Document created: 21 April 03
Air University Review, March-April 1976

A review of David Michael Jacobs's The UFO Controversy in America and Lawrence David Kusche's The Bermuda Triangle Mystery-SOLVED.

Major Donald Keyhoe's article, "The Flying Saucers Are Real" was widely read when it appeared in True magazine in January 1950. Many 14-year-olds sneaked the magazine into their homes and read avidly, conjuring up visions of little green men, or other unimaginable creatures, coming to conquer Earth. All the while they nervously listened for the sound of an approaching parent; in those pre-Playboy days, True was considered quite risqué. But as they matured, their capacity for faithful belief diminished, and flying saucers joined witches, Santa Claus, and the Easter Bunny in a childhood limbo. Over the years, reports of flying saucers came and went, but few of us ever saw one.

Then just over three years ago this 1950 14-year-old went to work for the U.S. Air Force function that maintained the records of the Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) investigations, a mandate which the Air Force had carried out since 1947. He read the letter in which then Lieutenant General Nathan F. Twining, commander of Air Materiel Command) told the commanding general of the Army Air Forces that "…the phenomenon reported is something real and not visionary or fictitious." He listened to the saucer devotees argue that there were saucers--and accuse the Air Force of hiding captured saucers and the preserved bodies of little green men. He acquired a healthy disrespect for those who were UFOlogists. Gradually, however, the realization dawned that many who sought the answers to the UFO mystery were not cranks, kooks, or paranoids. Further, it became obvious that the Air Force's handling of Projects Sign, Grudge, and Blue Book, the three identifiers given to UFO investigations between 1947 and 1968, not only was frequently undiplomatic and irrational but in itself had tended to build the skepticism--and often paranoia--of those who believed that there was more to UFO’s than the Air Force chose to reveal. Nevertheless, many of these honest, dedicated believers sometimes reacted with the same irrational approach for which they had criticized the Air Force--as though to balance the Air Force policy of complete nonbelief with often fanatical and ill-thought-out complete faith in saucer existence.

For these reasons, I was much interested in the galley proof of David Michael Jacobs's The UFO Controversy in America,† which became available to me just over a year ago. A quick scanning indicated that this should be the most thoughtful and best balanced consideration of the question yet to be published. Final publication has shown that my initial impression was correct. Dr. Jacobs uses the historian's objectivity and research methodology well in investigating the growth of the idea of manned UFO's, beginning with the spate of reports in the 1890s and following through to the present. Though he obviously believes that UFO’s represent phenomena foreign to our Earth, his objective and scholarly consideration presents the case for both sides fairly and clearly.

†David Michael Jacobs, The UFO Controversy in America (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1975, $12.50), xvii and 362 pages.

Dr. J. Allen Hynek, who worked with the Air Force in its investigations and who originally was one of the chief debunkers of saucers, wrote the Foreword. Both he and Jacobs argue that too often the Air Force assigned, rather than found, explanations for sightings of UFO’s. And Dr. Hynek, a leading astronomer, agrees with Jacobs that there is in the many reports sufficient cause for making a true scientific evaluation. Despite the often arbitrary means that the Air Force used in assigning explanations, it still failed to explain about 5 percent of the sightings reported--and Jacobs argues that many sightings never were reported officially because of the individual's fear of ridicule. Jacobs points out the failure of the Condon Committee, with which the Air Force contracted in 1966 for scientific study of all available evidence, to make a completely unbiased and objective report.

The Condon report does not conclude that UFO’s do not exist. Rather, it concludes that study of existing reports and scientific reaction, in general, indicated that "…UFO phenomena do not offer a fruitful field in which to look for major scientific discoveries." It goes on to point out that ". . . nothing has come from the study of UFO's in the past 21 years that has added to scientific knowledge." At the same time, the committee agreed that ". . . our conclusion that study of UFO reports is not likely to advance science will not be uncritically accepted by [scientists]." The committee hoped that its report would help scientists ". . . in seeing what the problems are and difficulties of coping with them." If scientists disagreed with the report findings, it would be because the report had helped them ". . . reach a clearer picture of wherein existing studies are faulty or incomplete and thereby will have stimulated ideas for more accurate studies." The committee believed that any resulting ideas for clearly defined, specific UFO studies should be supported both publicly and privately, since there were scientific areas in which knowledge was incomplete. These "Conclusions and Recommendations" are probably the most important part of the book--unscientific handling of the cases aside--since these are the first thing that the reader sees (and perhaps the only thing).¹ But Jacobs fails to recognize these strengths in the Condon committee report and dwells on the weaknesses, real and assumed.

