Origins
Charles Fort's 1919 The Book of the Damned exposed to a small but influential group of readers to Fort's extensive references to unidentified objects. Fort himself was extremely critical of scientific consensus, and his book contained extensive references to reports he said were "damned" or ignored by scientific "dogma". The Fortean Society was founded in 1931 to promote his works and over time its members included H. L. Mencken, R. Buckminster Fuller and Frank Lloyd Wright. According to the Durant Report on the CIA's top-secret 1953 Robertson Panel, "The writings of Charles Fort were referenced to show that 'strange things in the sky' had been recorded for hundreds of years."
These "strange things in the sky" captured the world's attention in the summer of 1947. Kenneth Arnold's description of nine shiny metallic-looking objects flying at an estimated 1,200 mph on June 24 was followed by sightings all over the United States and Canada, and later the entire globe. On July 9, 1947 the Roswell Daily Record ran a headline stating, "RAAF Captures Flying Saucer On Ranch in Roswell Region". The Army Air Force changed their story the next day, saying that instead a balloon had crashed with a radar-reflecting disc suspended from it.
By August 1947, a Gallop Poll indicated that 9 out of 10 Americans had heard of flying saucers. A wide diversity of theories were offered in the press about the origin of the UFOs. Some newspapers interviewed Forteans who offered historical context and were among the first to theorize that the objects could be extraterrestrial in origin. This idea was given a fictional treatment by popular AP writer Hal Boyle on July 9 with his story "Trip on a Flying Saucer." The story and its followup installments ran in newspapers all over the nation and detailed Hal's trip to Mars with an 8 foot tall green alien who is on a scavenger hunt to find Orson Welles.
Donald Keyhoe later began investigating flying saucers for True Magazine. Keyhoe was one of the first significant conspiracy theorists, asserting eventually that the saucers were from outer space and were on some sort of scouting mission. Keyhoe derived his theory from his contacts in Air Force and Navy intelligence. Project Sign, based at Air Technical Intelligence Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and its successors Project Grudge and Project Blue Book were officially tasked with investigating the flying saucers. As reported in Edward Ruppelt's book The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, many people within these research groups did in fact support the hypothesis that the flying saucers were from outer space.
Keyhoe later founded NICAP, a civilian investigation group that asserted the US government was lying about UFOs and covering up information that should be shared with the public. NICAP had many influential board members, including Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter, the first director of the CIA.
Read more about this topic: UFO Conspiracy Theory
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