Daniel Sheehan and the Blue Book photos

Daniel Sheehan and the Blue Book photos

Witness	Daniel P. Sheehan (born 1945), constitutional and public-interest lawyer
Claimed event	May 1977, viewing classified Project Blue Book microfilm
Place	Library of Congress James Madison Memorial Building (by his account)
Arranged by	Marcia S. Smith, Congressional Research Service
What he says he saw	Photos of a crashed disc in snow being measured by Air Force personnel; symbols on its side
Told publicly	Disclosure Project press conference, 9 May 2001
Status	Not independently confirmed
Date	1977
Topics	Crashes & retrievals (topic), Secrecy & cover-up (topic), Government programs (topic)
People	Daniel Sheehan, Marcia Smith, Jimmy Carter
Testimony	Shellenberger testimony, p. 81
Year	1977 in UFO history
Timeline	1977 on the UAP Timeline
Sources	10

Daniel Sheehan is a constitutional lawyer known for high-profile cases including the Pentagon Papers, the Karen Silkwood case and the Iran-Contra-related lawsuit Avirgan v. Hull.^[3][6] He has said that in 1977 Marcia Smith of the Congressional Research Service (CRS), who was preparing a report on UFOs and extraterrestrial life for Congress, asked him to help. He says that through her he was allowed to view classified Project Blue Book material in a secure room at the Library of Congress's Madison Building in May 1977.^[3][4] Among the files, he says, were photographs of a crashed disc-shaped craft in snow, with symbols on it, which he traced onto a legal pad.^[3][8] His account, first told publicly in 2001, has not been independently confirmed.^[3]

Daniel Sheehan

Sheehan was born in 1945 in Glens Falls, New York, and graduated from Harvard College in 1967 and Harvard Law School in 1970. He also studied at Harvard Divinity School.^[3][6] His cases and roles have included:^[3][6]

• the Pentagon Papers case and the Watergate break-in case
• the Silkwood case and the Greensboro massacre case
• Three Mile Island and the American Sanctuary Movement
• founding the Christic Institute and the Romero Institute
• counsel to the Jesuit national headquarters in Washington

The Christic Institute's 1986 suit over the La Penca bombing, Avirgan v. Hull, named Iran-Contra figures among its defendants. It was dismissed in 1988, and the judge ordered the institute to pay about $955,000 in attorney's fees under the rule used to penalize frivolous lawsuits.^[6] In UFO matters Sheehan has been counsel to the Harvard psychiatrist John E. Mack and to Steven Greer's Disclosure Project. He has represented Luis Elizondo in a case against the Defense Department.^[6]

Marcia Smith's request

Marcia S. Smith spent 31 years at the CRS as a science and technology policy expert specializing in space activities.^[3] She wrote CRS reports on astronauts, nuclear power and other subjects.^[1] On 9 March 1976 she wrote a CRS report titled The UFO Enigma, covering definitions of UFOs, witness credibility, arguments over the extraterrestrial hypothesis and alleged Air Force secrecy, the history of Air Force projects, the 1966 and 1968 congressional hearings, and private groups such as APRO, NICAP, CUFOS and MUFON. A later edition, with George D. Havas, appeared in 1983.^[7]

According to Sheehan's account at the 2001 Disclosure Project event, the request arose like this:^[3]

• Smith told him that President Jimmy Carter had asked the Director of Central Intelligence for classified UFO information and for the intelligence community's information on extraterrestrials.
• George H. W. Bush, then the CIA director, refused, saying the president had no "need to know".
• Bush suggested the request go through the CRS and the House Science and Technology Committee to have the material declassified.
• Smith asked Sheehan to help, including by seeking information from the Vatican library, which refused.

