Jack Brewer's Blog, page 3

Copernicus Did Not Cite Esotericism

    There is an argument that "the phenomenon" is ambiguous and fleeting. The elusive apparitions act with intent and even a sense of humor, or so say many of those who believe they have met the UFOs, Bigfoot, and similar oddities up close and personal.

My friend tells me if there are such goings ons, the instigator simply refuses to be corralled. They say it's like a soap bubble drifting on the breeze, colorful and attracting our interest, yet disintegrating under the very grasp which tries to c...

Value Those Who Know Fact From Opinion

    We all disagree on many things, even with our closest friends and loved ones. Preferences in restaurants, football teams, and styles of music are likely to invoke wide ranges of comments from those around us.

The more meaning we assign an issue - the more we value it - the less tolerant we tend to become of those who have different values. A friendly rivalry about a ballgame is one thing, falling on different sides of Roe v. Wade is another. 

Some of us lean towards treading softly into such i...

FOIA Process: Not All Good or Bad

    The Freedom of Information Act is a valuable resource. It can be employed for a wide variety of useful purposes. 
Readers of my offerings have become acquainted with ways I rely on the FOIA to shed light on circumstances of interest. I have a great deal of appreciation for FOIA personnel employed at government agencies, the online reading rooms maintained by those agencies, and the painstaking aspects of the entire process. The work is important, and I respect the stamina it takes. 
That state...

Cold War Cash, Politics and Saucer Stories

Leo H. McCormick, as he appeared in
a 1948 edition of The Baltimore Sun 

   A two-page pdf was recently obtained from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) as the result of a FOIA request for records pertaining to Leo H. McCormick. The file contains copies of correspondence exchanged in 1956 between McCormick and the Eisenhower administration in which McCormick urged support for the Atlantic Convention Resolution. 

The Counsel Services co-founder was previously investigated by the...

The Wider UFO Picture

     Sometimes it can be difficult to stay aware of the forest as we closely examine the trees. Details matter, of course they do, but what is the "takeaway" from some of our deep dives into UFO World?

The late Frank Wisner, who ran the
Office of Policy Coordination before
becoming Deputy Director of PlansIn Wayward Sons, I take extensive looks at some of the organizations involved in mid 20th century UFO shenanigans. They included NICAP, the FBI, the CIA, and some specific aspects of the Agency ar...

Ongoing NICAP Research: FOIA Request Lands FBI File on Counsel Services Co-Founder

    FBI records recently obtained through the FOIA on Leo H. McCormick indicate the co-founder of Counsel Services, Inc. was investigated extensively to clear him for work with the Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA). The records were provided in response to a request for material pertaining to McCormick.

The ECA, a government office, served as an intelligence gathering asset for the CIA. Counsel Services was contracted by the ECA for work in China and later acted as the lead component alon...

The Cover-Up Is as Elusive as the UFOs

Adm. Hillenkoetter

    We previously explored letters exchanged between renowned skeptic Dr. Donald Menzel and Adm. Roscoe Hillenkoetter. The admiral served as Director of Central Intelligence from 1947-1950 and was NICAP Chairman of the Board 1957-1962. The letters, dated 1961-1965, did not support and very much contradicted notions of government orchestrated UFO cover-ups and dubious related conspiracies, particularly the Majestic 12. The ideas nonetheless have long shelf lives among UFO enthus...

Seeking Truth at a Circus

JFK Jr. or somebody    You got rats on the west side, bed bugs uptown, or at least it frequently seems so in the UFO subculture. Let's take a look at why cynicism is often justified and the genre continues to be about as appealing to self-respecting academics as a town full of money grabbers. Shadoobie. 

Anjali

    Anjali staked her claim to ufology immortality when she arrived on the scene with a DC press conference. She proceeded to inform the world, or a few dozen of us paying attention, that s...

NICAP Plus 65

     The National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena was a Scorpio. The leading UFO organization of its day, and arguably the most popular ever assembled, was formally incorporated October 24, 1956. The NICAP legacy now celebrates and mourns its 65th birthday. 

Thomas Townsend Brown

As explored in a previous blogpost, T. Townsend Brown, Mary Vaughan King and Thomas D. O'Keefe acted as incorporators for the organization in August 1956. Vaughan King was president of Counsel Services, osten...

UFO Three Card Monte: Menzel, Hillenkoetter & NICAP

Dr. Donald H. Menzel

    Dr. Donald H. Menzel (1901-1976) was a distinguished astronomer and astrophysicist. He was also an outspoken critic of UFOs as interplanetary vehicles. The scientist, whose rather extraordinary career path went through Princeton and Harvard, found no compelling reasons to believe UFO reports carried any particular significance to his fields of study.  

Menzel was often cited during the mid 20th century as an authority on UFO skepticism. In The UFO Evidence, a study of some...