The Flying Saucers Are Real
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🎬 Book or film
Contents 4
| Type | Book, film or media |
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The Flying Saucers Are Real is a 1950 book by retired Marine Corps major Donald Keyhoe. It argued that flying saucers were spacecraft from another world and that the U.S. Air Force knew more than it was saying. It grew out of a magazine article of the same name and was one of the first influential works to present saucers as alien craft.[1][2]
The True article
In 1949 Ken Purdy, editor of True magazine, assigned Keyhoe to investigate flying saucers. Purdy believed that at least one of the explanations being offered had been planted to hide the real answer.[3] Keyhoe's article appeared in the January 1950 issue, published in late December 1949. The magazine introduced it as the most important true story it had ever printed.[1][2] Edward Ruppelt, later head of Project Blue Book, described it as one of the most widely read and discussed magazine articles in history.[1]
The book
The expanded book was published as a paperback by Fawcett's Gold Medal Books in 1950. It sold for 25 cents and ran to only 175 pages.[1][3] Written as a first-person account of Keyhoe's reporting in Washington, it reviews cases such as the death of Captain Thomas Mantell while chasing an object in January 1948.[3] Keyhoe argued that the Air Force had investigated these reports while hiding them from the public until 1949, and had since switched to a policy of gradual disclosure.[1] He claimed that Earth had been watched by visitors from space for about two centuries and that their visits had increased sharply after the first atomic bomb test in 1945.[1] He suggested the Air Force might have learned something about the visitors' propulsion and would reveal it once the Soviet Union was no longer a threat.[1]
Influence
The book was a great success and spread ideas, such as an official cover-up, that remain widely held in ufology.[1] Keyhoe followed it with Flying Saucers from Outer Space.[1] He later became director of the civilian group NICAP. The book's American copyright was not renewed, and it is now in the public domain and freely available online.[3]
References
- The Flying Saucers Are Real — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Donald E. Keyhoe, "The Flying Saucers Are Real", True (January 1950), transcribed by Project 1947 · project1947.com · archived copy
- Donald E. Keyhoe, The Flying Saucers are Real (1950), Project Gutenberg · gutenberg.org · archived copy
This page was last edited on 31 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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