitats, the validation of the GPS concept, the first global atmospheric prediction model and the electromagnetic railgun.^[1]

The Skyhook balloons

Skyhook balloons were high-altitude plastic balloons developed by Otto C. Winzen and General Mills. The ONR used them from the late 1940s for atmospheric research, especially constant-level observations at very high altitude.^[3]

• First flight. The first Skyhook was launched on 25 September 1947. It carried a 63-pound payload of nuclear emulsion for recording cosmic rays to above 100,000 feet.^[3]
• Shape. At launch the gas formed only a small bubble at the top, so the balloon looked "limp". At height it swelled into a sphere or ovoid, in some models more than 100 feet across.^[3]
• Scale. More than 1,500 flights followed over ten years, launched from the United States, Canada and naval ships in the Atlantic, Pacific, Caribbean and Arctic. The first three-balloon cluster flew in 1948, the first shipboard launch took place in 1949, and the Atomic Energy Commission later joined the ONR in supporting the programme.^[3]
• Research. Skyhooks showed that cosmic rays include heavy atomic nuclei. In 1953 thirteen were flown in Project Churchy, an ONR cosmic-ray expedition to the Galápagos.^[3]

The Wikipedia account notes that Skyhooks may have been the source of some UFO reports. The most famous possible case is the 1948 Mantell UFO incident.^[3] See Thomas Mantell.

Urner Liddel's explanation (1951)

In February 1951 Urner Liddel, chief of the ONR's nuclear physics branch and in charge of the balloon tests, said in a Look magazine article and to reporters that Skyhook balloons accounted for every reliable flying saucer report he had checked. The press treated this as the first official explanation of the saucers.^[2] The UAP timeline published with Michael Shellenberger's 2024 congressional testimony says he called all reports mirages or balloons and said trained observers were being fooled.^[5] The claim was quickly criticised:^[2][5]

• Mirarchi. The former Air Force scientist Anthony Mirarchi, who had led Project Twinkle, told the Associated Press that the ONR was misleading people and that true UFOs were neither balloons nor natural phenomena.^[5] See Anthony Mirarchi.
• Aviation Week. The magazine accepted the explanation but condemned the secrecy that had let pilots chase the balloons.^[2]
• McDonald. In 1968 the atmospheric physicist James E. McDonald called it "probably the most categorical statement ever made attributing UFO observations to balloons", and argued that many balloon explanations ignored the key facts of sightings.^[11]

See Urner Liddel's Skyhook balloon explanation and Urner Liddel.

Charles B. Moore

The balloon scientist Charles B. Moore worked at the General Mills Aeronautical Research Laboratory through the 1950s on ONR-sponsored projects. These included military and intelligence uses of balloons, such as dropping leaflets over the Soviet bloc and surveillance.^[6] A balloon he helped launch in New Mexico on 4 June 1947 was later identified as the likely source of the Roswell debris.^[6] In 1952 Life magazine reported that Moore and a colleague had seen an unidentified flying object on 24 April 1949.^[6] The earlier version of this article placed the sighting at White Sands. The location is not given in the sources read here. See Project Mogul.

The annotated book (1955–1957)

In late 1955 Carl M. Allen sent the ONR an anonymous package marked "Happy Easter". It contained a copy of Morris K. Jessup's book The Case for the UFO, filled with handwritten notes in three shades of ink. The notes discussed flying saucer propulsion, alien races and an alleged wartime experiment.^[4] From January 1956 Allen also wrote to Jessup as "Carlos Miguel Allende", describing a Navy experiment that made a destroyer escort invisible in Philadelphia.^[4]

In 1957 the ONR invited Jessup to see the annotated book. Two ONR officers, Captain Sidney Sherby and Commander George W. Hoover, took a personal interest. Hoover later said that as special projects officer he investigated many publications and found nothing of substance in the invisibility claim.^[4] Hoover discussed the notes with Austin Stanton, president of the Varo Manufacturing Corporation, an ONR contractor. Varo's office made mimeographed copies of the book with the notes and letters, eventually 127 of them, known as the "Varo edition".^[4] See Varo edition of The Case for the UFO.

Allen later said he wrote all the annotations "to scare the hell out of Jessup". The story is widely regarded as a hoax.^[4] In September 1996 the ONR stated that it "has never conducted investigations on radar invisibility, either in 1943 or at any other time". It pointed out that it did not exist until 1946 and called the story "science fiction".^[4] See Allende letters and the Philadelphia Experiment.

Later connections

• James McDonald (1967). According to the historian Paul McCarthy, McDonald's 1967 trip to Australia was sponsored by the ONR.^[7]
• Hutchison effect (1983). According to the Shellenberger timeline, representatives of the ONR took part with the Army's intelligence command in a 1983 look at the "Hutchison effect", a claimed method of producing levitation.^[8]
• Intuition research (2012). In 2012 the ONR announced research into "sixth sense" and intuitive decision-making among personnel. The timeline speculates, without evidence, about a link to claimed telepathic programmes.^[9] See ONR intuition and sensemaking research.
• John Ramirez (2022). A retired CIA official, John Ramirez, said in 2022 that he had heard rumours of an ONR–CIA relationship in which material from unidentified submerged objects was recovered and passed to the CIA. This is not confirmed.^[10]

On the UAP Timeline

• Urner Liddel's Skyhook balloon explanation (27 February 1951) — A Navy physicist publicly says all UAP reports are mirages or balloons.
• Varo edition of The Case for the UFO (April 1956) — Navy researchers receive an annotated copy of Morris Jessup's UFO book with strange handwritten notes.
• ONR intuition and sensemaking research (2012) — The Office of Naval Research studies 'sixth sense' and intuitive decision-making.

References

Facts in this article are drawn in part from the Wikipedia articles “Office of Naval Research”, “Skyhook balloon”, “Philadelphia Experiment”, “Charles B. Moore”, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.