At Shaw's trial Garrison was unable to provide clear evidence
that he had ties to the CIA, and also had his star witness, David Ferrie found
dead just before he was to testify. Shaw was subsequently acquitted on
1st March 1969 by a Grand Jury. He died on 14th August
1974, in what Garrison considered mysterious circumstances. Documents that became available in 1977 confirmed that Shaw had
worked for the CIA since 1949. He had also been in business with former Nazis
and European fascists involved in several CIA supported covert operations
throughout Europe. As noted previously, there is strong evidence that he had been a
member of the OSS, and he certainly worked for a senior OSS officer who was
involved in Operation Paperclip. It appears that Crisman and Shaw knew each other well.
Certainly that is what Garrison believed. One of Garrison's informants stated
that Crisman was "the first person Clay called after being told he was in
trouble." The same source claimed that Crisman "flies to New Orleans steadily.
1964, eleven times. 1965, 17 times, 199, 32 times, 1967, 24 times ... he seems
to have no income and certainly spends a large sum of money on air travel."
It seems remarkable that a man who was working for the
forerunner of the CIA, then a special investigator for the State of Washington,
reduced to scavenging for salvage, then was almost employed by the Atomic Energy
Commission (which had covert UFO connections), before becoming involved in other
covert CIA activities, and later being seen as having a role in the
assassination of President Kennedy, could have been an innocent bystander to the
alleged UFO incident at Maury Island. More likely he used his information
regarding Paperclip to get back into the covert intelligence operation. It is
likely that it was Crisman who was contacting the press to alert them to
Arnold's presence and the nature of his enquiries.
UFOs continued to be reported throughout this period. Then,
during the first three nights of August 1965, literally millions of people in
Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming and neighbouring states
witnessed one of the most spectacular wave of UFO sightings ever recorded
(47). These events were not only observed in the sky, but were also
tracked by radar and witnessed by jet liners. Of course the official debunking
strategy was swiftly set in place: the sightings were merely "four stars in the
constellation of Orion (48)." Unfortunately, this explanation was cobbled
together too hastily for, as astronomers pointed out, Orion was not actually
visible at that time in the Western Hemisphere. Then the lights went out over an area of 80,000 square miles,
followed by another blackout on 9th November 1965 termed the
Great Northeast Blackout. UFOs had already been reported that night
over Niagara, Syracuse and Manhattan, and it was subsequently muted that this
activity might have tripped the relay at the Ontario Hydro Commission (49). In January 1966, the USAF continued to make expensive
credibility mistakes. There had been a sighting of a UFO over Wanaque Reservoir
in New Jersey. "A special Helicopter with a bright light on it" explained the
Air Force. "A special helicopter with a bright light on it?" challenged the
press. "No." The Air Force admitted, actually there hadn't been any helicopter -
let alone one with a bright light on it - in the Wanaque area that night
(50).
The Air Force's credibility continued to
slump, with increasingly obscure explanations being offered for reported
incidents. On one
occasion on 25th March 1966 a truck driver, Frank Mannor, and his
family witnessed seeing an object with pulsating lights hovering over a swamp
behind their house. Patrolman Robert Hunawill arrived at the scene and confirmed
that a "strange lighted object" hovered over his patrol car before joining three
other "objects" moving across the swamp (51). The object was then observed by 52
independent witnesses, including a dozen police officers. Project
Blue Book sent in its top scientific advisor, Dr. J. Allen Hynek, to
investigate. "Its swamp gas [known as 'foxfire']" he declared. Mannor retorted
"I'm just a simple fellow, but I seen what I seen and nobody's going to tell me
different. That wasn't no old foxfire or hulla-billusion. It was an object
(52)." (Hynek later stated that this contrived explanation marked the lowest
point in his career.) This episode fuelled growing concern at all levels that the Air
Force and the CIA were conspiring to conceal the truth about UFOs from the
American public. One of Michigan's state representatives in Congress, minority
leader Gerald Ford, later to become President on the impeachment of Richard
Nixon, returned to Washington in March 1966 and demanded a 'full-blown'
congressional investigation of events.
The Christian Science Monitor, a
journal with no previous involvement in the UFO phenomena considered that the
Michigan sightings had "deepened the mystery" of UFOs and it was "time for the
scientific community to conduct a thorough and objective study of the
'unexplainable'". By this time in 1966, President Johnson's administration was
suffering its own credibility gap. Air Force Secretary Dr. Harold Brown and
Defence Secretary Robert McNamara discussed the growing problem and decided that
an independent university-conducted study could be undertaken publicly and such
a course of action would get everyone off the hook. And Dr. Edward Uhler Condon
was considered the perfect man for the job.
Condon, a former director of the National Bureau of Standards,
had gained an impressive scientific reputation with a long association with
military research projects. During the Second World War, he had served on Dr.
Lyman J. Brigg's top-secret S-1 Committee out of which the Manhattan Project
developed (53). (Manhattan was the project to develop the world's first atomic
bomb.) As writer, psychologist and original member of the Condon Committee, Dr
David Saunders commented: "The public and the press knew him as one of the pioneers of
experimental physics in the Unites States and as a key figure in the development
of radar, the atomic bomb, and the nose cone and heat shield used on the Mercury
and Gemini manned space capsules. But they knew him even better as an out-spoken
critic of the federal government. His almost legendary battle with the House
Un-American Activities Committee during the McCarthy era and his accusations in
1958 that the government was suppressing the truth about radioactive poisons had
labelled him as a scientist who spoke the public's language (54)."
Explore forgotton clues scattered throughout history that are suggestive
of an alternative history.
Join the world-wide search for evidence
of a lost civilisation that predates
known history.
Has Earth already been contacted by other civilisations either in the distant past or in recent centuries?
A discussion of the emergence of advanced technologies and the bizarre invasion of Antarctica after WWII.
A discussion of sightings of UFOs in the sky above Earth and within the solar system, including Moon anomalies.
Evidence the Earth has been visited by extraterrestrials and how the public had been subject to disinformation.
A list of credits and sources for the themes and issues explored
in Violations.
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paperback or Kindle versions complete
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