U.S. Navy Support of UFO Research

US--N A V Y--S U P P O R T--O F--U F O--R E S E A R C H

by Irena Scott, Ph.D. and William E. Jones, JD

Bits and pieces of information come from the most unexpected people at the most unexpected times. While canvassing a neighborhood looking for eye witnesses to a local UFO sighting, we had a man tell us just a "bit" about his UFO investigative experiences while he served in the US Navy from the late 1940s to the early 1950s. We shall give this man the pseudonym of Luke Laprad.

Mr. Laprad is currently a respected businessman and community leader in Columbus, Ohio. He served in the Navy for ten years, the last few in Turkey at the air base at Adana. When we asked him the number of the unit he was assigned to, he replied, "It didn't exist." When pressed for a number or name, even if unacknowledged at the time, he responded by saying, "I can talk about this stuff in general, but I am sure the details are still secret." You see, Luke was a aircraft navigator and his unit flew secret over flight missions into the Soviet Union. His unit was there until they were replaced by those operating the higher flying U-2 aircraft in the mid-1950s.

Because of our expressed interest in UFOs, Mr. Laprad said, "If you twist my arm, I can tell you that I used to investigate those things." He went on to tell us about the purpose of his unit and the surprise secondary purpose that might be every bit as secret as the primary one. "Back in those days," he told us, "UFOs were considered to be a very important matter. When the areas of the Soviet Union which were assigned to us were clouded over, we were frequently assigned to fly to various locations around the world to help indigenous personnel conduct UFO investigations. Many of these missions were to South America. There was a lot going on there, apparently."

According to Mr. Laprad, these assignments were for specific investigations. They would fly into the country, pick up a team of investigators and then fly them into the region were the report or reports were to be taken, He said that he didn't learn much about the reports since he spoke neither Spanish or Portuguese. In effect, it seemed that his team acted as "truck drivers" for groups of indigenous military personnel who did not have access to their own aircraft. The final reports were flown back with them to Turkey and then sent back to the Pentagon (apparently not Project Blue Book) in Washington, DC through Oslo, Norway. When asked why they were sent forward via this rather strange route, he replied, "For diplomatic purposes." They were classified "secret" before being forwarded. His group did no analysis of the reports they collected and no information about what they were used for ever came back to them.

When we pressed Mr. Laprad for information about specific sightings which he investigated, he became illusive, indicating that he did not know the language of the countries into which he flew. He admitted that this information might still be classified.

Is this information important? Possibly, when put together with other information that we in MORA are not privy to. This is why we must learn how to share the "bits and pieces" of information that we come across. Some of it may be very important - to someone.

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