Edward J. Ruppelt
Edward J. Ruppelt (1922 - 1960) was a United States Air Force officer probably best-known for his involvement in Project Blue Book, a formal governmental study of unidentified flying objects. He is generally credited with coining the term "unidentified flying object", to replace the terms "flying saucer" and "flying disk," which had become widely known; Ruppelt thought the latter terms were both suggestive and inadequate.
Ruppelt was the director of Project Grudge from late 1951 until it became Project Blue Book in March 1952; he remained with Blue Book until late 1953. UFO researcher Jerome Clark writes, "Most observers of Blue Book agree that the Ruppelt years comprised the project's golden age, when investigations were most capably directed and conducted. Ruppelt himself was open-minded about UFO’s, and his investigators were not known, as Grudge's were, for force-fitting explanations on cases." (Clark, 517)
Biography
Ruppelt was born and raised in Iowa. He enlisted in the Air Corps during World War 2, and served with distinction as a decorated bombardier: he was awarded "five battle stars, two theater combat ribbons, three air medals, and two Distinguished Flying Crosses." (Clark, 516) While in the Pacific, Ruppelt was one of the first in the U.S. armed forces to be trained in the use of radar.
After the war, Ruppelt was released into the Army reserves. He attended Iowa State College where, in 1951, he earned an aeronautical engineering degree. Shortly after finishing his education, Ruppelt was called back to active military duties after the Korean War began. He was assigned to the Air Technical Intelligence Center headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Incidentally, the base also headquartered Project Grudge, the Air Force’s formal unidentified flying object investigation project. Though not initally involved with Grudge, Ruppelt quickly learned that the project was facing troubles.
Critics charged that Project Grudge was operating under a debunking directive: all UFO reports were judged to have prosaic explanations, though little research was conducted, and some of Grudge's "explanations" were strained or even logically untenable. In his 1956 book, Ruppelt would describe Grudge as the "Dark Ages" of USAF UFO investigation. Grudge’s personnel were in fact conducting little or no investigation, while simultaneously relating that all UFO reports were being thoroughly reviewed. This tension came to the fore following a series of UFO sightings near Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. Pilots and radar operators reported encounters with a number of fast-moving, highly maneuverable disc-shaped aircraft. A Life Magazine reporter was at Monmouth for some of the sightings, and the case received significant publicity.
When Air Force Major General Charles Cabell learned that Grudge had not been forthright in disclosing its treatment of UFO studies, he ordered Grudge dissolved and a new project to replace it. Lt. Col. N.R. Rosegarten asked Ruppelt to take over as the new project’s leader, partly because Ruppelt "had a reputation as a good organizer." (Jacobs, 65)
Ruppelt quickly implemented a number of changes in the late stages of Project Grudge; these changes were carried over to Blue Book. He streamlined the manner in which UFO’s were reported to (and by) military officials, partly in hopes of alleviating the stigma and ridicule associated with UFO witnesses. Ruppelt also ordered the development of a standard questionnaire for UFO witnesses, hoping to uncover data which could be subject to statistical analysis. He commissioned the Battelle Memorial Institute to create the questionnaire and computerize the data. Using case reports and the computerized data, Battelle then did a massive scientific and statistical study of all Air Force UFO cases, completed in 1954 and known as Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14. Battelle scientists found that even after stringent analysis, 22% of the cases remained classified as "unknown" and that these were different from the "knowns" at a very high level of statistical significance. The Battelle study also found that the best cases were twice as likely to be classified as unknowns as the worst cases.
Knowing that factionalism had harmed the progress of Project Sign, Ruppelt did his best to avoid the kinds of open-ended speculation that had led to Sign’s personnel being split among advocates and critics of the extraterrestrial hypothesis. Ruppelt sought the advice of many scientists and experts, and issued regular press releases (along with classified monthly reports for military intelligence).
When Project Grudge was upgraded in status and renamed Project Blue Book, Ruppelt (then a Captain) was kept on as director when normally, such an upgrade would require the appointment of at at last a Colonel to oversee the project; this may well be a testament to Ruppelt's leadership and organizational skills.
During Ruppelt's tenure, Blue Book investigated a number of well-known UFO reports including the so-called Lubbock Lights and two highly-publicised radar-visual/jet-intercept cases which occurred over Washington DC in late July 1952, which triggered the largest press conference since World War II to stop public panic (see photo at right). Also during Ruppelt’s tenure with Blue Book, most UFO cases were attributed to prosaic causes, but about twenty-five percent were deemed "unknown." As cases with little or no corroborative evidence were generally excluded from consideration during Ruppelt's tenure with Blue Book, the remaining unknowns arguably consititute some of the best-known, best studied, yet still perplexing UFO reports of the late 1940s and early 1950s.
The Air Force would be charged with a cover up. Ruppelt insisted, however, that at least during his tenure, conflict and confusion would be more accurately descriptive then to suggest that a deliberate cover up was taking place; Ruppelt once wrote that the Air Force's approach to the UFO question "was tackled with organized confusion." (Hynek, 175) Astronomer and Blue Book consultant J. Allen Hynek thought that Ruppelt did his best, only to see his efforts stymied. Hynek wrote "In my contacts with him (Ruppelt) I found him to be honest and seriously puzzled about the whole phenomenon." (Hynek, 175)
Ruppelt retired from the Air Force after he was removed from Blue Book in late 1953 shortly after the Robertson Panel issued its conclusions.
Three years later, Ruppelt's book The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects was published. The book is notable because it was, for several subsequent decades, the only account of Air Force UFO studies written by a participant. Hynek suggested that Ruppelt's "book should be required reading for anyone seriously interested in the history of this subject." (Hynek, 175) In the book, Ruppelt detailed his time with Projects Grudge and Blue Book, and offered his assessments of some UFO cases, inclusing a portion he thought were puzzling and unexplained. Ruppelt also revealed much insider material and thinking, including the existence of previously unknown classified documents and studies, such as the Robertson Panel.
In 1956, Donald Keyhoe asked Ruppelt to join to serve as an adviser to NICAP. Ruppelt had recently suffered a heart attack, and declined Keyhoe’s offer. Ruppelt's book indicates that Ruppelt held some dim views of Keyhoe and his early writings; Ruppelt noted that while Keyhoe generally had his facts straight, his interpretation of the facts was another question entirely. He thought Keyhoe often sensationalized the material and accused Keyhoe of "mind reading" what he and other officers were thinking. Yet Keyhoe cites conversations with Ruppelt in later books, suggesting that Ruppelt may have occasionally advised Keyhoe.
In 1958, Ruppelt announced that he would release an expanded edition of his book, arguing that all UFOs had mundane explanations. Keyhoe and others would suggest that Ruppelt had caved into Air Force pressure to change his opinions on UFOs. Others disagreed, noting that, as much as anyone else, Ruppelt had demonstrated his objectivity and may simply heave reached a conclusion after careful consideration of the evidence. Ruppelt's widow reported that Ruppelt's own investigation of the emerging contactee movement played a major role in his dubious view of UFOs later in his life.
Ruppelt died of a heart attack in 1960; the expanded edition of his book was never released.
Sources
- Jerome Clark; The UFO Book: Encyclopedia of the Extraterrestrial; Visible Ink, 1998; ISBN 1578590299
- David Michael Jacobs; The UFO Controversy In America; Indiana University Press, 1975; ISBN 0253190061
- J. Allen Hynek; The UFO Experience: A Scientific Inquiry; 1972; Henry Regenery Company