Oechsler–Inman phone call

Oechsler–Inman phone call

First approach	May 1988 (in person, per Oechsler)
Call	Some time after the approach; recorded by Oechsler
Shapiro meeting	October 1989 (per the Shellenberger timeline)
Published	Timothy Good, Alien Liaison (May 1991), chapter 10
People	Bob Oechsler, Bobby Ray Inman, Sumner Shapiro, Timothy Good
Inman's view	"I believe all these allegations to be false" (1991)
Testimony	Shellenberger testimony, p. 105
Date	October 1989
Topics	Beings & bodies (topic)
Year	1989 in UFO history
Timeline	1989 on the UAP Timeline
Sources	7

The Oechsler–Inman phone call was a recorded telephone conversation between the Maryland UFO researcher Bob Oechsler and retired Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, former director of the National Security Agency and deputy director of Central Intelligence. Oechsler said he first approached Inman in May 1988 "seeking guidance on how to get access to information on non-human-made disk technology", and that Inman "validated that the government had information, and provided me with the names of people I should see".^[2] The British writer Timothy Good published part of the call in Alien Liaison (1991) as evidence that the government held alien craft. Inman called the allegations false. The writer Armen Victorian, who obtained a copy of the full recording, said it contained no specific reference to UFOs.^[1]

Inman

• Inman was Director of Naval Intelligence from September 1974 to July 1976 and vice director of the Defense Intelligence Agency until 1977. He then directed the NSA until 1981 and was deputy director of Central Intelligence from 12 February 1981 to 10 June 1982. He was the first naval intelligence specialist to reach four-star rank.^[4] He later sat on the board of the defence contractor Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC).^[4] The Shellenberger timeline says he was on the boards of SAIC and Wackenhut at the time.^[7]
• On 16 December 1993 President Bill Clinton announced Inman as his choice for Secretary of Defense. Inman withdrew at a press conference on 18 January 1994.^[4] The nomination revived interest in the tape. The Independent reported on 19 December 1993 that UFO enthusiasts were convinced the nominee held "vital information about flying saucers". Stanton Friedman believed Inman held the secrets to "a cosmic Watergate" over the 1947 Roswell crash.^[2]

The call

• The earlier version of this article said Oechsler telephoned Inman in May 1988. Victorian's account of Good's book describes "an alleged encounter" between the two in May 1988 and "a subsequent telephone conversation".^[1] In other words, the May 1988 contact was an approach in person, at which Oechsler said he handed Inman his card, and the recorded call came later.^[1] The exact date of the call is not given in the sources read here.
• Good printed this exchange on page 191 of Alien Liaison. Oechsler asked whether "any of the recovered vehicles would ever become available for technological research". Inman replied that he honestly didn't know; that ten years earlier the answer would have been no; that there was a possibility things were becoming more open; and that the CIA's retired deputy director for science and technology, whom Good names as "Mr Hineman", would probably be the best person to ask.^[1]
• Good and Oechsler presented this as Inman confirming that alien spacecraft existed.^[1] The phrase "recovered vehicles" was Oechsler's, and in the printed exchange Inman does not describe any vehicle as alien.^[1]
• Grant Cameron's White House UFO blog says that on the tape Inman said MJ-12 "meant something to him" and that he had been aware of a programme to "indoctrinate the public" on UFOs before he retired.^[3] Neither statement appears in the passage Good published, and Inman denied knowing of any MJ-12 (see below).^[1]

The Shapiro meeting

• Oechsler said Inman referred him to retired Rear Admiral Sumner Shapiro, a former Director of Naval Intelligence.^[1][7] The Shellenberger timeline dates the meeting to October 1989 and says Shapiro was then an executive at the contractor BDM International. Citing Good's later book Alien Contact (pp. 222–223), it says Oechsler presented himself as interested in working with the "group" that manages UAP information. It adds that Shapiro told him parties in the U.S. held extraterrestrial vehicles, which teams took apart in a set sequence and shipped to laboratories around the country.^[7][6] The infobox of the earlier version of this article dated the call itself to October 1989; that date belongs to the Shapiro meeting.
• The timeline also calls Oechsler a "NASA mission specialist".^[7] Victorian found the opposite. NASA's Reduced Gravity Office said no one named Oechsler had ever been scheduled to fly on its KC-135 aircraft, that NASA had no "anti-gravity chamber" anywhere, and that the book's account was "hogwash".^[1]
• Shapiro told Victorian on 3 August 1991 that he had met Oechsler only once, had realised he was a fraud, and had dismissed him almost immediately. He said he never met him in a restaurant, as the book says, and never discussed any of that material with him. He added that Oechsler's card described him as "some sort of robotic expert", and called him "a complete sham".^[1]

Dispute

• Victorian reviewed Alien Liaison in Lobster 23 (1992). He said Oechsler sent him a copy of the entire conversation and that "there is not a single specific reference to the subject of UFOs in it". Another listener, named by Oechsler, confirmed on 14 July 1991 that the tape contained no reference to UFOs.^[1]
• Good did not print a letter Inman had sent him on 18 December 1989. In it Inman said he did not know of any information that could help with Good's UFO report.^[1]
• Inman replied to Victorian in July 1991: "I believe all these allegations to be false." He said he had no awareness of any MJ12 group and did not believe it existed, and that the book was "filled with fabrication and distortions" and "without any merit".^[1]
• In a letter of 5 August 1991, Inman said he received hundreds of calling cards and did not remember Oechsler's. He said he had agreed to talk mainly because Oechsler used the name of Admiral Lord Hill-Norton, and did not realise until well into the conversation that the subject was UFOs. In 22 years in intelligence he had never encountered credible evidence of extraterrestrials. He said Shapiro had told him Oechsler "totally misrepresented" their conversation, and that he himself distrusted all the stories that had followed.^[1]
• Victorian also identified the unnamed general who, Oechsler said, had warned him off in 1989 as the former astronaut Lt. Gen. Thomas Stafford. Stafford did not remember meeting Oechsler and, asked about flying saucers, said: "Hell no".^[1]

Legacy

• The tape is still cited because of Inman's seniority.^[3] The earlier version of this article said it was later featured in documentaries, citing Dreamland – A UFO Documentary on YouTube.^[5] That film was not reviewed for this article.
• Its published content does not support any firm conclusion. Inman's only quoted reply to the key question was that he did not know.^[1]

People and topics

• NASA — The U.S. civilian space agency, created in 1958.
• Unidentified anomalous phenomena — The U.S. government's current term for unidentified objects in the air, in space and underwater.
• Bob Oechsler — UFO researcher who recorded a conversation with Adm. Bobby Ray Inman.
• Unidentified flying object — An object in the sky that can't be identified; the older term for UAP.
• Bobby Ray Inman — Former NSA director and CIA deputy director.
• National Security Agency — The U.S. signals intelligence agency, which holds UFO-related intercepts.
• Central Intelligence Agency — The U.S. foreign intelligence agency, which has followed UFO reports since the 1940s.
• Timothy Good — British author of books on UFO secrecy including Above Top Secret and Need to Know.

On the Timeline

• Moriches Bay crash claim (28 September 1989) — An anonymous colonel claims a Star Wars weapon downed a UAP in Long Island's Moriches Bay.
• Dan Sherman on programs above special access (1990) — Sgt. Dan Sherman says some secret programs are hidden above the usual special access level.

See every 1989 event on the UAP Timeline →

Further reading

References

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