Harold Brown
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 👤 Person
Contents 5

| Type | Person |
|---|---|
| On the Timeline | 1 event, 1966 |
Harold Brown (19 September 1927 – 4 January 2019) was an American physicist who served as Secretary of the Air Force from 1965 to 1969 and as Secretary of Defense under President Jimmy Carter. As Air Force Secretary he testified at the 1966 congressional hearing on UFOs that led to the University of Colorado's Condon study.[1][2]
Early career

Brown was born in New York City and earned a doctorate in physics at Columbia University in 1949, at the age of 21. He joined the nuclear weapons laboratory at Livermore, California, in 1952 and became its director in 1960. From 1961 to 1965 he was the Pentagon's Director of Defense Research and Engineering under Robert McNamara.[1]
Air Force Secretary and UFOs

Brown became Secretary of the Air Force on 1 October 1965. In March 1966 a wave of sightings in Michigan, and astronomer J. Allen Hynek's suggestion that some were caused by swamp gas, led House Republican leader Gerald Ford to call for a congressional inquiry. On 5 April 1966 the House Armed Services Committee held an open hearing at which Brown, the head of Project Blue Book and Hynek answered questions. Later in 1966 the Air Force Office of Scientific Research funded an independent study of UFOs at the University of Colorado, led by physicist Edward Condon.[2][3][4]
Later career

Brown was president of the California Institute of Technology from 1969 to 1977 and Secretary of Defense from 1977 to 1981, supporting the SALT II arms treaty and the Panama Canal treaties. He died in California in 2019.[1]
On the UAP Timeline

- House Armed Services Committee UFO hearing (1966) (5 April 1966) — The Blue Book chief tells Congress there are no unexplained radar cases, contradicted by records.
References
- Harold Brown (Secretary of Defense) — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- "Unidentified Flying Objects", hearing before the House Committee on Armed Services (5 Apr 1966), GovInfo · govinfo.gov · archived copy
- Patrick Gross, "New York Times, 26 March 1966" (Ford's call for an inquiry) · ufologie.patrickgross.org · archived copy
- "The Bolender Draft (Not Memo), Oct 20, 1969", NICAP · nicap.org · archived copy
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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