Operation Trojan Horse: The Classic Breakthrough Study of UFOs Read online

  OPERATION

  TROJAN HORSE

  Other Anomalist Books by John A. Keel

  ________________________

  Jadoo

  The Eighth Tower

  OPERATION TROJAN HORSE:

  The Classic Breakthrough Study of UFOs

  John A. Keel

  ANOMALIST BOOKS

  San Antonio * Charlottesville

  Operation Trojan Horse: The Classic Breakthrough Study of UFOs

  Copyright © 1970, 1996, and 2013 by John A. Keel and the Estate of John A. Keel

  ISBN: 9781938398049

  Originally published as UFOs: Operation Trojan Horse by G.P. Putnam’s Son in 1970 and reprinted as Operation Trojan Horse by IIlumiNet Press in 1996. Other than a few corrections, this Anomalist Books edition essentially follows the original publication.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  Book design by Seale Studios

  For information, go to AnomalistBooks.com, or write to:

  Anomalist Books, 5150 Broadway #108, San Antonio, TX 78209

  Contents

  Foreword

  1. The Secret War

  2. To Hell with the Answer! What’s the Question?

  3. The World of Illusion

  4. Machines from Beyond Time

  5. The Grand Deception

  6. Flexible Phantoms of the Sky

  7. Unidentified Airplanes

  8. Charting the Enigma

  9. The Physical Non-Evidence

  10. “What Is Your Time Cycle?”

  11. “You are Endangering the Balance of the Universe!”

  12. The Cosmic Jokers

  13. A Sure Cure for Alligator Bites

  14. Breakthrough!

  15. You Can’t Tell the Players Without a Scorecard

  Acknowledgments

  Selected Bibliography

  Foreword

  Any appraisal of the “flying saucer mystery” must be all inclusive and must attempt a study of the apparent hoaxes, as well as an examination of the many events now generally accepted as being totally authentic. The data must be reviewed quantitatively, no matter how arduous the task becomes. There is a natural tendency to concentrate on only those facets which seem most interesting, or which seem to provide the best evidence. The phenomenon of unidentified flying objects is a gigantic iceberg, and the truly important aspects are hidden far beneath the surface. Nearly all of the UFO literature of the past twenty years has leaned toward the trivia, the random sightings which are actually irrelevant to the whole, and to the meaningless side issues of government policy, dissection of personalities, and the conflicts which have arisen within the various factions of the UFO cultists.

  For the past four years I have worked full time, seven days a week, without a vacation, to investigate and research UFO events in total depth, hacking my way systematically through all of the myths and beliefs which surround this fascinating subject. This book is a summation of that effort. The original manuscript was more than 2,000 pages long. It has been boiled down and carefully edited to its present length. In the process, a good deal of documentation and many details have been deleted or heavily condensed. I had hoped to include full acknowledgment of my many sources and of the many people who helped me in this task. But that proved to be impossible.

  More than 2,000 books were reviewed in the course of this study, in addition to uncounted thousands of magazines, newsletters, and newspapers. Since it is not feasible to list them all, I have included a selected bibliography, listing those works which proved to be the most valid and useful. Very few of these books deal with the subject of flying saucers directly. History, psychiatry, religion, and the occult have proven to be far more important to an understanding of the whole than the many books which simply recount the endless sightings of aerial anomalies.

  I have tried to apply the standard rules of scholarship wherever possible, going directly to the original sources in most cases instead of relying upon the distilled and often distorted versions of these events which were later published in various media. This involved tracking down and interviewing, either by phone or in person, the people who had the experiences or, at least, conferring with the investigators who personally checked into some cases and were able to supply taped interviews with the witnesses and other documentation. In the earlier, historical cases I have tried to accumulate at least three independent published citations for each event. Many possibly important events were rejected simply because it proved impossible to uncover satisfactory documentation.

  My files include thousands of letters, affidavits, and other materials encompassing many unpublished cases which correlated with and confirmed the events and conclusions discussed in this book. Numerous other researchers around the world have confirmed may findings through events in their own areas.

  The real problems hidden behind the UFO phenomenon are staggering and so complex that they will seem almost incomprehensible at first. The popular beliefs and speculations are largely founded upon biased reporting, gross misinterpretations, and the inability to see beyond the limits of any one of many frames of reference. Cunning techniques of deception and psychological warfare have been employed by the UFO source to keep us confused and skeptical. Man’s tendency to create a deep and inflexible belief on the basis of little or no evidence has been exploited. These beliefs have created tunnel vision and blinded many to the real nature of the phenomenon, making it necessary for me to examine and analyze many of these beliefs in this text.

  Some readers will be offended and enraged by what I have to say and how I have chosen to say it. It is not my intention to attack any belief or frame of reference. Rather, I have tried to demonstrate how all of these things blend together into a larger whole.

