... I have visited Project Blue Book since 1953 and am now convinced that the reports of UFOs are nothing more than reports of balloons, aircraft, astronomical phenomena, etc. I don’t believe they are anything from outer space.
How could Ruppelt have performed such a swift and complete about-face ? Stockey offered his own opinion in a letter he wrote to Keyhoe in early June. Ruppelt, wrote Stockey, “works for an aircraft corporation which has got contracts with the air force. While they might not order him to reverse his opinion, obviously they could make their desires known.” Or, in fact, they might have ordered him to reverse his opinion. Keyhoe concluded sadly that Ruppelt had buckled to air force pressure. Seen in relation to the strong air force pressure on several fronts of the UFO problem during 1958, Keyhoe’s conclusion seems correct. Ruppelt’s public statements during the November 1957 wave had been straightforward and completely contradictory to the air force position. He had unquestionably become a serious problem for the air force. The only conclusion can be that sometime near the airing of the
Researcher Jerome Clark called this interpretation possible but argued that “in absence of evidence to this effect, it can only be speculative explanation.” He suggested an alternate scenario, offered by Ruppelt’s widow, that Ruppelt’s exposure to southern California contactees helped to sour him on the UFO phenomenon. Yet, while direct evidence for air force pressure is lacking, it remains the most probable reason. Could crazy contactees really have soured Ruppelt within the two months between November 1957 and January 1958, when he backed out of the television program?67
1958: AMERICA BECOMES A UFO-FREE ZONE
Perhaps the subheading overstates the case somewhat, but by 1958, the United States was generating very few UFO reports. Matters were different elsewhere, where more people reported UFOs at close range, as well as the occasional UFO being. Australia provided several such reports. On January 13, in Farm Hill, a frightened young man claimed that a dome-shaped craft followed him for about three miles, a mere thirty feet above the ground, and perhaps 150 feet away. It then flew silently by, interfering with his radio. On February 2, in New South Wales, Australia, witnesses reported an elliptical UFO with two “porthole-like” markings.68
For most of 1958, however, South America was where the UFO action was, especially Brazil. For years, this region had seen its share of bizarre UFO activity. Now, on January 16, 1958, one of the best-documented UFO sightings took place at Brazil’s Trindade Isle. While aboard the International Geophysical Year naval survey ship
This incident received a great deal of attention in Brazil, and that nation’s House of Representatives demanded an investigation from its navy. The navy complied and delivered a top secret report of its investigation to the Congress. That document in turn leaked in late 1964 to Coral Lorenzen. The report’s author concluded that
the existence of personal reports and photographic evidence, of certain value considering the circumstance involved [absence of evidence of tampering, the presence of other witnesses], permit the admission that there are indications of the existence of unidentified aerial objects.
Compelling evidence notwithstanding, Menzel and the U.S. Air Force each supplied a debunking explanation.69
