Leonard H. Stringfield
Encyclopedia
Leonard Stringfield was an American
Ufologist who took particular interest in crashed flying saucer
stories. His contacts in the medical field gave him the first descriptions of the alien bodies allegedly recovered at Roswell
or elsewhere.
. As they approached Iwo Jima
at about ten thousand feet in a sunlit sky, Stringfield related:
encounter was so traumatic that he tried to forget about it. But he was drawn back into the UFO field in 1950 when two very sincere people related flying saucer
sightings to him. Stringfield then wrote:
Uneasy about the "rumored loss of Air Force interceptors chasing UFOs, the low-level green fireballs
over Sweden
and the southwestern United States" and his own experience, Stringfield related he was concerned about the "intent" behind the probes. In March 1954, he created Civilian Research, Interplanetary Flying Objects (CRIFO), and published a monthly newsletter, ORBIT.
The newsletter caught the attention of radio newscaster Frank Edwards
, who allowed Stringfield to announce it on his popular program in May. Instantly Stringfield was deluged with mail and newspapers, and radio stations from coast to coast called, wanting saucer news. Stringfield soon had 2500 paid subscribers to ORBIT. During the mid-1950s, CRIFO became the world's largest civilian UFO research group.
Then Stringfield wrote, "Also taking note of CRIFO was the Air Force." Stringfield said the Air Defense Command in Columbus, Ohio
called him September 9, 1955, and wanted his cooperation in obtaining immediate sighting reports using his large network of sources. To his surprise, he was also informed that the Ground Observer Corps
(GOC) in southwestern Ohio had been instructed to report UFO activity directly to him for screening. (Stringfield lived in Cincinnati, Ohio
.) He was then to call the ADC using a telephone code number ("Fox Trot Kilo 3-0 Blue") to report the better sightings. He was requested "not to ask any questions."
Later a member of the GOC informed him as to what happened to his screened reports. If the sighting was confirmed by radar
, jets were then scrambled for intercept and the matter became classified. Stringfield recounted one such spectacular incident, on the night of August 23/24, 1955, when multiple UFOs were spotted on radar in the Columbus/Cincinnati region. Numerous jets were sent up for intercept over a wide region, but cloud cover prevented Stringfield from seeing what was happening, though he could hear the jets overhead.
To his surprise, the Air Force cleared his reporting of the incident in his newsletter. But when he tried to interest the local Cincinnati
newspapers, the story was officially denied, as was his connection with the ADC.
Despite the official public denial of his work for the ADC, Stringfield wrote he received a letter in 1956 thanking him for his assistance from no less than Major General John A. Samford
, director of Air Force Intelligence. He also received a letter in 1955 from Captain Edward J. Ruppelt
, who had been director of the Air Force's public UFO investigation Project Blue Book
from 1951-1953. Ruppelt was requesting information on CRIFO for the book he was writing at the time (The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects), and praised the report-collecting net Stringfield had established.
Stringfield said he continued his "cooperation" with the Air Force through 1956 until the GOC was disbanded and his screening duties for them ceased. Stringfield's relationship with the ADC during this period is recounted in his 1957 book Inside Saucer Post, 3-0 Blue and in his 1977 book Situation Red.
In 1957, Stringfield discontinued CRIFO and his monthly newsletter. The same year, he became public relations adviser for the newly formed civilian UFO group NICAP under the direction of Donald Keyhoe
, a friend of his since 1953. He held the post until 1972, at which point he continued his private UFO research. It was during the 1970s that Stringfield began collecting witness accounts of UFO crash recoveries, including alien bodies. Many of these stories centered around activities at nearby Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio
.
Stringfield first publicly reported his so-called "crash/retrieval" findings at a 1978 MUFON Symposium. He said he received two death threats beforehand, but was never sure who was behind them or how serious they were. Thereafter, he self-published seven "Status Reports" on new crash-retrieval research until his death in 1994.
From 1967-1969, Stringfield served as an "Early Warning Coordinator" for the so-called Condon Committee
, the government sponsored scientific UFO investigation. His job, like his earlier one for the ADC, was to screen and report all UFO activity in southwestern Ohio.
Also when Grenada
Prime Minister Sir Eric Gairy
proposed the establishment of a UFO research agency within the United Nations
in 1978, during the 32nd General Assembly
of the UN, Stringfield served as his adviser.
Privately, Stringfield worked as Director of Public Relations and Marketing Services for DuBois Chemicals, a division of Chemed Corporation, Cincinnati.
