National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena
From The Black Vault Encyclopedia Project
The National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena (or NICAP) was a civilian unidentified flying object research group active in the United States from the 1950s to the 1980s.
Due in no small part to financial ineptitude among the group’s directors, NICAP faced collapse many times in its existence, barring a few years in the 1960’s when the organization's membership spiked dramatically.
Despite these internal troubles, NICAP probably had the most visibility of any civilian American UFO group, and arguably had the most mainstream respectability; Jerome Clark writes that "for many middle-class Americans and others interested in UFOs but repelled by ufology’s fringe aspects, it served as a sober forum for UFO reporting, inquiry, investigation, and speculation." (Clark, 412) NICAP advocated transparent scientific investigation of UFO sightings and was deeply skeptical of "contactee" tales involving meetings with space visitors, the alien abduction phenomenon, and the like. The presence of several prominent military officials as members of NICAP brought a further measure of respectability for many observers.
Throughout its existence, NICAP argued that there was an organized governmental cover up of UFO evidence. NICAP also pushed for governmental hearings regarding UFOs, to at best limited and occasional success.
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1950s
NICAP was founded on October 24, 1956, by physicist Thomas Townsend Brown. On the Board of Directors were several prominent persons, including retired United States Marine Corp officer Donald Keyhoe and retired United States Navy Rear Admiral Delmer S. Fahrney, who had headed the Navy’s guided missile program.
By early January, 1957, however, Brown had proved so financially inept that the Board of Directors asked him to step down. Fahrney replaced him, then convened a press conference on January 16, 1957 where he announced that UFOs were under intelligent control, but that they were of neither American or Soviet origin. The press conference received major attention, doubtless aided by Fahrney’s stature.
In April, 1957 Fahrney resigned from NICAP, citing unspecified pressing personal issues. It was later disclosed that his wife was seriously ill, but also that Fahney was bothered by the whispers and ridicule his UFO interests generated among many of his peers in the military.
Keyhoe became NICAP’s director. He instigated a monthly newsletter,The U.F.O. Investigator. Also in 1957, another prominent figure came onboard: Vice Admiral Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter joined NICAP’s board of directors; he had earlier been the head of the Central Intelligence Agency.
The organization had chapters and local associates scattered throughout the United States. Many of their members were amateurs, but a considerable percentage were professionals, including journalists, military personnel, scientists and medical doctors. One of NICAP’s prime goals was thorough field investigations of UFO reports. They would eventually compile a significant number of case files and field investigations which Clark characterises as "often first rate". (Clark, 413)
By 1958, NICAP had grown to over 5000 members. Keyhoe’s financial skills were only slightly better than Brown’s, and NICAP hobbled along for several more years, facing collapse on several occasions.
1960s
The mid-1960s found much of the American public keenly interested in UFOs, and NICAP’s membership crested at 14,000. This influx of members greatly improved the group’s finances.
Initially, NICAP aided the Condon Committee, but Keyhoe quickly became disenchanted, limiting NICAP's role; they formally severed ties with the Condon Committee in early 1968. Following the Condon Committee’s report (which concluded there was nothing extraordinary about UFOs), public interest in the subject abated, and NICAP’s membership dropped to about 5000.
1969 saw the last NICAP efforts of any significance, two monographs: Strange Effects from UFOs and UFOs: A New Look.
In December, 1969 Keyhoe was ousted as director; critics had for several years been charging him with authoritarianism and financial incompetence. John L. Acuff became NICAP’s director.
1970s
NICAP’s membership continued to drop as it was led by Acuff and then Alan Hall. By now the organization was all but paralysed by infighting, including unsubstantiated charges that the Central Intelligence Agency had infiltrated NICAP. In fact, several persons with CIA ties had joined NICAP; however, their motives and reasons for joining NICAP have been the subject of some debate.
One person specifically named as a suspected CIA infiltrator was retired Air Force Colonel Joseph Bryan III. His son, writer C.D.B. Bryan, dismisses this idea, suggesting that "Anyone who knows anything about the history of NICAP knows that the group didn’t need anybody's help in its disintegration; it simply self destructed." As to his father’s involvement as an alleged CIA agitator, Bryan writes, "my father’s unswerving, outspoken faith in UFOs ... was, I felt, something of an embarrassment ... I do not believe it was the sort of public position an agent would take whose covert goal was to smother interest in UFOs." (Bryan, 191fn)
1980 saw the last publication of NICAP’s newsletter; the organization dissolved later that year. NICAP's archive of UFO sighting case files was subsequently purchased by the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS).
Sources
- C.D.B. Bryan; Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind: Alien Abduction, UFOs and the Conference at M.I.T.; Alfred A. Knopf, 1995; ISBN 0679429751
- Jerome Clark; The UFO Book: Encyclopedia of the Extraterrestrial; Visible Ink, 1998; ISBN 1578590299kljljkll
External links
Copyright
"Original data received from Wikipedia on April 23, 2006. Credit given to original authors can be seen Here."
