Case file · Non-fiction & research literature
Keyhoe, 'The Flying Saucers Are Real'
Retired Marine Corps aviator Donald Keyhoe's bestseller, grown from a True magazine article, arguing that the Air Force was hiding evidence of visiting spacecraft.
1950 CE · 38.90, -77.04 · status: account
The account
Keyhoe gathered military pilot and radar reports from 1947 to 1950, including the death of Captain Thomas Mantell, and concluded the saucers were interplanetary craft under observation of Earth. It set the template for the 'cover-up' narrative, and Keyhoe went on to lead NICAP, the most influential civilian UFO group of the 1950s and 60s.
The sceptical view
Keyhoe relied heavily on anonymous sources and read official silence as proof of secrecy; many of the cases he cited were later explained (Mantell is widely attributed to a Skyhook balloon).
Connections in the atlas
- The Flying Saucers Are Real
- Donald Keyhoe
- Mantell incident