  John A. Keel

  New York City

  1969

  1

  The Secret War

  On Wednesday, October 5, 1960, a formation of unidentified flying objects was picked up on the sophisticated computerized radar screens of an early-warning station at Thule, Greenland. Its exact course was quickly charted. It appeared to be heading toward North America from the direction of the Soviet Union. Within minutes the red telephones at Strategic Air Command headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska, were jangling, and the well-trained crews of SAC were galloping to their planes at airfields all over the world. Atomic-bomb-laden B-52s already in the air were circling tensely, their crews waiting for the final signal to head for predetermined targets deep within the Soviet Union.

  SAC headquarters broadcast an anxious signal to Thule for further confirmation. There was no answer. Generals chewed on their cigars nervously. Had Thule already been hit?

  Suddenly the mysterious blips on the radar screens changed course and disappeared. Later it was learned that “an iceberg had cut the submarine cable” connecting Thule to the United States. It was a very odd coincidence that the “iceberg” chose that precise time to strike. But the mystery of unidentified flying objects is filled with remarkable and seemingly unrelated coincidences.

  World War III did not start that day. But it might have. Weeks later, when news of the enigmatic radar signals leaked out, three Labor members of the British House of Commons, Mr. Emrys-Hughes, Mrs. Hart, and Mr. Swingler, stood up and demanded an explanation. The U.S. Air Force replied that the radar signals had actually bounced off the moon and had been misinterpreted. The story appeared in the Guardian, a leading newspaper in Manchester, England, on November 30, and a week later it was buried on page 71 of the New York Times.


  Could modern military radar really convert the moon into a formation of flying saucers? I have excellent reasons for doubting it. In May 1967, I toured a secret radar installation in New Jersey at the Air Force’s own invitation, and I was extremely impressed by the complexity and efficiency of the equipment there. By pressing a few buttons, the radar operators can not only instantly detect every aircraft within range, but giant computers also provide complete and instant information on the speed, altitude, direction, and ETA (estimated time of arrival) of each plane. Even the aircraft’s flight number appears on the radar screen! Unknown objects can be immediately picked out in the maze of air traffic, and a routine procedure is followed to identify them quickly. If these procedures fail, jet lighters are scrambled to take a look. It is improbable, if not impossible altogether, for the moon or any other distant celestial object to fool this elaborate system.

  There have been frequent radar sightings of UFOs for the past twenty years, not only on military radar but on the sets of weather bureaus and airports. Often in these cases ground witnesses have also reported seeing the objects visually. When the Federal Aviation Agency tower at the Greensboro-High Point Airport in Greensboro, North Carolina, picked up an unidentified flying object early on the morning of July 27, 1966, several police officers in the High Point-Randolph County area also reported seeing unidentifiable objects buzzing the vicinity. They said the objects appeared to be at an altitude of 500 feet and described them as being round, brilliant red-green, and appeared to be emitting flashes of light.

  The government’s official position toward flying saucers has been totally negative since 1953, although a great deal of attention has been paid to the subject behind the scenes. Obviously any phenomenon that could possibly trigger World War Ill accidentally has to be taken seriously.

  An extensive flying saucer “flap” (numerous sightings occurring simultaneously in many widely scattered areas) broke in March 1966, and the then-Secretary of Defense, Robert S. McNamara, had been well briefed by the Air Force before the subject was interjected into a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on March 30, 1966. Representative Cornelius E. Gallagher of New Jersey, a state where scores of UFO sightings had been reported that month, asked Secretary McNamara if he thought there was “anything at all” to the flying saucer mystery.

  “I think not,” McNamara replied. “I have talked to the Secretary of the Air Force and the Air Force Director of Research and Engineering, and neither of them places any credence in the reports we have received to date.”

  Ironically, at 8 A.M. that very day, C. Phillip Lambert and Donny Russell Rose, both stable men with good reputations, were driving to work outside of Charleston, South Carolina, when they reportedly noticed a strange circular object spinning in the clear sky above the Southern Trucking Company terminal on Meeting Street Road. They stopped their car and watched the object for about eight minutes.

  “It looked like a sterling-silver disk,” Lambert said. “It was about fourteen feet tall and twenty feet in diameter. We just happened to look up into the sky; it was such a pretty day. I know we saw it; we were both wide awake, and neither of us drinks.”

  A veteran of eight years in the airborne infantry, Lambert estimated that the object was 800 or 900 feet above the ground when they first saw it. It appeared to be spinning rapidly and was constantly shifting from one position to another.

  This was what ufologists call a Type I sighting—a low-level object observed and reported by reliable witnesses. March 30, 1966, was a flap date, and local newspapers from coast to coast carried dozens of other Type I sightings that day. Many of them involved police officers, pilots, and other above-average witnesses. Weeks later, when all of the clippings and reports for that day had been collected by the author, we found that extensive sightings had also been reported in the following states: Michigan, New York (Long Island), Ohio, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Iowa, and other sections of South Carolina. This was a typical minor flap, and like most flaps, it received no national publicity, and none of the sightings was published outside of its place of origin.

