Appendix B
THE GRIFFIN STATEMENT
Late in 1958, while looking into the Air Force UFO investigation, Washington newsman Bulkey Griffin was invited to visit the UFO project at Air Technical Intelligence Center, Dayton, Ohio, to “see for himself.” While there Mr. Griffin was shown some of the files and asked some pointed questions. The following is one of a series of articles he wrote as a result of his investigation.
Holyoke (Mass.) Transcript-Telegram, Friday, Dec. 26, 1958
AIR FORCE CLOAKS SAUCER INFORMATION;
NOT EARNESTLY TRYING TO GET THE TRUTH
(This is the third of four articles about the unidentified flying objects and Air Force information on them, written in the light of our discovery of space travel.) By Bulkey Griffin; T-T WashingtonCorrespondent.
Washington–The bulk of government information on the unidentified flying objects (UFOs) never reaches the public. This is because the Air Force, which has made itself the sole source of this information, withholds it.
To start with, so-called security regulations clamp down in many areas. The public is not told of sightings by military pilots, nor sightings over most military establishments, nor sightings over places like the White House or atomic energy establishments, nor sightings by our far-flung defense radar network.
To these great areas of silence the Air Force has contributed others. In a regulation this year (AFR 200-2) it is decreed that no sighting near an Air Force base–and these bases dot the nation–shall be given the public if the object sighted is possibly an unfamiliar one. It is easy to grasp that this covers every valuable sighting.
The Air Force, in a letter last May to the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, stated it does withhold information from the public but does so chiefly to protect individuals from troublesome notoriety. No one seems to have asked the Air Force why it can’t give pertinent details of most sightings without revealing names.
Consider how the Air Force speaks to the public today. It employs infrequent generalized statements. Specific sightings are virtually never mentioned, much less described. This is a good way of dulling public curiosity.
An all-important fact in the general picture is that the Air Force apparently is not making an earnest search for the truth. It would seem that the best way, and possibly the only method today, to get at the truth of reported UFOs instantaneous reversals of flight, quick turns and great speeds, would be to track the UFOs with scientific instruments. In such manner one could at least learn actual speeds and angles of turn. Without going into detail, the evidence is that the Air Force is making no such attempt, and never had made any such serious effort.
One result of the widespread skepticism touching the flying saucers, both in the Air Force and among the public, is that airline pilots and other experts have been discouraged from reporting sightings. Capt. William B. Nash, Pan American Airways pilot, writes: “It is very true that because of the general Air Force attitude–or rather its ‘official’ attitude–many pilots have been discouraged from relating their experiences.”
Capt. Robert Adickes, TWA pilot, referring to the public climate, writes that he doesn’t wish “to be subjected to the harassment, ridicule and vilification from crackpots again.” Both Adickes and Nash had significant UFO sightings.
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Veteran airline pilots are the best practical experts there are in assessing sights in our atmosphere. Capt. Nash is one of these experts who will stand up to be counted. He states: “I am still of the opinion that the avalanche of evidence on this subject points one way and indicates one answer: That UFOs are extraterrestrial and under intelligent control.”