Vallée's doubts about Kit Green (1974)

Vallée's doubts about Kit Green (1974)

Date	16 June 1974
Topics	Beings & bodies (topic), Secrecy & cover-up (topic), Disinformation & hoaxes (topic)
People	Jacques Vallée, Christopher "Kit" Green
Testimony	Shellenberger testimony, p. 79
Year	1974 in UFO history
Timeline	1974 on the UAP Timeline
Sources	15

Vallée's doubts about Kit Green refers to a journal entry by the UFO researcher Jacques Vallée, dated 16 June 1974, about a weekend spent with the CIA scientist Christopher "Kit" Green. Michael Shellenberger's 2024 UFO timeline, submitted to the House Oversight Committee, cites the entry as showing Vallée wondering whether their UFO discussions were a "cover" for the CIA's "newest gadgets", and whether Green was feeding him disinformation.^[14] Published excerpts of the entry describe Green introducing Vallée to two members of a supposed "Group of Twelve" government officials, whom Vallée dismissed as "space cadets". The excerpts also describe a weekend of argument in which Vallée "failed to convince him that UFOs were real".^[1][2] The excerpts read here do not include the passage about a "cover". That wording comes from the timeline, which cites an online forum thread that could not be read.^[13][14]

Background

Vallée first met Green on 11 February 1974, through the physicist Hal Puthoff. Green, who held a doctorate in biology and worked in the CIA's biological intelligence area, told him that any aliens "dead or alive" would fall under his group's mission. He said the agency would not run long-term research without clear proof.^[2][15] In May 1974, at the Dulles airport restaurant, Green told Vallée his people had searched "deep within the Air Force" without finding anyone who would talk.^[15] 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 you". One of them was at deputy secretary level.^[2][15] (See Vallée meets Kit Green (1974).)

The 16 June 1974 entry

A 2011 post on the UFOs Scientific Research blog quotes the entry from Vallée's published journals.^[1]

• Arrival. Green, "wearing a colorful shirt and a vibrant tie", met Vallée at Dulles airport the previous Friday in his little yellow sports car.
• The "Group of Twelve". They drove to the Marriott to meet "David M." and "Sams", who was introduced as a member of the new "Group of Twelve". That sounded exciting, Vallée wrote, until they sat down in the bar and he realised "they were all space cadets, talking about pedestrian research worthy of the old NICAP".
• "Sams". Sams was a 20-year veteran of "the agency" and manager of a project that flew "secret vehicles often confused with UFOs". He had brown hair and thick glasses, and suggested Vallée write a proposal with him for an ambitious, big-budget effort. But he had no answers to Vallée's questions about scientific objectives.
• The weekend. They went on to Green's house in the woods, where Vallée met Green's wife and two sons, who made him feel at home. "We spent all of Friday evening arguing, all of Saturday morning as well. I failed to convince him that UFOs were real."

The blog's writer commented that they had not come across a 1974 government study group before. They guessed that the "secret vehicles" were the U-2 or, more likely, the SR-71, and wondered what Sams hoped his proposed project would achieve.^[1] The 2016 post on the same blog places the entry on page 255 of the second volume of Forbidden Science.^[2]

What followed

• Green leaves the group. On 21 July 1974 Vallée wrote that Green, Puthoff and others had just visited for a demonstration of his landing catalogue, and that "Kit has dropped out of Sam's covert 'Group of Twelve'".^[1]
• December 1974. Green told Vallée he had reconstructed all the data alluded to by the producer Robert Emenegger. "Everything checks out," he said, but he could not find out whether the Holloman film existed. He also "reluctantly confirmed" a group of 15 Midwestern engineers secretly doing UFO research for the CIA under cover of "aeronautical research". Vallée assumed this was McDonnell in St. Louis.^[1]
• 1975. Green kept passing on intriguing leads. He said the Holloman film had been withdrawn from a library by a "Captain Harner", but that no trace of Harner or the film could be found at the Pentagon. He also told a story of a friend who had attended a witchcraft session in San Francisco. Vallée noted that "Kit is now talking to every ufologist worth his salt". On cattle mutilations, Vallée recorded that his own analysis ran "contrary to Kit's conclusions".^[1]
• Janine's view. The researcher Tanner F. Boyle quotes a later entry in which Vallée's wife Janine read about one of his conversations with Green. "She was incensed. She thinks the Spooks are trying to use me." Boyle writes that he shares her suspicions of Green.^[10]
• The 1980s. In 1981 Vallée recorded that Green "remains sceptical" that a secret project existed. In 1989 he listed "Kit has come up with nothing" among his reasons for finding no evidence of an active black project, even though he saw "a large disinformation campaign".^[2]