Project in mathematics.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Ufologist who took particular interest in crashed flying saucer
Flying saucer
A flying saucer is a type of unidentified flying object sometimes believed to be of alien origin with a disc or saucer-shaped body, usually described as silver or metallic, occasionally reported as covered with running lights or surrounded with a glowing light, hovering or moving rapidly either...
stories. His contacts in the medical field gave him the first descriptions of the alien bodies allegedly recovered at Roswell
Roswell UFO incident
The Roswell UFO Incident was the recovery of an object that crashed in the general vicinity of Roswell, New Mexico, in June or July 1947, allegedly an extra-terrestrial spacecraft and its alien occupants. Since the late 1970s the incident has been the subject of intense controversy and of...
or elsewhere.
World War II sighting
Stringfield's interest in the subject began August 28, 1945, just three days before the end of the war, when he was an Army Air Force intelligence officer en route to Tokyo, Japan, along with twelve other specialists in the Fifth Air ForceFifth Air Force
The Fifth Air Force is a numbered air force of the United States Air Force Pacific Air Forces . It is headquartered at Yokota Air Base, Japan....
. As they approached Iwo Jima
Iwo Jima
Iwo Jima, officially , is an island of the Japanese Volcano Islands chain, which lie south of the Ogasawara Islands and together with them form the Ogasawara Archipelago. The island is located south of mainland Tokyo and administered as part of Ogasawara, one of eight villages of Tokyo...
at about ten thousand feet in a sunlit sky, Stringfield related:
- "I was shocked to see three teardrop-shaped objects from my starboard-side window. They were brilliantly white, like burning magnesiumMagnesiumMagnesium is a chemical element with the symbol Mg, atomic number 12, and common oxidation number +2. It is an alkaline earth metal and the eighth most abundant element in the Earth's crust and ninth in the known universe as a whole...
, and closing in on a parallel course to our C-46C-46 CommandoThe Curtiss-Wright C-46 Commando was a transport aircraft originally derived from a commercial high-altitude airliner design. It was instead used as a military transport during World War II by the United States Army Air Forces as well as the U.S. Navy/Marine Corps under the designation R5C...
. Suddenly our left engine feathered, and I was later to learn that the magnetic navigation-instrument needles went wild. As the C-46 lost altitude, with oil spurting from the troubled engine, the pilot sounded an alert; crew and passengers were told to prepare for a ditch! I do not recall my thoughts or actions during the next, horrifying moments, but my last glimpse of the three bogies placed them about 20 degrees above the level of our transport. Flying in the same, tight formation, they faded into a cloud bank. Instantly our craft's engine revved up, and we picked up altitude and flew a steady course to land safely at Iwo Jima."
UFO interest rekindled
Stringfield said his World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
encounter was so traumatic that he tried to forget about it. But he was drawn back into the UFO field in 1950 when two very sincere people related flying saucer
Flying saucer
A flying saucer is a type of unidentified flying object sometimes believed to be of alien origin with a disc or saucer-shaped body, usually described as silver or metallic, occasionally reported as covered with running lights or surrounded with a glowing light, hovering or moving rapidly either...
sightings to him. Stringfield then wrote:
- "This one experience near Iwo Jima was proof enough to me in 1950 that the 'foo fighterFoo fighterThe term foo fighter was used by Allied aircraft pilots in World War II to describe various UFOs or mysterious aerial phenomena seen in the skies over both the European and Pacific Theater of Operations....
' of World War II--sometimes dubbed 'Kraut fireball' in the European Theater--and the flying saucer were one and the same kind of machine and from the same source: outer space."
Uneasy about the "rumored loss of Air Force interceptors chasing UFOs, the low-level green fireballs
Green Fireballs
Green fireballs are a type of unidentified flying object which have been sighted in the sky since the late 1940s . Early sightings primarily occurred in the southwestern United States, particularly in New Mexico...
over Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
and the southwestern United States" and his own experience, Stringfield related he was concerned about the "intent" behind the probes. In March 1954, he created Civilian Research, Interplanetary Flying Objects (CRIFO), and published a monthly newsletter, ORBIT.
The newsletter caught the attention of radio newscaster Frank Edwards
Frank Edwards (writer and broadcaster)
Frank Edwards was an American writer and broadcaster, and one of the pioneers in radio. Late in his life, he became well known for a series of popular books about UFOs and other paranormal phenomena.-Early life and career:...
, who allowed Stringfield to announce it on his popular program in May. Instantly Stringfield was deluged with mail and newspapers, and radio stations from coast to coast called, wanting saucer news. Stringfield soon had 2500 paid subscribers to ORBIT. During the mid-1950s, CRIFO became the world's largest civilian UFO research group.
