Vallée meets Kit Green (1974)

Vallée meets Kit Green (1974)

Date	11 February 1974
People	Jacques Vallée, Christopher "Kit" Green
Testimony	Shellenberger testimony, p. 78
Year	1974 in UFO history
Timeline	1974 on the UAP Timeline
Sources	15

Vallée's 1974 meeting with Kit Green is the first encounter, recorded in Jacques Vallée's published journals, between the UFO researcher and Christopher "Kit" Green, a young CIA scientist. On 11 February 1974 Green, introduced through the physicist Hal Puthoff, talked with Vallée about the Pascagoula abduction case, about his counterparts across the U.S. government, and about whether a secret UFO study existed.^[2][15] He told Vallée that any aliens, "dead or alive", would fall under his group's mission, but that the CIA would not run long-term research without clear proof. He agreed there was probably a secret effort somewhere, perhaps "within private industry".^[2] The meeting began a relationship that runs through several volumes of Vallée's Forbidden Science journals.^{[1][2][4][11]}

The journals

The 1974 entries come from the second volume of Forbidden Science, covering 1970–1979. A 2011 series on the UFOs Scientific Research blog quoted them at length from the 2008 edition, titled Forbidden Science — Volume Two — Journals 1970–1979: The Belmont Years and published by Documentica Research.^[2] The later Anomalist Books paperback is titled Forbidden Science 2: California Hermetica (1970–1979). The series runs to six volumes, covering 1957 to 2019.^[5][6] A review of the sixth volume notes how many of the people in Vallée's circle had died by the 2010s, with few younger researchers replacing them.^[10] The blog's writer said that, after a fairly thorough internet search, they had never seen anyone cite Vallée's material on Green, so they put it "on the record".^[2]

Kit Green

• At the CIA. The 2011 blog series says Green worked at the CIA from 1969 to 1985 and spent part of that time researching the paranormal, including UFOs.^[2] Vallée in 1974 described him as "boyish", "dynamic" and bespectacled, holding a doctorate in biology, and full of optimism and humour.^[2]
• Schnabel's account. In his 1997 book Remote Viewers, the journalist Jim Schnabel described a CIA scientist he called "Richard Kennett". The Grey Lodge Occult Review later identified that pseudonym as Green, as quoted in a Substack post. In spring 1973, according to Schnabel, "Kennett" was an analyst in the CIA's Office of Scientific Intelligence, in his early thirties. He had a PhD in neurophysiology, was about to finish his MD, and spent much of his time on top-secret evaluations of the health of foreign leaders. He monitored the fringes of medicine and psychology, including parapsychology at SRI. Within a decade he would become assistant National Intelligence Officer for chemical and biological warfare.^[3]
• Later career. The Grey Lodge Occult Review described Green as chief of the Biomedical Sciences Department at General Motors.^[3] The researcher Tanner F. Boyle describes him as a medical doctor with a particular interest in military medicine, and a longtime CIA employee and intelligence contractor.^[7]
• Injury studies. The Stanford immunologist Garry Nolan has said that Green was in charge of studying patients, some of whom claimed to have been near UAP and to have been made ill. He named Green, alongside Vallée, Eric Davis and Colm Kelleher, as part of the "Invisible College".^[13] An IBTimes report on Nolan's claims about CIA personnel with brain injuries is also cited.^[8] (See Kit Green's injury database.)

How the meeting came about

The UFOs Scientific Research blog's 2016 review of Vallée's journals traces the lead-up through the entries.^[1]

• October 1973. Puthoff told Vallée there was a government project investigating UFOs. Its people sometimes called him to ask what his psychics said, and to have them remote-view places thought to be UFO bases. He gave Vallée the name of "David M.", one of the men in charge. David M. later said his unit was being disbanded "because of the current events".
• November 1973. Puthoff said he had found the leader of the CIA group that monitored the UFO field. David M., a middle-level manager who had become "overly excited" during the recent wave, had been pushed aside, and a biologist was put in charge. The new man did not yet want to meet Vallée. The blog suggests that this new man was Green.

