Transcript of a Presentation by Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, 1952

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either over Kentucky or Tennessee. That's all they've been able to pin down, and they
think that that might have been it. But..."
(Question from audience)
• "Is this still classified top secret, since Life is coming out with it?"
• "No, uh, we've, we actually, we carry it as confidential, the overall project. We're trying
to get it dropped down to restricted now because Life is going to come out with a lot of
material we've given them that is classified, or was classified at one time. The only time
this was classified top secret was right after it came out. We've been carrying this
confidential. There are some aspects of it we'll have to keep classified as secret or maybe
higher when we start listing Air Defense radar stations, possible tie-in with some of our
latest developments and things like that. We'll have to keep that classified. But just, or
just the details of a sighting, we're going to try to declassify to restricted because we've
had trouble in the past on that. Some newspaper will call up and say, 'Big sighting up
somewhere,' and we'll say, 'Yes, we've heard about it.' And they'll say, 'What's the results?'
We'll say, 'We can't tell you about that, it's classified.' So immediately they come out with
a big story about, 'The Air Force just picked up a spaceship somewhere and they won't
tell us about it.' And that's the thing we're trying to get away from. I mean, we don't want
to excite anybody on the project."
• "There is one other area that's classified, and that's where we have reports on people. Yes,
you know, their background to try to determine whether they're reliable or not. We run
into one interesting bit of discussion on this classification because some people who say,
'Well, now, these could be from Russia,' which is true, they could be. 'Therefore, we're
doing them a great service reporting them in our papers very carefully where they get
plots,' which is true. But we feel that the papers, I mean, when they get one, are going to
report it, and then they're going to come to us for what we know on it. And it's inevitable
if the papers pick it up. So that's one reason we like this reporting channel that's
established, that if anybody sights one of them, it's not too illogical for somebody if he
sees something in the air to call the nearest Air Force base. I mean, it's one of the first
things he would think of, 'Maybe they've got something in the air.' And we have found,
though, just as an example of this T-33 case you mentioned, the reporters are right on
hand to discuss this thing with the pilots when they landed, and took pictures of them."
• "We found out that in the New York area, some paper, I couldn't tell you which one it is,
monitors VHF, monitors all the air traffic in the area. And I don't know why they do it,
but they do. And that's where they picked up that T-33 incident, was monitoring the air
traffic. Now, I heard two different stories. One that the newspaper actually has a setup
themselves to monitor it. Another one that they have two or three hams in the area alerted
to call them if anything happens. But this T-33 pilot did call the tower and told them
about it, and the newspapers were right on it. So, we found out one thing, and that is the