Then Stringfield wrote, "Also taking note of CRIFO was the Air Force." Stringfield said the Air Defense Command in Columbus, Ohio
Columbus, Ohio
Columbus is the capital of and the largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio. The broader metropolitan area encompasses several counties and is the third largest in Ohio behind those of Cleveland and Cincinnati. Columbus is the third largest city in the American Midwest, and the fifteenth largest city...
called him September 9, 1955, and wanted his cooperation in obtaining immediate sighting reports using his large network of sources. To his surprise, he was also informed that the Ground Observer Corps
Ground Observer Corps
The Ground Observer Corps was a series of Civil Defense programs in the United States to protect against air attack. First begun in World War II by the Army Air Forces, the 1.5 million civilian observers at 14,000 coastal observation posts used naked eye and binocular searches to find invading...
(GOC) in southwestern Ohio had been instructed to report UFO activity directly to him for screening. (Stringfield lived in Cincinnati, Ohio
Cincinnati, Ohio
Cincinnati is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio. Cincinnati is the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located to north of the Ohio River at the Ohio-Kentucky border, near Indiana. The population within city limits is 296,943 according to the 2010 census, making it Ohio's...
.) He was then to call the ADC using a telephone code number ("Fox Trot Kilo 3-0 Blue") to report the better sightings. He was requested "not to ask any questions."
Later a member of the GOC informed him as to what happened to his screened reports. If the sighting was confirmed by radar
Radar
Radar is an object-detection system which uses radio waves to determine the range, altitude, direction, or speed of objects. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain. The radar dish or antenna transmits pulses of radio...
, jets were then scrambled for intercept and the matter became classified. Stringfield recounted one such spectacular incident, on the night of August 23/24, 1955, when multiple UFOs were spotted on radar in the Columbus/Cincinnati region. Numerous jets were sent up for intercept over a wide region, but cloud cover prevented Stringfield from seeing what was happening, though he could hear the jets overhead.
To his surprise, the Air Force cleared his reporting of the incident in his newsletter. But when he tried to interest the local Cincinnati
Cincinnati, Ohio
Cincinnati is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio. Cincinnati is the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located to north of the Ohio River at the Ohio-Kentucky border, near Indiana. The population within city limits is 296,943 according to the 2010 census, making it Ohio's...
newspapers, the story was officially denied, as was his connection with the ADC.
Despite the official public denial of his work for the ADC, Stringfield wrote he received a letter in 1956 thanking him for his assistance from no less than Major General John A. Samford
John A. Samford
John Alexander Samford was a former director of the National Security Agency.-Biography:Samford was born at Hagerman, New Mexico, in 1905. He graduated from high school in 1922 and then spent one year at Columbia College, New York City. In 1924 he received a senatorial appointment to the U.S....
, director of Air Force Intelligence. He also received a letter in 1955 from Captain Edward J. Ruppelt
Edward J. Ruppelt
Edward J. Ruppelt was a United States Air Force officer probably best-known for his involvement in Project Blue Book, a formal governmental study of unidentified flying objects...
, who had been director of the Air Force's public UFO investigation Project Blue Book
Project Blue Book
Project Blue Book was one of a series of systematic studies of unidentified flying objects conducted by the United States Air Force. Started in 1952, it was the second revival of such a study...
from 1951-1953. Ruppelt was requesting information on CRIFO for the book he was writing at the time (The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects), and praised the report-collecting net Stringfield had established.
Stringfield said he continued his "cooperation" with the Air Force through 1956 until the GOC was disbanded and his screening duties for them ceased. Stringfield's relationship with the ADC during this period is recounted in his 1957 book Inside Saucer Post, 3-0 Blue and in his 1977 book Situation Red.
In 1957, Stringfield discontinued CRIFO and his monthly newsletter. The same year, he became public relations adviser for the newly formed civilian UFO group NICAP under the direction of Donald Keyhoe
Donald Keyhoe
Donald Edward Keyhoe was an American Marine Corps naval aviator, writer of many aviation articles and stories in a variety of leading publications, and manager of the promotional tours of aviation pioneers, especially of Charles Lindbergh.In the 1950s he became well-known as an UFO researcher,...
, a friend of his since 1953. He held the post until 1972, at which point he continued his private UFO research. It was during the 1970s that Stringfield began collecting witness accounts of UFO crash recoveries, including alien bodies. Many of these stories centered around activities at nearby Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio
Dayton, Ohio
Dayton is the 6th largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County, the fifth most populous county in the state. The population was 141,527 at the 2010 census. The Dayton Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 841,502 in the 2010 census...
.
Stringfield first publicly reported his so-called "crash/retrieval" findings at a 1978 MUFON Symposium. He said he received two death threats beforehand, but was never sure who was behind them or how serious they were. Thereafter, he self-published seven "Status Reports" on new crash-retrieval research until his death in 1994.
