Lyndon Johnson's informal UFO study
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 8
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| Date | 1968 |
|---|---|
| People | Lyndon Johnson, Frank Rand, Kelly Johnson, Arthur Lundahl, James E. McDonald, John B. Alexander |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 71 |
| Year | 1968 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 1968 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 4 |
According to unpublished manuscripts by Frank Rand, a former adviser to Vice President Hubert Humphrey on military and NASA affairs, President Lyndon Johnson in the late 1960s asked for a small, informal study of UFOs, which concluded that they probably involved advanced technology created off the planet. No document confirms the study.[1][2]
Rand's account
Rand said he administered the study, which involved Lockheed Skunk Works designer Kelly Johnson, CIA photo-interpretation chief Arthur Lundahl and a handful of other scientists. President Johnson, he said, wanted it partly to answer pressure from University of Arizona atmospheric physicist James McDonald, who was lobbying hard for serious UFO research — to "get McDonald off his back". McDonald supplied information early on but, according to Rand, did not see the conclusions.[1]
The conclusions
Rand wrote that the group concluded UFOs most likely involved advanced technology created off the planet, and that Kelly Johnson was one of only two members fully convinced that UFOs were technological devices. The study was never made public.[1]
The sources
Rand's untitled manuscript, drafted around 1996 and later revised, and his letters were sent in the early 2000s to John Timmerman of the Center for UFO Studies. Historians Michael Swords and Robert Powell read the manuscripts and discussed them in their 2012 book UFOs and Government, which identifies Rand as Humphrey's former adviser. McDonald's biographer, Ann Druffel, did not know Rand's identity, though McDonald had written to him as a close friend and colleague.[1][3]
Assessment
No document in the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library or elsewhere confirms the study, and all the details come from Rand's second-hand account. It should be treated as an intriguing but unverified claim.[1][2]
People and topics
- Lyndon Johnson — 36th U.S. president, said to have requested an informal UFO study.
- Unidentified anomalous phenomena — The U.S. government's current term for unidentified objects in the air, in space and underwater.
- Frank Rand — Aide who described an informal UFO study for President Lyndon Johnson.
- Unidentified flying object — An object in the sky that can't be identified; the older term for UAP.
- Lockheed Martin — The aerospace company whose Skunk Works built the U-2, SR-71 and F-117.
- Kelly Johnson — Lockheed Skunk Works designer of the U-2 and SR-71 who reported a UFO sighting in 1953.
- Central Intelligence Agency — The U.S. foreign intelligence agency, which has followed UFO reports since the 1940s.
- Arthur Lundahl — Director of the CIA's National Photographic Interpretation Center from 1953 to 1973.
- James E. McDonald — University of Arizona atmospheric physicist who campaigned for serious UFO research in the 1960s.
- Center for UFO Studies — The research center founded by J. Allen Hynek in 1973.
- John B. Alexander — Retired Army colonel who organized the 1985 Advanced Theoretical Physics group and wrote UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies and Realities.
On the Timeline
- Northrop electroaerodynamics research (1968) (1968) — Northrop researchers publish work on reducing drag with electric fields.
- F. Robert Naka and NORAD space tracks (14 February 1968) — A MITRE scientist tells the Condon study that NORAD radars have tracked UAP arriving from space.
See every 1968 event on the UAP Timeline →
References
- "U.S. President Lyndon Johnson's secret UFO study", UFOs Scientific Research (Jan 2013) · ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com · archived copy
- "UAPs in presidential libraries", U.S. National Archives · archives.gov · archived copy
- James E. McDonald — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com · ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com · archived copy
Further reading
- Kelly–Hopkinsville encounter — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
This page was last edited on 29 October 2026. Articles are written in our own words from the sources listed under References; disputed claims are attributed to the people who made them.
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