McCormack subcommittee UFO briefing (1958)

McCormack subcommittee UFO briefing (1958)

Date	8 August 1958, afternoon
Body	Subcommittee on Atmospheric Phenomena, House Select Committee on Astronautics and Space Exploration
Chairman	Rep. John W. McCormack (D–Massachusetts), chairman of the Select Committee
Briefers	A. F. Arcier (scientific adviser, Air Technical Intelligence Center) and Capt. George Gregory (UFO project officer)
Format	Closed, secret, unrecorded session; described by McCormack as gathering data, not formal hearings
Air Force message	UFOs no threat; nothing suppressed; "unknowns" cut to about 3 percent; civilian UFO groups the "greatest problem"
Outcome	Members satisfied; committee staff indicated no further witnesses would be called
Topics	Government programs (topic), Congress & law (topic)
People	John McCormack, Donald Keyhoe
Testimony	Shellenberger testimony, p. 62
Year	1958 in UFO history
Timeline	1958 on the UAP Timeline
Sources	8

On 8 August 1958, officers from the Air Technical Intelligence Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base gave a closed briefing on UFOs to the Subcommittee on Atmospheric Phenomena of the House Select Committee on Astronautics and Space Exploration. The Select Committee was chaired by John McCormack; the earlier version of this article notes that he was then House Majority Leader.^[1][5] The Air Force told the members that UFOs posed no threat, that it was suppressing nothing, and that civilian UFO groups and sensational reporting were its biggest problem. The members came away satisfied.^[1][8] It was one of several private sessions in 1958 in which the Air Force persuaded members of Congress that public hearings were unnecessary. Paul McCarthy's history of the period describes it as "closed hearings".^[2][3][4]

Background

In the late 1950s the civilian group NICAP, led by retired Marine Major Donald Keyhoe, was the most persistent force pressing for congressional hearings on UFOs. NICAP argued that the government was covering up UFO evidence.^[2][6] Earlier in 1958 the Air Force had already headed off two inquiries:

• McClellan's investigators, January. On 31 January investigators for Senator John McClellan's subcommittee on government operations held informal talks with the Air Force. They were persuaded that nothing was being withheld.^[3]
• Henderson, June. On 20 June the Air Force briefed Representative John E. Henderson and colleagues. They agreed that the subject should not get "undue publicity", particularly in any formal hearing.^[4]

The CIA Reading Room copy of a press item headed "Congress is being pressed for flying saucer probe" could not be read; the link returned only the reading room's home page.^[7]

The session

An Air Force memorandum for the record describes the session, held in the afternoon of 8 August 1958 in response to the subcommittee's request.^[1]

• The Air Force team. Arcier was the principal witness and Captain Gregory a witness. They were supported by Major Best of the intelligence directorate as technical consultant, a Legislative Liaison project officer and Major Lawrence Tacker of Information Services as public-relations consultant.
• Members present. They included McCormack, the subcommittee chairman, several other representatives and Dr. Sheldon of the scientific staff.
• Not an investigation. The members opened by saying that the Air Force was not under investigation; the committee was simply seeking information. The session was a closed, secret and unrecorded one, to be held in confidence.
• Reception. According to the memo, all questions were "adequately answered", the members were polite, and the Air Force received an "ultimate expression of confidence". Gregory's command of scientific detail was singled out as having "great impact" on the members.^[1]

What the Air Force said

The briefing text set out the history of the programme:^[1][8]

• The projects. Projects Sign and Grudge followed Kenneth Arnold's 1947 sighting, and then Project Blue Book.
• 1952. The 1952 peak saw over 100 reports a month. The Washington sightings of July 1952 were "in reality blips on radar scopes created by quite unusual atmospheric conditions".
• The CIA panel. After General Samford's press conference failed to convince sceptics, the CIA convened a panel of sixteen eminent scientists. It recommended that the programme be de-emphasised and that "every effort be made to strip the UFO program of its air of mystery".
• Procedures. The Air Force described its field investigations by the 4602d Air Intelligence Service Squadron, Air Force Regulation 200-2, and seventy-five "Videon" diffraction cameras at radar stations and control towers. It also cited the Battelle Memorial Institute's study, published as Blue Book Special Report No. 14 in October 1955.^[1]
• Findings. The Air Force said there was a "total lack" of evidence that the unknowns were hostile, interplanetary, or beyond current scientific knowledge. Not "a piece – scrap – or a minute fragment" of a flying saucer had ever been found.
• Unknowns. Better procedures had cut unknowns to about 3 percent.
• Hynek. Ohio State astronomer J. Allen Hynek was its prime scientific consultant.^[1][8]

