Donald Keyhoe

Donald Edward Keyhoe (June 20, 1897 – November 29, 1988) was an American Marine Corps naval aviator,
Donald E(dward) Keyhoe. (April 30, 1998) Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2002. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2009
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Fee via Fairfax County Public Library. Document number: H1000053777. writer of aviation articles and stories in a variety of publications, and tour manager of aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh.

In the 1950s, Keyhoe became a UFO researcher and writer, arguing that the U.S. government should conduct research into UFO matters, and should publicly release all its UFO files.

Early life and career

Keyhoe was born and raised in Ottumwa, Iowa. Upon receiving his B.S. degree from the United States Naval Academy in 1919, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps.

In 1922, his arm was injured during an airplane crash in Guam. During his long convalescence, Keyhoe began writing as a hobby. He eventually returned to active duty, but the injury gave Keyhoe persistent trouble, and, as a result, he resigned from the Marines in 1923. He then worked for the National Geodetic Survey and U.S. Department of Commerce.

In 1927, Keyhoe managed a coast-to-coast tour by Charles Lindbergh. This led to Keyhoe's first book, 1928's ''Flying With Lindbergh''. The book was a success, and led to a freelance writing career, with Keyhoe's articles and fictional stories (mostly related to aviation) appearing in a variety of publications.

Keyhoe returned to active duty during World War II in a Naval Aviation Training Division before retiring again at the rank of major.

Writing for the pulps and glossies

By the time his UFO books appeared, Keyhoe was already an established author, with stories in the pulp magazines of the 1920s and 1930s. Four of his short stories were printed in '' Weird Tales'': "The Grim Passenger" (1925), "The Mystery Under the Sea" (1926), "Through the Vortex" (1926) and "The Master of Doom" (1927). He also produced the lead novel for all three issues of a short-lived magazine ''Dr. Yen Sin'': "The Mystery of the Dragon's Shadow" (May/June 1936), "The Mystery of the Golden Skull" (July/August 1936) and "The Mystery of the Singing Mummies" (September/October 1936). The Doctor was opposed by a hero who could not sleep.

Keyhoe wrote a number of air adventure stories for '' Flying Aces'', and other magazines, and created two larger-than-life superheroes in this genre. The first of these was Captain Philip Strange, referred to as "the Brain Devil" and "the Phantom Ace of G-2." Captain Strange was an American intelligence officer during World War I who was gifted with ESP and other mental powers. His existence has been perpetuated beyond Keyhoe's stories as a minor member of the Wold Newton universe.

Keyhoe's other "superpowered" flying ace was Richard Knight, a World War I veteran who was blinded in combat but gained a supernatural ability to see in the dark. Knight featured in a number of adventure stories.

Other series he wrote included the "Eric Trent" series in ''Flying Aces'' and the "Vanished Legion" in ''Dare-Devil Aces'', and two long-running series: "The Devildog Squadron" in ''Sky Birds'' and "The Jailbird Flight" in ''Battle Aces''.

Many of Keyhoe's stories for the pulps were science fiction or Weird Fantasy, or contained a significant measure of these elements — a fact that was not lost on later critics of his UFO books.p. 188

He was also a freelancer for ''Saturday Evening Post'', ''The Nation'', and '' Reader's Digest''.

The Flying Saucers Are Real

Interest in UFO's broke out across the United States following pilot Kenneth Arnold's report of odd, fast-moving aerial objects in Washington State during the summer of 1947. Keyhoe began to follow the subject with some interest, though he was initially skeptical of any extraordinary answer to the UFO question. For some time, ''True'' (a popular American men's magazine) had been inquiring of officials as to the flying saucer question, with little to show for their efforts. In the spring of 1949, after the U.S. Air Force had released contradictory information about the saucers, editor Ken Purdy turned to Keyhoe, who had written for the magazine, but who also had friends and contacts in the military and the Pentagon.

As their forms, flight maneuvers, speeds and light technology was apparently far ahead of any nation's developments, Keyhoe became convinced that they must be the products of unearthly intelligences, and that the U.S. government was trying to suppress the whole truth about the subject. This conclusion was based especially on the response Keyhoe found when he quizzed various officials about flying saucers. He was told there was nothing to the subject, yet was simultaneously denied access to saucer-related documents.