Bush served as Director of Central Intelligence from 30 January 1976 until 20 January 1977, the day Carter took office. Any refusal by Bush would therefore have come before or at the very start of Carter's presidency.^[9]

The viewing

Sheehan says he was appointed a special consultant to the CRS and, in May 1977, went to the Madison Building, which he described as brand new and empty.^[3] His account of the visit:^[3]

• He was taken to a basement room with two guards at the door and a third at a table, and left to view files and microfilm.
• He found photographs of a disc that had crashed, "plowed this kind of trough through this field", and wedged into an embankment, with snow all around.
• Air Force personnel in parkas with fur-trimmed hoods and name tags were photographing it and measuring it with a long tape measure.
• A close-up showed "little insignias — little symbols" on the side of the craft.
• While the guards were outside, he traced the symbols onto the cardboard backing of his yellow legal pad.
• When he left, a guard flipped through the pad but missed the tracing.

An ABC News account of the 2001 event gave a slightly different version. It said Sheehan was led into the National Archives, where he was shown photographs of captured UFOs with "what appeared to be alien writing symbols". He was allowed only to take notes, and he traced the photos onto the back of his pad.^[8] Some accounts say his notes were taken from him. In his own telling, the guard missed the tracing.^[3]

The Madison Building's structure was completed in 1976, but it was dedicated on 24 April 1980 and opened on 28 May 1980.^[10] That fits Sheehan's description of an empty, unopened building in 1977, but it means the facility was not yet in normal use.^[3][10]

Carter-era context

The episode is often linked to reports that President Carter's staff were interested in UFO information in 1977.^[2][3] A related item in UFO lore is an alleged "MJ-12" briefing to Carter on 14 June 1977 about a "Project Aquarius". The researcher Lee Graham said he received its text from William Moore in 1991. Its authenticity is doubtful: Robert Collins described it as at best a "reconstruction" and warned it might contain disinformation.^[2] Sheehan has also discussed his Blue Book story in podcast interviews.^[4] An archived page from the website presidentialufo.com also recounts the Marcia Smith story.^[5]

Later activity

Sheehan was among the speakers at the Disclosure Project's press conference at the National Press Club on 9 May 2001.^[3][8] On Coast to Coast AM in August 2021, he said the U.S. military had recovered more than one crashed UFO and was back-engineering them. He described representing Elizondo in his complaints against the Defense Department.^[3] He has since become an active voice in UAP disclosure efforts, including the 2023 UAP Disclosure Act debate.^[3]

Assessment

Marcia Smith's CRS work is documented, and she did produce a UFO report in 1976.^[1][7] Sheehan's account of seeing classified photographs rests on his own recollection, first told publicly in 2001, more than two decades after the event.^[3] The symbols he says he traced have not been published in any verifiable form, and no record of the viewing has been produced. In an unrelated case, The New York Times reported that the 1988 dismissal of his La Penca suit was partly because most of the witnesses he cited were "dead, unwilling to testify" or otherwise unreliable.^[6]

People and topics

• Daniel Sheehan — Constitutional lawyer who said he saw classified Blue Book photos and later represented Luis Elizondo.
• Project Blue Book — The Air Force's public UFO investigation from 1952 until its closure in December 1969.
• Marcia Smith — Congressional Research Service analyst who prepared UFO reports in the 1970s.
• Unidentified flying object — An object in the sky that can't be identified; the older term for UAP.
• Jimmy Carter — 39th U.S. president, who reported a UFO sighting and asked NASA about UFO research.
• Unidentified anomalous phenomena — The U.S. government's current term for unidentified objects in the air, in space and underwater.
• UAP Disclosure Act — A 2023 Senate proposal by Chuck Schumer and Mike Rounds to release UAP records.

On the Timeline

• Sgt. M.S. and the Wright-Patterson general (1977) — An Air Force sergeant says a general at Wright-Patterson told him about recovered material.
• Mario Woods incident at Ellsworth AFB (1977) (November 1977) — An Ellsworth AFB security airman says a UAP answered his spotlight signals.

See every 1977 event on the UAP Timeline →

Further reading

References

Facts in this article are drawn in part from the Wikipedia articles “Daniel Sheehan (attorney)”, “George H. W. Bush”, “James Madison Memorial Building”, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.