Urner Liddel

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Urner Liddel
Illustration of official papers and files
Illustration: official papers and files. An artist's impression drawn for this site, not a photograph of the event.
TypePerson
Also known asLiddel
On the Timeline2 events, 1951

Urner Liddel was a physicist at the U.S. Office of Naval Research, where he was involved in the Navy's high-altitude research balloon programs, including the large Skyhook balloons.

The 1951 statement

Illustration of an open book about flying saucers
Illustration: an open book about flying saucers. An artist's impression drawn for this site, not a photograph of the event.

In February 1951, Liddel said publicly that he had studied about 2,000 flying saucer reports and believed the more credible ones were sightings of Skyhook balloons, and that there was no evidence of anything else. His statement, reported in Look magazine and newspapers, caused controversy because Skyhook launches had been secret. On the same day, Anthony Mirarchi, a former Air Force scientist on Project Twinkle, publicly accused the government of misleading people. Researchers still debate how many early sightings were Skyhooks.

On the UAP Timeline

Office of Naval Research (ONR)
Office of Naval Research (ONR) Photo: ajay_suresh · CC BY 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

References

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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