But more important to the Air Force, Jacobs fails to understand that the Condon report never led the Air Force to conclude that there were no flying saucers or UFO’s. The Air Force and those members of the Condon Committee who signed the report simply agreed that there was no evidence that UFO’s represented a threat to U.S. national security, and so there was no reason for the Air Force, a defense service, to remain involved in investigating them. The internal conflict within the Condon Committee over the question of whether a true scientific study of the phenomena was necessary was beside the point so far as Air Force involvement was concerned. In fact, given the problems that had occurred over the years, it would probably have been better had another government agency, such as NASA or FAA, taken over the investigation.

Weak parts of Dr. Jacobs's book are those in which he discusses the "contactees," those earthlings whom space creatures have allegedly contacted. Gradually, the contacts built from simple observation to trips to the Moon, Venus, Mars, etc., as each contactee vied to outdo the experiences of his predecessors. Jacobs points out that the mission given these people by the space beings--namely, convincing man of the need for peace and brotherhood--is generally a logical reaction to disturbing international relations. However, in his critical analysis of these reports, Jacobs is often repetitious and disjointed. Though this could be as much a result of the material with which he is dealing as of his own making, the reader feels that this chapter may have been a last-minute addition.

On the day that Jacobs's book was released for sale, the Air Force transferred all records of Projects Sign, Grudge, and Blue Book to the National Archives. Hopefully, this will make all the extant records of which this writer is aware more easily available to those who are interested in Unidentified Flying Objects.

While Jacobs concerns himself with the general question of the existence of UFO's, there are other narrower aspects of the problem. An area that has come to figure prominently in flying saucer lore is the Bermuda Triangle. That area of the Atlantic Ocean in the triangle between Puerto Rico, Bermuda, and Florida has been the subject of mariners' tales and fears for hundreds of years. About 40 ships and 20 aircraft have been lost in this area over the last 150 years; some disappeared without trace. In other instances the crews have disappeared without obvious cause from apparently sturdy ships. There has grown a theory that this is the operational area not of visitors from outer space but of in-habitants of inner space: a people who live under the earth and venture forth in their subsea/airspace vehicles. This theory was postulated by Ivan Terence Sanderson in Invisible Residents. ² There is also another theory that in eons past an advanced people came to visit Earth and, deep in the Atlantic Ocean off the coastal shelf, left a homing device to guide to Earth future space visitors.

Both these ideas too often are treated seriously and with uncritical acceptance, as in Charles Berlitz's The Bermuda Triangle and John Wallace Spencer's Limbo of the Lost.³

† Lawrence David Kusche, The Bermuda Triangle Mystery- SOLVED (New York: Harper & Row, 1975, $10), xvii and 302 pages.

Kusche became a reference librarian at Arizona State University in 1972. As a result of frequent requests for information on the Bermuda Triangle, he discovered that there was little solid information available. He and a fellow librarian began a lengthy period of correspondence and research in public and private agencies, including correspondence with me concerning Air Force experiences in the area. A lengthy bibliography resulted, and in further research led Kusche to the conclusion that many of the writings had become part of the mystery or legend. Now deeply involved, Kusche pushed forward to find an answer to the mystery. His background as both a reference librarian and a flyer gave him a solid foundation for both research and understanding of the aerial incidents involved. His work differs from a true history in that he makes no concerted effort to give the source for the legend entries. This is perhaps valid because the sources are often only repeating stories themselves and because, as Kusche states, "My concern . . . is with the incidents themselves and not with those who have publicized them."

