John Olsen Lear (December 3, 1942 – March 29, 2022) was an influential American conspiracy theorist, record-breaking pilot, and a one-time candidate for Nevada State Senate. Unlike previous UFO conspiracy theorists, Lear promoted a story of alien collusion with secret governmental forces. Lear's claims left a lasting influence on the UFO movement—one author observed "in the early years FO writersdid not, by and large, embrace strong political positions. ear and his partner were the tip of a spear asserting that the number one thing we had to fear was not little green men, but the government that colluded with them, appropriating their technology against us."

Early life

John Olsen Lear was born on December 3, 1942, to industrialist and future Learjet founder

Bill Lear William Powell Lear (June 26, 1902 – May 14, 1978) was an American inventor and businessman. He is best known for founding Learjet, a manufacturer of business jets. He also invented the battery eliminator for the B battery, and developed the ...

and his wife Moya Marie Olsen Lear. He was named after his maternal grandfather, famous comedian

John Olsen John Wayne Olsen, AO (born 7 June 1945) is a former Australian politician, diplomat and football commissioner. He was Premier of South Australia between 28 November 1996 and 22 October 2001. He is now President of the Federal Liberal Party, C ...

. His second and third birthday parties were covered in the "Society" page of an Ohio paper. Lear graduated from the

Institut Le Rosey Institut Le Rosey (), commonly referred to as Le Rosey or simply Rosey, is a private boarding school in Rolle, Switzerland. Founded in 1880 by Paul-Émile Carnal on the site of the 14th-century Château du Rosey in the town of Rolle in the can ...

boarding school in Switzerland and attended

Wichita State University Wichita State University (WSU) is a public research university in Wichita, Kansas, United States. It is governed by the Kansas Board of Regents. The university offers more than 60 undergraduate degree programs in more than 200 areas of study in ...

. Lear claimed that in 1959 he had become the youngest American to ever climb Switzerland's Matterhorn.

Career

In 1965, Lear was employed by the Paul Kelly Flying Service when its founder was killed while piloting a LearJet. Lear testified at the

Civil Aeronautics Board The Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) was an agency of the federal government of the United States, formed in 1938 and abolished in 1985, that regulated aviation services including scheduled passenger airline serviceStringer, David H."Non-Skeds: T ...

investigation into the crash. Between May 23 and 26, 1966, Lear and a crewmate flew a record-breaking flight around the world in a LearJet that covered 22,000 miles in 50 hours and 39 minutes. In August 1966, Lear was featured in the Wichita Press after he piloted a LearJet carrying the rock band

The Byrds The Byrds () were an American rock band formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1964. The band underwent multiple lineup changes throughout its existence, with frontman Roger McGuinn (known as Jim McGuinn until mid-1967) remaining the sole cons ...

and the trip inspired them to write a song about the plane. The track, titled " 2-4-2 Foxtrot (The Lear Jet Song)", samples Lear's voice as he speaks over the radio. In 1968, Air Force personnel from Hamilton Air Force Base launched a rescue effort to help Lear land after heavy San Francisco fog interfered with landing. Traffic was cleared from the Golden Gate Bridge in anticipation of a forced landing. After a helicopter pilot established visual contact, Lear was able to successfully land at the base. Lear flew cargo planes for the CIA during the Vietnam era. He claimed to have flown "secret missions for the CIA" between 1967 and 1983.

UFO claims

In 1987, Lear released a press statement claiming that the US government has close contacts with extraterrestrials and were secretly "promoting" films like ''E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial'' and ''Close Encounters of the Third Kind'' to influence the public to see extraterrestrials as "space brothers". That year, he was interviewed by journalist George Knapp. In 1988, Lear authored "The UFO Coverup", a short document in which Lear spun a tale involving a secret government committee,

Majestic 12 Majestic 12, also known as MJ-12 for short, is a purported organization that appears in UFO conspiracy theories. The organization is claimed to be the code name of an alleged secret committee of scientists, military leaders, and government offic ...