Keyhoe's article "Flying Saucers Are Real" appeared in the January 1950 issue of ''True'' (published December 26, 1949) and caused a sensation. Though such figures are always difficult to verify, Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, the first head of Project Blue Book, reported that "It is rumored among magazine publishers that Don Keyhoe's article in ''True'' was one of the most widely read and widely discussed magazine articles in history."

Capitalizing on the interest, Keyhoe expanded the article into a book, '' The Flying Saucers Are Real'' (1950); it sold over half a million copies in paperback. He argued that the Air Force knew that flying saucers were extraterrestrial, but downplayed the reports to avoid public panic. In Keyhoe's view, the aliens — wherever their origins or intentions — did not seem hostile, and had likely been surveilling the earth for two hundred years or more, though Keyhoe wrote that their "observation suddenly increased in 1947, following the series of A-bomb explosions in 1945." Dr. Michael D. Swords characterized the book as "a rather sensational but accurate account of the matter." (Swords, p. 100) Boucher and McComas praised it as "cogent, intelligent and persuasive."

Keyhoe wrote several more books about UFOs. '' Flying Saucers from Outer Space'' (Holt, 1953) was largely based on interviews and official reports vetted by the Air Force. The book included a blurb by Albert M. Chop, the Air Force's press secretary in the Pentagon, who characterized Keyhoe as a "responsible, accurate reporter" and further expressed approval for Keyhoe's arguments in favor of the extraterrestrial hypothesis.

Carl Jung argued that Keyhoe's first two books were "based on official material and studiously avoid the wild speculations, ''naivete'' or prejudice of other FOpublications."

The Flying Saucer Conspiracy

In 1955, Keyhoe authored ''The Flying Saucer Conspiracy'', which pointedly accused elements of United States government of engaging in a conspiracy to cover up knowledge of flying saucers. Keyhoe claims the existence of a "silence group" of orchestrating this conspiracy.Peebles, p. 111-113 Historian of folklore Curtis Peebles argues: "''The Flying Saucer Conspiracy'' marked a shift in Keyhoe's belief system. No longer were flying saucers the central theme; that now belonged to the silence group and its coverup. For the next two decades Keyhoe's beliefs about this would dominate the flying saucer myth."

The book features claims of a possible discovery of an "orbiting space base" or a "moon base", knowledge of which might trigger a public panic. ''The Flying Saucer Conspiracy'' also incorporated legends of the Bermuda Triangle disappearances. Keyhoe sensationalized claims, ultimately stemming from optical illusions, of unusual structures on the moon.

The NICAP era

In 1956, Keyhoe cofounded the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP). He was one of several prominent professional, military or scientific figures on the board of directors, which lent the group a degree of legitimacy many of the other contemporary "flying saucer clubs" sorely lacked. NICAP published a newsletter, ''The UFO Investigator'', which was mailed to its members. Although the newsletter was intended to be published on a regular monthly basis, due to financial problems it was often delivered on a more erratic basis. For example, in 1958 four issues were published, but only two issues were published in 1959.(Peebles, p. 162)

NICAP founder Thomas Townsend Brown was ousted as director in early 1957 after facing repeated charges of financial ineptitude. Keyhoe replaced him; he was only slightly better at managing NICAP's finances, and the organization often faced financial shortfalls and crises throughout Keyhoe's twelve years as director. Even so, it would remain the largest and most influential civilian UFO research group in the United States from the late 1950s to the late 1960s.

With Keyhoe in the lead, NICAP pressed hard for Congressional hearings and investigation into UFOs. They scored some attention from the mass media, and the general public (NICAP's membership peaked at about 15,000 during the early and mid-1960s) but only very limited interest from government officials.

However, there was increasing criticism of the Air Force's Project Blue Book. Following a widely publicized wave of UFO reports in 1966, NICAP was among the chorus which called for an independent scientific investigation of UFOs. The Condon Committee was formed at the University of Colorado with this goal in mind, though it quickly became mired in infighting and later, in controversy. Keyhoe publicized the so-called "Trick Memo", an embarrassing memorandum written by the Condon Committee coordinator which seemed to suggest that the ostensibly objective and neutral committee had determined to pursue a debunking