Whatever the source of activity, the myth concerning the Bermuda Triangle has "grow'd" like Topsy. Those who wish to believe have taken an eclectic approach, shaping--or, more accurately, reshaping--the stories of disappearances to fit the preconceptions. It is with this misrepresentation that Kusche has concerned himself. He first presents the total myth. He then presents, in individual chapters, the myth of each disappearance. In each case, the myth is followed by the facts as known. Here Kusche gives the sources of his information. In many instances the tailoring of the facts to fit the legend is immediately apparent.

In others, revisions have been more subtle--a quote out of context here, a small misstatement of time there. For instance, in August 1963 two Air Force KC-135 tanker aircraft collided in midair southwest of Bermuda. Debris from these aircraft was found the next day. On the following day more debris was found 160 miles away, but this debris was quickly identified as having no connection with the two aircraft. Those who would make a mystery of the crash conveniently ignored the fact that the flotsam in the two areas was not related in any way. Rather, they questioned how, if the two tankers collided, the debris could be so far separated. The Air Force knew from the first day of the search that there had been a midair. But the myth quotes unidentified "officials" as scratching their heads and stating that "something very strange is going on out there." Logical examination of the true facts leads one to believe that the "officials" must have been the local dogcatchers in Yeehaw Junction, Florida.

Another incident cited in support of the legend involved an Air Force C-124 that "disappeared" on a flight to "Ireland." The legend says this happened in March 1950, but the Air Force lost no C-124s that month in the Atlantic. In fact, the reference appears to be to an aircraft which went down in March 1951 en route to England--and far north of the Triangle. More important, the aircraft did not disappear. Within 24 hours of its crash-or midair explosion--remains of the aircraft had been sighted by an Air Force B-29. The aircraft carrier Coral Sea found the ocean littered with debris, some of which it was able to retrieve and which was identified as being from the C-124. The seas were running high, and there were gale winds in the area, which made any chance of recovering bodies impossible.

Perhaps the best point about the Bermuda Triangle "mystery" was made by a U.S. Navy officer quoted in Time magazine in January 1975. He pointed out that the heavily traveled triangle between the Sable Islands, the Azores, and Iceland had been the region of many more unexplained disappearances than the Bermuda Triangle region.⁴ But, as Kusche points out, the Bermuda Triangle is a manufactured mystery. It came about "because of careless research and was elaborated upon and perpetuated by writers who either purposely or unknowingly made use of misconceptions, faulty reasoning, and sensationalism." Constant repetition then lent the legend an aura of truth. Kusche, by his careful research, has revealed the elements of error and falsity surrounding the myth of the "Bermuda Triangle."

In all, Jacobs and Kusche give us two necessary works. Jacobs, by his scholarly, reasoned examination, opens a new path of investigation that even the most skeptical can consider and accept. Kusche lays to rest much of the sensationalism concerning one specific area of the controversy, again making it possible to deal with the question on a rational basis. Both these works needed to be done.

Notes

1. Edward U. Condon, Final Report of the Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1969), pp. 1-6.

2. Ivan Terence Sanderson, Invisible Residents, A Disquisition Upon Certain Matters Maritime, and the Possibility of Intelligent Life Under the Waters of This Earth (New York: World Publishing Co., 1970).

3. Charles Berlitz with T. Manson Valentine, The Bermuda Triangle (New York: Doubleday, 1974); John W. Spencer, Limbo of the Lost (New Work: Bantam Books, 1973).

4. "A Deadley Triangle," Time, January 6, 1975, p. 66.

James N. Eastman, Jr., (M. A., University of Nebraska) is Chief, Research Branch, Albert F. Simpson Historical Research Center, USAF, Maxwell AFB, Alabama, with additional duty as deputy chief of the Center. He has served with the Air Force historical program in AFLC, MAC, and USAFE. He also serves as Director of the Unit Historian Development Course, Air University Institute for Professional Development. Mr. Eastman is a graduate of Air Command and Staff College and Air War College.

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