Howell McConnell and post-Blue Book analysis
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 9
| Person | Howell McConnell, National Security Agency |
|---|---|
| Date | 28 October 1972 (Vallée's journal, Forbidden Science Vol. 2, p. 160) |
| Question | Whether Vallée knew of a Wright-Patterson group doing secret UFO analyses for the Air Force |
| Claim | The office had reportedly confiscated UFO negatives to analyse them secretly |
| Later | Named as a participant in John Alexander's Advanced Theoretical Physics (ATP) group, 1985 |
| Status | No records confirm a dedicated UFO analysis office at Wright-Patterson after 1969 |
| Topics | Secrecy & cover-up (topic), Government programs (topic), Bases & Area 51 (topic) |
| People | Jacques Vallée, Howell McConnell |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 75 |
| Year | 1972 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 1972 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 8 |
In his journals Jacques Vallée records that on 28 October 1972 Howell McConnell of the National Security Agency asked him a question. Had he heard of a group at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base that did secret UFO analyses for the Air Force? McConnell had heard that the office "confiscated UFO negatives in order to analyze them secretly".[1] The question came less than three years after the Air Force had closed Project Blue Book and declared its UFO investigations over.[3] It was the first of many hints of a secret government UFO effort that Vallée chased through the 1970s and 1980s without finding one.[1]
McConnell
McConnell was an NSA official with a long-standing interest in UFOs.[1][2] In February 1974 the CIA scientist Kit Green told Vallée that he had counterparts in every branch of the executive. "Like Howell McConnell, they mainly operated 'out of personal interest'," with the blessing of higher-level managers.[1]
In the mid-1980s McConnell was named among the participants in Col. John Alexander's Advanced Theoretical Physics (ATP) working group. It met at the defence contractor BDM's secure facility in McLean, Virginia, in 1985 to examine whether a government UFO research program existed.[1][2] Vallée's later journal note dates the key meetings to 20–25 May 1985, under Department of Energy supervision.[2] His list of alleged participants included people from:[2]
- Los Alamos National Laboratory
- the CIA and the NSA ("Howell McConnell from NSA (whom I met in October 1972)")
- Army intelligence
- McDonnell Douglas and Lockheed
- the office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering
- BDM, represented by Bert Stubblebine
Others on the list were Hal Puthoff and the remote viewer Ed Dames.[2] Vallée privately called the effort the "Secret Onion" and wrote that he did not want to become "the outer skin of some shadowy organization".[2] Alexander described the project in his 2011 book UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies and Realities.[2]
After Blue Book
The Air Force closed Project Blue Book on 17 December 1969, after the Condon Committee concluded that further UFO study was unlikely to be productive. A review by the National Academy of Sciences agreed.[3] Blue Book had collected 12,618 reports, of which 701 remained unexplained. Its files went to the Air Force archives at Maxwell Air Force Base and later to the National Archives.[3] The researcher Brad Sparks argues that the project's real last day was 30 January 1970.[3]
A memo of 20 October 1969 by Brig. Gen. Carroll H. Bolender said that reports would continue to be handled through standard Air Force procedures. It added that reports "which could affect national security ... are not part of the Blue Book system". What those other channels were remains unknown.[3] The author Howard Blum reported that Freedom of Information Act requests show the Air Force continued to catalogue some sightings. Among them were dozens of encounters at nuclear-weapons sites from the late 1960s to the mid-1970s.[3]
Wright-Patterson
Wright-Patterson had been the home of every public Air Force UFO project since Project Sign in 1947.[3] It was also home to the Air Force's foreign-technology intelligence unit. The Air Technical Intelligence Center became the Foreign Technology Division (FTD) in 1961.[4] The FTD's work included:[4]
- Captured aircraft. It tested captured Soviet aircraft, including the MiG-21 flown in the HAVE DOUGHNUT project of 1968.
- An "Aerial Phenomenon Office". It had one by 1968.
- Satellite fragments. In 1983 one of its offices published an analysis of fragments from the Cosmos 1220 and Cosmos 1306 satellites.
