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From: Jan Aldrich <jan@CYBERZONE.NET>
Date: Fri, 23 Apr 1999 16:53:05 -0700
Fwd Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 10:15:47 -0400
Subject: Re: Ruppelt The Liar?


Ruppelt's Report On UFOs is not, by any stretch of the
imagination, a scholarly book. It is a popular account, which
was ghost written for him, with no references .

I have never subscribed to the idea that Ruppelt is some kind of
hero of ufology.

His superiors, peers, and subordinates all said he was a hard
working guy.

His book has a lot of things that we would not have known about
if not for him, or it would have taken years to piece together
the information. The best example was the Top Secret Estimate of
the Situation. Beside Ruppelt's account, there are few
references to this report.

That said, Ruppelt's book leaves a lot to be desired concerning
UFO history. Much of his early history seems to be from
impressions he gained talking to personnel at WPAFB. He seemed
to know nothing about AIR 203 or JIC report. (The JIC pub might
have still be classified during his tenure. AIR 203 was
unclassified.)

He did not get his information on the Mantel case directly from
the Project Sign files as he talks about peering at microfilms
that were hard to read (the Project Sign microfilms?) (I was
able to look at the paper files for 1947-1949 at the National
Archives.) It seems that possibly Ruppelt did not get access to
these paper files during his tenure if he had to use microfilm
copies to read about early cases.

His note taking, memories of events and his ghost writer who may
have wanted to jazz things up could all figure into his problem
getting some facts straight.

The Air Force was not forthcoming with information for almost 2
decades on UFOs. One of the first big break throughs was Don
Berliner's effort to obtain The Project Grudge/Blue Book Reports
#1-12. Berliner and NICAP almost had to pull a sit in to get
these things. (Other previous efforts, such as Davidson (and
others) successful attempt to obtained Project Blue Book Special
Report #14, are notable. There were other transfers of
information. Bloecher's and McDonald's trips to ATIC also
revealed additional official information.) It was difficult to
check Ruppelt's information until the Air Force became more open
about UFO matters. (Bloecher was able to get information from
USAF PIO, Major Carl Hart on cases that Hynek had slipped to
CSI, NY.) The Project Blue Book files were not readily available
for years after Blue Book closed.

Some of Ruppelt's information is all wet. In newspaper articles
about his book, he repeated the contention that there were no
evidence of unexplained objects were there were accurate
information on speed, size, and altitude. Brad has previously
noted that is untrue.

Ruppelt's misreporting of the Robertson panel's recommendations,
I have discussed elsewhere.

Ruppelt did blow the whistle on the phony hype about the Air
Force's widely publicized distribution of the "gird cameras" to
control tower. The cameras did not work.

Ruppelt hyped the 4602d AISS entry into UFO investigations. In
actually, their investigations were not well done, a junior
officer and one enlisted man at headquarters were constantly
sending back intelligence reports to get the detachments to
complete them correctly.

Ruppelt was writing a popular book which was reworked by a ghost
writer and cleared by the Air Force. To get it by the Air Force
he might have change some material. He did have a ghost writer
who had no background in UFOs. So, was this out and out lying
and covering up? I don't think so. He was not writing history,
either. His stated purpose for the book remember, "was to help
the Air Force." So it would seem that he neither helped the Air
Force nor wrote an accurate history.

--
Jan Aldrich
Project 1947
P. O. Box 391, Canterbury, CT 06331, USA
Telephone: (860) 546-9135