  While all of this was going on, Secretary McNamara was blithely repeating the long-established Air Force line behind the closed doors at the House hearing.

  “People are beginning to attach significance to this matter,” Representative Gallagher told the Secretary that day.

  “There is no indication that they are anything other than illusions,” McNamara responded blandly.

  How do you suppose those two men in South Carolina responded when they read that statement? For years now thousands of witnesses have been reacting with anger and bewilderment to the official pronouncements and explanations. The governmental attitude has succeeded in maintaining skepticism among those who have never seen a UFO and has helped foster the general disinterest of the press in the subject. As a result, most of the reported UFO activity has gone unnoticed, and the alarming scope of the phenomenon is unknown except to the relatively small handful of organizations and individuals who have tried to keep tabs on the sightings.

  When I first decided to look into these matters in March 1966, I subscribed to several newspaper clipping services, and I was stunned by the results. I often received as many as 150 clippings for a single day! My immediate reaction, of course, was one of disbelief. I thought that all of the newspapers in the country had thrown objectivity out the window and were participating in some kind of gigantic put-on. It seemed impossible that so many unidentifiable things were flying around our sacred skies without being seriously noticed by both the military and the scientific community.

  Reliability of Reports

  My first task, therefore, was to determine just how reliable all of these reports were. I began by placing frequent long-distance calls to the reporters and editors of some of the newspapers that seemed to be carrying UFO stories week after week. Not only did they sound like reasonable people, but they all assured me that they were only publishing the more interesting or best-validated stories that were being reported to them. Many were concentrating only on those sightings reported by police officers and local officials. It quickly became clear that literally thousands of sightings were being reported by ordinary citizens but were going completely unpublished. The published sightings represented only a fraction of the whole!

  I also called many of the witnesses in the published accounts and learned, to my further dismay, that the newspaper stories had only outlined a part of their total experiences. Some of them claimed the objects had pursued their cars, had landed briefly beside the road near them, or had even reappeared later over their homes. Innumerable witnesses complained that their eyes had become red and swollen after their sighting and had remained that way for days afterward. Others said they had experienced peculiar tingling sensations or waves of heat as the objects passed over. I must admit that I experienced an emotional reaction to all of this at first, trying to convince myself that the phenomenon was more hysterical in nature than physical, but the more I heard the more I was forced to realize that all of these people were coming up with the same incredible details.

  It became apparent that the only way to properly investigate this situation was to travel to the various flap areas personally and interview the witnesses in depth, applying the standard journalistic techniques that I had learned from being a reporter and writer for two long decades. So in the spring of 1966 I began a long series of treks that eventually took me through twenty states, where I interviewed thousands of people, hundreds of them in depth. Occasionally I encountered a publicity seeker or an outright liar, but such people were easy to spot. The majority of the people I met were ordinary, honest human beings. Many were reluctant to discuss their experiences with me at all until I had won their confidence and assured them that I was not going to ridicule or slander them. Some had had such unusual and unbelievable sightings that they were afraid to recount them until they were certain that I would give them a sincere hearing. In my typical reporter fashion I onl
y extracted information and gave little or none in return. I seldom let the witnesses know that other people in other sections of the country had told me identical stories which seemed to corroborate their own experiences. The details of many of these stories were unpublished and unknown to even hardcore UFO buffs. By maintaining this secrecy, I was able to make unique correlations that might not otherwise have been possible.

  As I traveled, I naturally visited local newspapers and spent time with the editors and reporters who had been handling the UFO reports in their areas. They were all competent newsmen, many with years of experience behind them, and when I met the witnesses whose stories they had written and published, I realized what a skillful and objective job they had done. So I developed a new respect for the clippings that were pouring into my mailbox. Most newspaper stories were reliable sources for basic information.

  Likewise, I found that most of the material being published by the various civilian UFO organizations had been carefully sifted and investigated to the best of their ability, even though some of these organizations did tend to over interpret their material, over speculate, and add the coloring of their own beliefs. They also had an exasperating tendency to delete reported details that they felt were objectionable or detracted from their “cause.”

  Sadly, this is even more true today than it was in the 1960s. The few remaining UFO groups have become cults with strong religious overtones, far more concerned with their petty feuds and vendettas than with the UFOs themselves. However, the witnesses, I concluded, have been giving honest descriptions of what they have seen, and their local newspapers have been giving objective accounts of what they reported. The nature and the meaning of what they saw is another matter. And the answer could not be found in newspaper clippings. However, it was possible that those clippings could supply some broad data about the overall phenomenon. None of the UFO organizations had made any effort at all to extract such data. The U.S. Air Force had tried in the early 1950s but had apparently given up in despair. So my next job was to translate the seemingly random clippings and reports of investigated cases into some form of statistical information.