, making a treaty with Gray aliens, only to later realize they've been deceived by the aliens. The work includes: * German recovery of a 'flying saucer' in 1939 *

Ghost rockets Ghost rockets ( sv, Spökraketer, also called Scandinavian ghost rockets) were rocket- or missile-shaped unidentified flying objects sighted in 1946, mostly in Sweden and nearby countries like Finland. The first reports of ghost rockets were ma ...

of 1946 * Death of

James Forrestal James Vincent Forrestal (February 15, 1892 – May 22, 1949) was the last Cabinet-level United States Secretary of the Navy and the first United States Secretary of Defense. Forrestal came from a very strict middle-class Irish Catholic fami ...

Roswell incident The Roswell incident was an event that occurred in 1947, pertaining to the recovery of mundane metallic and rubber debris from a military balloon that crashed near Corona, New Mexico by United States Army Air Forces officers from Roswell Army ...

* Aztec UFO crash * 1952 Washington, D.C., UFO incident * Alien abductions, implants, and crossbreeding *

Cattle mutilations Cattle mutilation (also known as bovine excision and unexplained livestock death, or animal mutilation) is the killing and mutilation of cattle under unusual, usually bloodless circumstances. This phenomenon has been observed among wild animals ...

and human mutilations *

Dulce Base Dulce Base is the subject of a conspiracy theory claiming that a jointly-operated human and alien underground facility exists under Archuleta Mesa on the Colorado–New Mexico border near the town of Dulce, New Mexico, in the United States. Cla ...

and other alien-human underground bases In 1989, Lear served as "State Director" for

MUFON The Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) is a US-based non-profit organization composed of civilian volunteers who study reported UFO sightings. It is one of the oldest and largest organizations of its kind, claiming more than 4,000 members worldwide wi ...

, hosting the 1989 symposium "The UFO Cover-Up: A Government Conspiracy?" Despite initial objections from MUFON founder Walt Andrus, Lear was able to submit a slate of speakers after he threatened to split the symposium. At that same symposium, Roswell author Bill Moore tearfully confessed to having intentionally spread disinformation to UFO researcher

Paul Bennewitz Paul Frederic Bennewitz, Jr. (September 29, 1927 – June 23, 2003) was an American businessman and UFO investigator. According to multiple sources, Bennewitz was the target of a government disinformation campaign that ultimately led to his psy ...

on behalf of purported counter-intelligence agent Richard Doty. Lear's speakers were slated to provide allegedly-independent verification of the Bennewitz claims. One of those speakers, Bill Cooper, would later break with Lear after accusing him of being an intelligence agent. Lear promoted alleged UFO whistle-blower

Bob Lazar Robert Scott Lazar (; born January 26, 1959) is an American conspiracy theorist and self-proclaimed physicist who claims he was hired in the late 1980s to reverse-engineer extraterrestrial technology. This work supposedly occurred at a secret ...

and his tales of

Area 51 Area 51 is the common name of a highly classified United States Air Force (USAF) facility within the Nevada Test and Training Range. A remote detachment administered by Edwards Air Force Base, the facility is officially called Homey Airport ...

. Lear made multiple appearances on TV shows, including

Ancient Aliens ''Ancient Aliens'' is an American television series that explores the pseudohistorical and pseudoarchaeological ancient astronauts hypothesis, past human- extraterrestrial contact, UFOs, government conspiracies and related pseudoscientific topi ...

America's Book of Secrets ''America's Book of Secrets'' is a documentary series about mysterious or little known aspects of U.S. history, theories about secrets that are possibly being hidden from the public, and hidden sources of the social issues that face the country ...

, Brad Meltzer's Decoded, and

The Unexplained Files The Unexplained Files is a 2010s American television series, airing on Science Channel, which investigates Paranormal and other unexplained phenomena. This was the highest-rated series on Science during its first season in 2013. The second season b ...

. From 2003 to 2015, Lear was a regular guest on

Coast to Coast AM ''Coast to Coast AM'' is an American late-night radio talk show that deals with a variety of topics. Most frequently the topics relate to either the paranormal or conspiracy theories. It was hosted by creator Art Bell from its inception in 1 ...

Personal life and death

In 1970, Lear married Marilee Higginbotham, owner of a California fashion modelling agency, at a ceremony in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles. Lear died on March 29, 2022.Statement
from journalist George Knapp

References

External links

The UFO Coverup
by John Lear - August 25, 1988 {{DEFAULTSORT:Lear, John Olsen 1942 births 2022 deaths American radio personalities American conspiracy theorists UFO conspiracy theorists