Vallée's wider suspicions

Vallée's suspicion that intelligence agencies were manipulating the UFO field is well documented. In a 2006 French radio interview, summarised by Gildas Bourdais, he described the theme he had developed since Messengers of Deception (1979). Disinformation agents, he said, aimed not to hide UFOs but "to make people believe in UFOs, by means of clever rumours and staged events", in order to hide secret technology. He described the Rendlesham Forest affair as "an experiment in psychological war", and cited the Bennewitz case as manipulation.^[3] He also explained why he and J. Allen Hynek had been suspicious of offers of supposedly authentic military UFO footage: "it's disinformation to hide something else".^[3]

Kit Green

Green worked at the CIA from 1969 to 1985, according to the 2011 blog series. During that time he spent part of his effort on paranormal topics including UFOs.^[15] Boyle describes him as a medical doctor with an interest in military medicine, and a longtime CIA employee and intelligence contractor.^[6] The Stanford immunologist Garry Nolan has said that Green later studied patients who reported illnesses after being near UAP, and named him as part of the "Invisible College" with Vallée.^[12] An IBTimes report on Nolan's claims about CIA personnel with brain injuries is also cited.^[7] Vallée's journals record that he and Green remained in contact for decades. The journal series now runs to several volumes.^[4][5][9]

Significance

The entry shows how uncertain even well-connected researchers were about what they were told by intelligence contacts. In the same weeks, Green brought Vallée news of a high-level funding group and introduced him to its members, then argued against the reality of UFOs and soon left the group.^[1] Whether Green was a sincere sceptic, an intermediary passing on genuine leads, or, as Janine Vallée suspected, part of an effort to "use" Vallée, the journals do not settle.^[1][10]

Notes on the earlier version

• "Cover" for gadgets. The earlier version said the testimony cites the entry as showing Vallée wondering whether his discussions were a cover for something else. The timeline's wording, "cover" for the CIA's "newest gadgets", does not appear in the excerpts read here. Its cited source, an Above Top Secret forum thread, could not be reached.^[13][14]
• "Unambitious". The earlier version said Vallée judged the group's proposed work "unambitious". In the excerpt, Sams actually proposed "an ambitious effort with a big budget". Vallée's objection was that the group talked about "pedestrian research" and had no scientific objectives.^[1]
• Introductions. The earlier version said Green introduced Vallée to both "David M." and "Sams" as members of the group. In the excerpt, only Sams is introduced as a member. Vallée had met David M. earlier at the CIA.^[1][2]
• Other sources. A TweakTown article cited in the earlier version refused automated access.^[8] The Wikipedia article titled "Kit Green" is about an English performer, not the CIA scientist.^[11]

People and topics

• Jacques Vallée — Computer scientist and astronomer, author of the Forbidden Science journals and a central figure in UFO research.
• Unidentified anomalous phenomena — The U.S. government's current term for unidentified objects in the air, in space and underwater.
• Christopher "Kit" Green — CIA physician and analyst who became a long-time contact of Jacques Vallée and studied UAP-related injuries.
• 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.
• Messengers of Deception — Jacques Vallée's 1979 book on manipulation of UFO beliefs.

On the Timeline

• Twelve officials to study UFOs (1974) (2 June 1974) — Puthoff relays that 12 senior officials have decided to focus on UAP study.
• Army missile exercise phenomena (1973–74) (17 July 1974) — An Army spokesman says unexplained aerial phenomena were seen during missile exercises.

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.