Much of the briefing was about public interest.^[1]

• Numbers. The Air Force counted more than fifty civilian UFO groups, over thirty books and six films.
• Pressure on officials. The groups had written to President Eisenhower, the Chief of Staff, the Secretary of Defense and members of Congress demanding hearings or briefings.
• Air Force explanations. Its explanations, it complained, were "totally unacceptable" to them or met "with calculated skepticism", and were "misinterpreted, exaggerated or used out of context". It added: "I think we would be more impressed by all this were it not so profitable."
• Cost. The UFO subject, the briefing said, was costing the government "a great deal of money" and "could even be a potential weapon of psychological warfare".
• Two tasks. It described the programme as two tasks: reducing unknowns as near zero as possible, and coping with "the growing problem of public participation".^[1]

Outcome

A covering memorandum from Major General W. P. Fisher of Legislative Liaison, dated 11 August 1958, reported the following:^[1]

• Members pleased. The subcommittee "seemed to be definitely pleased" with the Air Force approach and satisfied with its results.
• Not formal hearings. McCormack stressed during the session that the subcommittee was not holding formal hearings. It was gathering data for its files, which the full committee might later consider "for further investigation and/or hearings".
• No more witnesses. At the close, Sheldon indicated that no further witnesses would be called. He felt the committee would take no further interest.

An earlier memo had expected the sessions, which began on 7 August, to continue through the week of 11–15 August with outside witnesses, apparently including Donald Menzel of Harvard and Keyhoe. The legible parts of the file do not show whether they appeared.^[1]

McCormack's view

The earlier version of this article reported that McCormack's later comments suggest he was not fully convinced. In 1961, it said, he stated that he believed the Air Force was not sharing everything it knew; see John McCormack's doubts about the Air Force (1961). The 1958 file itself records only his procedural remarks.^[1][5]

Significance

The McCormack session fits the pattern of the 1958 briefings, which used private sessions to avoid public hearings.^[1][3][4] Later efforts went no further.

• Karth, 1961. Representative Joseph Karth withdrew his support for hearings in 1961 after Keyhoe made a "premature announcement".
• April 1966. The first open congressional hearing on UFOs did not come until April 1966, before the House Armed Services Committee.
• July 1968. A House "Symposium on UFOs" followed in July 1968.^[2]

The earlier version of this article added that later Air Force papers described congressional briefings in 1958, 1960 and 1961 as a way of heading off hearings. It also called the 1958 sessions an early example of Congress reviewing the subject behind closed doors, as it did again in the 2010s and 2020s. Those papers were not among the sources read here.

People and topics

• U.S. Air Force — The U.S. military service that ran the official UFO projects from 1947 to 1969.
• Unidentified anomalous phenomena — The U.S. government's current term for unidentified objects in the air, in space and underwater.
• Air Technical Intelligence Center — The Air Force intelligence center at Wright-Patterson that housed Project Blue Book.
• Wright-Patterson Air Force Base — The Ohio air base that housed Project Blue Book and is linked to the Hangar 18 legend.
• John McCormack — House Majority Leader and Speaker who chaired a 1958 UFO briefing and doubted the Air Force.
• Unidentified flying object — An object in the sky that can't be identified; the older term for UAP.
• NICAP — The leading U.S. civilian UFO group of the 1950s and 1960s.
• Donald Keyhoe — Retired Marine officer, author and director of NICAP who campaigned against UFO secrecy.

On the Timeline

• Henderson UFO briefing (1958) (20 June 1958) — The Air Force briefs members of Congress on handling constituent questions about UAP.
• Hunter AFB "UFO crash" letter (1958) (30 October 1958) — An Air Force colonel writes about a 'UFO crash' near Hunter AFB, Georgia.

See every 1958 event on the UAP Timeline →

Further reading

References

Facts in this article are drawn in part from the Wikipedia article “National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena”, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.