Recent books notwithstanding, UFO secrecy generally prevailed. Ruppelt himself had said nothing about the CIA’s ongoing interest in UFOs. On January 9, 1956, the CIA’s Applied Science Division (ASD), within OSI, took on the job of holding UFO reports. One month later, a CIA memo titled “Responsibility for Unidentified Flying Objects” indicated that ASD would retain UFO reports that might provide information on foreign weapons research and development. All other reports were to go to the fundamental sciences area for review of information on foreign science developments. Researchers Fawcett and Greenwood remarked that “this group could have been a clearinghouse for genuinely mysterious reports of UFOs which contained much detail but could not be linked to a foreign government.” The memo went on to state that ASD was trying hard to avoid collecting trivial UFO reports and recommended destroying unimportant reports.172
UFO secrecy was the norm everywhere. On February 18, Leonard Stringfield received a letter from the British Lord Dowding that stated, “I am sorry that I cannot tell you anything about the British official attitude to UFOs. I don’t think there is one.” On March 16, 1956, Stringfield received a letter from Gen. John Samford, still director of air force intelligence, ending Stringfield’s affiliation with Air Defense Command. In April, Capt. George T. Gregory, a hard-line UFO debunker, succeeded Charles Hardin as director of Project Blue Book. A typical statement of the period came from Air Force General Joe Kelly in a letter to Sen. Harry Byrd on May 1, 1956: “There is a total lack of evidence that they [UFOs] are interplanetary vehicles.”173
UFOs DURING A PERIOD OF SILENCE
Just what was the UFO evidence for 1956? The year offered about the same quality of reports as in previous years, but less quantity. One noteworthy case was the “washtub” incident off Pusan, Korea, on January 15. Townspeople saw an object about fifty yards offshore “about the size of a large washtub and emitting a blue-gray glow.” The sighting lasted for about ninety minutes, the object glowing all the time, until it “apparently sank into the sea.” Meanwhile, the Korean military police arrived and alerted U.S. military police. An American M.P. saw the object floating in the water for almost an hour. He described the glow as similar to flames from burning alcohol or benzene.174
Very few UFOs were reported during the early months of 1956. The spring brought more of interest. First came the Ryan Case of April 8. American Airlines Captain Raymond E. Ryan was en route from New York to Buffalo by way of Albany, Syracuse, and Rochester. At 10:20 P.M., near Schenectady, Ryan and his First Officer William Neff saw a peculiar and very bright glow to his right, far too bright, they agreed, to be another plane. Ryan decided to veer away somewhat from the light, just to be safe. Instantly the object performed a ninety-degree turn and shot ahead of them. Ryan estimated the speed at 900 mph. The object then paced the airliner, remaining slightly ahead. Ryan radioed Griffis AFB near Rome, New York. The base confirmed that they tracked the object, too, and scrambled two jets. By now, the plane’s passengers saw the strange light and were uneasy.
What followed was most unusual: Griffis ordered the pilots to change course and follow the UFO. Civil aeronautic regulations did not allow for military control of an airliner, but Ryan obeyed nonetheless. He turned his plane away from Syracuse toward the object, which was heading northwest. Flying in the black of night miles off course, Ryan waited for the jets. As the object led him to the edge of Lake Ontario, it began to accelerate. Ryan wisely decided to turn back toward Syracuse. As he approached the city, the CAA operators told him they had no word on the jets, but that Albany and Water-town CAA operators had also sighted the UFO. Normally, Ryan and his crew would not have been permitted to reveal their UFO chase, but since he filed no CIRVIS report, no restrictions applied. Thus, when the plane landed in Buffalo, Ryan and Neff spoke with a