In September 1968 Col. Raymond Sleeper of the FTD asked Hynek for advice on improving Blue Book's methods.[3] The unit became today's National Air and Space Intelligence Center.[4]
Vallée's search
Keith Basterfield traced the question of a secret program through Vallée's journals from 1970 to 1989. He showed how Vallée's view kept shifting:[1]
- 1973. Hal Puthoff told Vallée there was a government project that consulted his psychics, and named one of its leaders.
- 1974. Vallée met the CIA group and found "the people in the room knew less than I did". He met members of a supposed "Group of Twelve" and thought them "space cadets".
- 1975. When J. Allen Hynek asked Donald Rumsfeld whether there was a secret study, he was told, "You do NOT have a need to know."
- 1978. A contact at McDonnell Douglas described a well-funded secret project monitored by the CIA.
- 1980. Vallée told Puthoff he "no longer believed the government had an ongoing UFO project".
- 1985. Richard Niemtzow convinced him there was a secret project after all. Alexander's group concluded "there must be a secret UFO project, somewhere else!"
- 1986. The CIA's number two said no other group was studying the subject.
- 1989. Vallée wrote that he had "no evidence, not even the hint that a black project is active". He saw "a large disinformation campaign" but could find nothing behind it.
The journals have been published as the multi-volume Forbidden Science series.[5][6][7] Readers have noted their intimate, diary-like record of the people and rumours of ufology.[8]
Assessment
The Bolender memo is often cited as evidence that the important cases went elsewhere, and McConnell's question fits that suspicion.[1][3] But no records confirm a dedicated UFO analysis office at Wright-Patterson after 1969. McConnell himself was passing on something he had "heard".[1][3] The base's Foreign Technology Division continued to analyse foreign aircraft and equipment.[4] Some researchers believe that would have included any unusual material.[1][4] Vallée's own two decades of inquiry ended without his finding the program the rumours pointed to.[1]
People and topics
- National Security Agency — The U.S. signals intelligence agency, which holds UFO-related intercepts.
- Jacques Vallée — Computer scientist and astronomer, author of the Forbidden Science journals and a central figure in UFO research.
- Wright-Patterson Air Force Base — The Ohio air base that housed Project Blue Book and is linked to the Hangar 18 legend.
- Unidentified anomalous phenomena — The U.S. government's current term for unidentified objects in the air, in space and underwater.
- Project Blue Book — The Air Force's public UFO investigation from 1952 until its closure in December 1969.
- Howell McConnell — NSA official who told Jacques Vallée of continued UFO analysis at Wright-Patterson.
- Unidentified flying object — An object in the sky that can't be identified; the older term for UAP.
- U.S. Air Force — The U.S. military service that ran the official UFO projects from 1947 to 1969.
- Bolender memo — The 1969 Air Force memo saying important UFO reports would bypass Project Blue Book.
- Foreign Technology Division — The Air Force unit at Wright-Patterson that analysed foreign technology.
On the Timeline
- Puthoff's report of a new secret study (1972) (7 October 1972) — Hal Puthoff tells Vallée a former NSA colleague said a new secret UAP study was underway.
- UFOs: Past, Present, and Future documentary (May 1973) — Two Air Force colonels reportedly encourage filmmakers to make a UAP documentary.
See every 1972 event on the UAP Timeline →
Further reading
- Project Blue Book — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Project Blue Book records — National Archives · archives.gov · archived copy
- Project Blue Book files — The Black Vault · theblackvault.com · archived copy
- Wright-Patterson Air Force Base — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Hangar 18 (the legend and 1980 film) — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Jacques Vallée — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
References
- "Was there secret US government research?", UFOs Scientific Research (Oct 2016) · ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com · archived copy
- "ATP aka Secret Onion", Anomaly Archives · anomalyarchives.org · archived copy
- Project Blue Book — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Foreign Technology Division — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Forbidden Science — the journals of Jacques Vallée (Anomaly Archives) · anomalyarchives.org · archived copy
- Forbidden Science series — Anomalist Books · anomalistbooks.com · archived copy
- Review of Forbidden Science 6 — SFCrowsnest · sfcrowsnest.info · archived copy
- Forbidden Science Dispatches — Tanner Boyle (journal summaries) · tannerfboyle.substack.com · archived copy
Facts in this article are drawn in part from the Wikipedia articles “Project Blue Book”, “Foreign Technology Division”, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.
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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