The meeting

Vallée's entry for 11 February 1974 records the following, as quoted by the blog.^[2]

• Pascagoula. Green went straight to the Pascagoula abduction case. He knew more about it than the "experts" who had analysed it. J. Allen Hynek had interviewed both witnesses with Jim Harder, who had hypnotised them.
• The torpedo. Green said that two weeks after the supposed abduction, two other men fishing from a boat in the same river saw an oblong, torpedo-like object in the water. It was about a metre long and gave off a cone of light. When they touched it with an oar, the light went off and came back on, suggesting it was controlled from inside. The Coast Guard confirmed the sighting, everyone was debriefed by Naval Intelligence, and "all hell broke loose". The Navy alerted Green.
• A strategic site. "Nobody has pointed out that Pascagoula is a strategic site," Green said. It was where most U.S. nuclear submarines were built, so the Navy suspected a Soviet spy device. But why would a spy device carry a light, he asked, and a robot that swims underwater is hard to build.
• Counterparts. They discussed computer catalogues. Green had not heard of Brazil's "lead mask" case. The most important thing Vallée learned was that Green had counterparts in every branch of the Executive. Like Howell McConnell, they mostly worked "out of personal interest", with the blessing of higher managers. They sometimes swapped data, but Green said little was done with it.
• His mandate. "If there are Aliens around, dead or alive, they come under the mission of my group, which is biological intelligence," Green said. "I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't keep my mind open to this possibility."
• No long-term study. Asked whether the CIA was doing longer-term research, Green replied: "Not the agency. Not until there's clear proof that the problem is real." His bosses had read the same reports, and even Vallée's books, but had never been worried enough to set up a serious project.
• A secret effort? Vallée pressed him: wasn't there a secret effort somewhere? After a pause, Green agreed. "In my group we've wondered if it wasn't being run within private industry."

The blog's writer read Green's remark about his "perfect excuse" as a sign that he already had a personal interest in the subject, and used his CIA resources to pursue it.^[2] Michael Shellenberger's 2024 UFO timeline, submitted to the House Oversight Committee, summarises the meeting as a discussion of Green's contacts in the Executive branch and intelligence community who were interested in UAP. It adds that Vallée noted he could not tell J. Allen Hynek, because Puthoff had asked him not to share anything.^[15]

Later contacts in 1974–75

The blog continued with Vallée's later entries about Green.^[2][4]

• 26 February 1974. "A temporary clearance is being set up to enable me to visit Kit next month in hopes to better understand the chessboard." On 21 March Vallée went to the CIA and met David M. and a colleague, Mary S. He found that "the people in the room knew less than I did".^[1][2]
• 18 May 1974. After a visit to the NSA, Vallée met Green at the Dulles airport restaurant. Green said his team was still interested in chasing rumours, but long-term research was not their mission. If they found hard evidence, they would pursue it, but he admitted that was unlikely. He said his people had looked "deep within the Air Force" and found no one who would talk. He had spent three days with Colonel Winebrenner, the new commander of the Foreign Technology Division, who swore the FTD was no longer doing anything on UFOs and had no hardware or biological data. "So where do they hide the... project, if there's one?" Green asked.
• The "Group of Twelve". On 2 June 1974 Puthoff passed on a message from Green. There was "a group of 12 highly placed people in the Government" who had decided to create a focus for UFO study, with full access and funding for researchers like Vallée. One of them was at deputy secretary level. On 16 June Green drove Vallée in his yellow sports car to the Marriott to meet David M. and "Sams", introduced as a member of the group. Sams was a 20-year agency veteran who managed a project flying "secret vehicles often confused with UFOs". Vallée found them "space cadets" talking about research "worthy of the old NICAP", and Sams had no answers about scientific objectives. Vallée spent that evening and the next morning arguing with Green at his house, and "failed to convince him that UFOs were real". By 21 July Green had dropped out of the group.
• December 1974. Green told Vallée he had checked all the data alluded to by Robert Emenegger. "Everything checks out," he said, but he could not confirm that the Holloman film existed. He also reluctantly confirmed a group of 15 engineers in the Midwest secretly doing UFO research for the CIA under cover of "aeronautical research". Vallée assumed it was McDonnell in St. Louis.
• 1975. Entries record Green talking with Vallée about cults and control systems, and about the documentary maker Allan Sandler. Green also reported that the Holloman film had been withdrawn from a library by a "Captain Harner" who could not be traced. Another entry has Green and Puthoff pouncing on a one-armed hotel guest whose key had opened Puthoff's door. On cattle mutilations, Vallée recorded that his own analysis ran "contrary to Kit's conclusions".

