The First UFO Documentary

by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear  For many people growing up in the 1970s (of which this writer is one), seeing a UFO documentary was their first in-depth look into the subject. These films often came along with books tied in, and major publishers such as Bantam were getting onboard. More and more people were willing to accept the idea that UFOs were worthy of serious consideration, and this meant that more and more people were willing to spend money on movies and books covering the subject. What had formerly been mostly confined to a subculture of enthusiasts, was on its way to becoming the profitable entertainment industry it is today. What may may come as a surprise to some readers is that between the 1947 summer of the saucers and 1968, there were only two documentaries (if any readers know differently feel free to comment) made in the midst of all the science fiction saucer films that became popular starting in the 1950s. What is thought to be the first flying saucer/UFO documentary was released in 1950 as an approximately 9 ½ minute short titled The Flying Saucer Mystery. It was re-released in 1952 with added footage that brought it up to around 12 minutes. Both releases were produced by Telenews, which had a chain of 13 theatres in major cities throughout the U.S. that only showed newsreels. According to the December 20, 2019, post on The Science Fiction Encyclopedia website, the film (which release isn’t specified) was lost until the 1990s. The producer, director, and screenwriter are unnamed. The release dates coincide with two significant events in flying saucer/UFO history: in 1949, Donald Keyhoe had his article, “The Flying Saucers are Real,” published in the January 1950 issue of True magazine, and in 1952, a press conference was held to field questions from the press about UFOs in Washington, D.C., airspace over two successive weekends in July. Edward J. Ruppelt describes both events in his 1956 book, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects. According to him, it was “rumored among magazine publishers” that Keyhoe’s article “was one of the most widely read and widely discussed magazine articles in history. As for the 1952 press conference, he says it “was the largest and longest the Air Force had held since World War II.” It seems as though the article was the inspiration for the production of the movie, as Keyhoe appears as the final commentator. After the introduction by the narrator (name unknown), commentary by Keyhoe’s Annapolis classmate and friend, Adm. Calvin Bolster, and testimony by Arthur Weisberger about his July 21, 1950, sighting of three saucers over Tucson, Arizona, the first “authenticated” saucer photos taken by Paul Trent in McMinnville, Oregon, and the first motion picture footage shot of a saucer in Louisville, Kentucky by TV cameraman for WHAS, Al Hixenburg, are shown. Then, the narrator brings up the argument by “many authoritative sources, including U.S. News and World Report,” that the saucers are jets developed from a 1945 experimental Navy fighter, and a photo is shown of the Vought XF5U-1, also known as the “Flying Flapjack.” He points out that there had been no publicly known improvements made on the V-2 since the war and asks, “Are the saucers the secret descendants of the V-2?” We then get to Keyhoe, and he has this to say: “After a one year’s investigation, I believe that the flying saucers seen by veteran airline and Air Force pilots are objects from another planet.” The narrator closes saying that “Commander McLaughlin” (Robert B., USN) agrees with Keyhoe, and a model built for an episode of the television show, We the People, based on his observations is shown. The model was the basis of the illustration of the saucer on the cover of Keyhoe’s 1950 book, The Flying Saucers are Real. In 1952, things changed in a big way as far as saucers were concerned. The Air Force had revitalized what was known to the public as “Project Saucer,” and Project Blue Book was born out of the ashes of Projects Sign and Grudge. Ruppelt was the person in charge and he recounted his experience in his book. According to him, he was the person who came up with the term, “Unidentified Flying Object,” and its acronym, UFO, is pronounced “yoofo.” Just as Ruppelt was settling in, Blue Book got hit with a full-on nationwide flap starting in June that culminated in sightings, both visual and radar, of UFOs in restricted airspace over Washington, D.C., on two successive weekends starting July 19th. Ruppelt and the rest of the Blue Book staff first heard about the sightings from newspaper reports, but the Air Force public information officer who handled UFO inquiries, Albert M. Chop, was in the Air Route Traffic Control radar room at Washington Airport on July 19th and experienced the events first hand. One episode in particular was all the UFO blips disappearing from radar the moment that jets scrambled to intercept appeared. The re-release of The Flying Saucer Mystery was announced on August 23, 1952, in Billboard magazine, and it was distributed to a broader audience by Sterling Films. Most of the footage was new, as was the narration. It was updated to reflect the current state of the mystery. There is a clip of General James A. Sanford speaking at the press conference saying, “We can say that the recent sightings are in no way connected with any secret development by any agency of the United States,” followed by Keyhoe saying, “With all due respect to the Air Force, I believe that some of them will prove to be of interplanetary origin.” Additional witness reports include August C. Roberts describing a saucer photo he took saying, “I think it was from outer space, but friendly,” and East German refugee (and former mayor) Oskar Linke and his daughter who claimed to have both seen a saucer and its crew while they were still in East Germany in 1950. Frank Scully appears, who had, in 1950, just after Keyhoe, published the second-ever flying saucer book, Behind the Flying Saucers. He adds some unique commentary. Speculating on the nature of intelligent beings on other planets he says that they might be more “mature,” might have made it to the other side of their “atomic age,” and might “have been souls that were never fogged up like Adam and Eve” making them perfect and immortal. According to him, if this was the case, “the idea of the Air Force telling them to shoot them down is idiotic.” Some of the footage used in both releases of The Flying Saucer Mystery, such as that of Sanford and Keyhoe, shows up in documentaries from the seventies on. What’s noteworthy, and may be a factor in the dearth of UFO documentaries throughout the ‘60s and ‘70s, is that in 1953, the CIA convened scientific advisory board known as the “Robertson Panel” recommended that the UFO subject be downplayed in the interest of national security. One of their concerns was that public hysteria could overwhelm communications and offer enemies of the United States an opportunity for a sneak attack. Even so, one producer, Clarence Greene, was so moved by his own UFO sighting that he was willing to risk ridicule and produce the first feature-length UFO documentary. Next Week: UFO: The True Story of Flying Saucers. For more information and related news clippings, see the excellent site The Saucers that Time Forgot.