Lettre de Fournet aux responsables du NICAP

Dewey J. Fournet (Baton Rouge, Louisiane)Fournet, Dewey J.: NICAP, Sunday, May 4, 1958
La lettre d'origine
La lettre d'origine

CONFIDENTIAL: For Release to NICAP Officials Only

At the request of Major Keyhoe, I would like to confirm the existence of two USAF documents which were recently denied by an official USAF representative. These are:

  1. An intelligence summary on UFOs prepared in 1948 by the organization which later became the Air Technical Intelligence Center at Wright-Patterson AFB.
  2. An intelligence analysis on specific aspects of UFO data which I prepared in 1952 while acting as UFO program monitor for Headquarters USAF, Washington, D.C.

Since both documents were classified when I last saw them, I am not at liberty to reveal their contents. I would also like to add a qualification about #2: I completed it in rough form just a few hours before my departure from Washington (following my release from active duty) and turned it over to one of my associates in the Directorate of Intelligence. Therefore, I never saw it in its published form. However, since I had prepared it - as well as other reports which I recorded on tape - at the specific request of my Branch and Division Chiefs, I am certain that it was published.

Another word of caution is necessary on the latter document: I prepared it primarily as a weapon for use against the apathy and/or bias on the subject which prevailed in certain official quarters. Although the processes of logic employed would stand up under ordinary circumstances, they become somewhat tenuous and difficult to defend completely when applied to the task in question. The important point should be, therefore, that such a document did exist - not that it did or did not establish anything about UFOs.

There is also a question about the report prepared by the panel of civilian scientists convened in January 1953 to examine the UFO data. I met with this panel during part of its deliberations; this was during the week when I was being processed off active duty. Since I had departed by the time the panel adjourned, I did not see any report which it may have prepared. However, since it was convened for the specific purpose of reviewing all available data and making recommendations on the UFO program, it must necessarily have left some sort of report, undoubtedly written. (I have since been informed that it did, although let me repeat that I never saw it.)