Tanner F. Boyle notes that Vallée's wife Janine, after reading about one contradictory conversation with Green, "was incensed" and thought "the Spooks are trying to use me". Boyle shares her suspicions of Green, while recording lighter moments such as Green's taste for apple pie with cheddar cheese, "an old Wisconsin custom".^[11]

The secret-project question

The 2016 blog post follows Vallée's changing view, after this meeting, on whether a secret U.S. UFO project existed.^[1]

• In 1978 a caller from McDonnell Douglas told Vallée of a well-funded secret project monitored by the CIA. Vallée later wrote that it was continuing with John Schuessler and seemed to be looking for exotic alloys. In January 1978 Green had been told that the agency had no mission to monitor the subject.
• In 1980 Vallée told Puthoff that he no longer believed the government had an ongoing UFO project, and Puthoff agreed. In 1981 Green "remains sceptical".
• In 1985 Richard Niemtzow convinced Vallée that there was a secret project.
• By September 1989 Vallée wrote: "if Kit has come up with nothing", and if senior officials denied being briefed, he had no evidence of an active black project. He saw signs of "a large disinformation campaign", but could find nothing behind it.

Assessment

Green's CIA employment is described consistently across the sources read here.^[2][3][7] What he told Vallée about officials, projects and the Pascagoula "torpedo" cannot be checked against documents in these sources. The blog notes that a published account of the Pascagoula case does not mention the torpedo sighting, though another site has details that fit Green's description.^[2] The entries are mainly valuable as a contemporary record of what scientists and intelligence officers were saying privately in the 1970s. By Vallée's own account, those conversations did not lead him to a secret program.^[1]

Notes on the earlier version

• Green's posts. The earlier version said Green "ran the life-sciences desk in the CIA's scientific intelligence office" and was "later a senior analyst for the neurosciences". The sources read here place him in the Office of Scientific Intelligence and later as an assistant National Intelligence Officer for chemical and biological warfare. A Boyle headline refers to the CIA's "Life Sciences Division". The "senior analyst for the neurosciences" title is not covered in the sources read here.^[3][7]
• Later career. The earlier version said Green left the CIA "in the mid-1980s" for General Motors' research laboratories, and later worked as a forensic neuroimaging specialist in Detroit. The sources read here support his CIA service ending in 1985 and a post at General Motors. The Detroit neuroimaging role is not covered in the sources read here.^[2][3]
• Introductions. The earlier version said Green introduced Vallée to the "Group of Twelve" in June 1974. In Vallée's account the news came first through Puthoff, on 2 June. Green then took Vallée to meet one member, "Sams", on 16 June.^[2][4]
• Wikipedia. The Wikipedia article titled "Kit Green" is about an English writer and performer, not the CIA scientist.^[12] Two other sources cited in the earlier version, a TweakTown article and an Above Top Secret forum thread, could not be read (one refused access, the other did not respond).^[9][14]

People and topics

• Jacques Vallée — Computer scientist and astronomer, author of the Forbidden Science journals and a central figure in UFO research.
• Christopher "Kit" Green — CIA physician and analyst who became a long-time contact of Jacques Vallée and studied UAP-related injuries.
• Unidentified anomalous phenomena — The U.S. government's current term for unidentified objects in the air, in space and underwater.
• Central Intelligence Agency — The U.S. foreign intelligence agency, which has followed UFO reports since the 1940s.
• Unidentified flying object — An object in the sky that can't be identified; the older term for UAP.
• Forbidden Science — Jacques Vallée's published journals.

On the Timeline

• Livermore scientists' paranormal experiences (1974) — Kit Green says he worked with scientists who reported orbs and entities in their homes.
• Malmstrom Romeo-29 incident (1974) (March 1974) — A large glowing object hovers over a Minuteman launch facility at Malmstrom AFB, Montana.

See every 1974 event on the UAP Timeline →

Further reading

References

Facts in this article are drawn in part from the Wikipedia article “Kit Green”, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.