From 1967-1969, Stringfield served as an "Early Warning Coordinator" for the so-called Condon Committee
Condon Committee
The Condon Committee was the informal name of the University of Colorado UFO Project, a group funded by the United States Air Force from 1966 to 1968 at the University of Colorado to study unidentified flying objects under the direction of physicist Edward Condon...
, the government sponsored scientific UFO investigation. His job, like his earlier one for the ADC, was to screen and report all UFO activity in southwestern Ohio.
Also when Grenada
Grenada
Grenada is an island country and Commonwealth Realm consisting of the island of Grenada and six smaller islands at the southern end of the Grenadines in the southeastern Caribbean Sea...
Prime Minister Sir Eric Gairy
Eric Gairy
Sir Eric Matthew Gairy was the first Prime Minister of Grenada, serving from Grenada`s independence in 1974 until his overthrow in a coup by Maurice Bishop in 1979...
proposed the establishment of a UFO research agency within the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
in 1978, during the 32nd General Assembly
United Nations General Assembly
For two articles dealing with membership in the General Assembly, see:* General Assembly members* General Assembly observersThe United Nations General Assembly is one of the five principal organs of the United Nations and the only one in which all member nations have equal representation...
of the UN, Stringfield served as his adviser.
Privately, Stringfield worked as Director of Public Relations and Marketing Services for DuBois Chemicals, a division of Chemed Corporation, Cincinnati.
Noted crash/retrieval cases
- Roswell UFO incidentRoswell UFO incidentThe Roswell UFO Incident was the recovery of an object that crashed in the general vicinity of Roswell, New Mexico, in June or July 1947, allegedly an extra-terrestrial spacecraft and its alien occupants. Since the late 1970s the incident has been the subject of intense controversy and of...
- Witness accounts of the Roswell UFO incidentWitness accounts of the Roswell UFO incidentThe witness accounts of the Roswell UFO incident would transform Roswell from a forgotten incident to perhaps the most famous UFO case of all time.In 1978, author Stanton T... - Kecksburg UFO incidentKecksburg UFO incidentThe Kecksburg UFO incident occurred on December 9, 1965 at Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, USA. A large, brilliant fireball was seen by thousands in at least six U.S. states and Ontario, Canada...
- Shag Harbour UFO incident
- Height 611 UFO IncidentHeight 611 UFO IncidentHeight 611 UFO incident refers to an alleged UFO crash in Dalnegorsk, Primorsky Krai, USSR, on January 29, 1986. Height 611 is a hill located on the territory of the town.-Incident description:...
Associated Organizations
- Civilian Research, Interplanetary Flying Objects (CRIFO)
- National Investigations Committee On Aerial PhenomenaNational Investigations Committee On Aerial PhenomenaThe National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena was a civilian unidentified flying object research group active in the United States from the 1950s to the 1980s.-Overview:...
(NICAP) - Mutual UFO NetworkMutual UFO NetworkThe Mutual UFO Network is an American non-profit organization that investigates cases of reported UFO sightings. It is one of the oldest and largest UFO-investigative organizations in the United States....
(MUFON) - Fund for UFO ResearchFund for UFO ResearchThe Fund for UFO Research is an UFO research group based in Alexandria, Virginia. Founded in 1979, FUFOR states its aims as being to further the scholarly research of UFOs and the extraterrestrial hypothesis , and to secure the release of classified U.S...
(FUFOR) - Center for UFO StudiesCenter for UFO StudiesThe Center for UFO Studies is a privately-funded UFO research group. It was founded in 1973 by Dr. J. Allen Hynek, the Chairman of the Department of Astronomy at Northwestern University in Illinois....
(CUFOS) - Citizens Against UFO SecrecyCitizens Against UFO SecrecyAn activist organization founded in 1977 to make public government data on UFOs. It has made numerous Freedom of Information requests, filed suits, and investigated UFO reports and published its findings. The organization was originally established by W...
(CAUS)
Publications
- Inside Saucer Post...3-0 Blue: CRIFO Views the Status Quo: A Summary Report (1957)
- Situation Red, Fawcett Crest Books 1977 (PB), ISBN 0-449-23654-4
- Retrievals of the Third Kind: A case study of alleged UFOs and occupants in military custody (1978), presented as a speaker at the Ninth Annual MUFON Symposium in Dayton, Ohio, July, 1978. (Unofficially: Status Report I)
- The UFO Crash/Retrieval Syndrome: Status report II: New Sources, New Data (1980)
- UFO Crash/Retrievals: Amassing the Evidence: Status Report III (1982)
- The fatal encounter at Ft. Dix-McGuire: A case study: Status Report IV (1985)
- UFO Crash/Retrievals: Is the coverup lid lifting?: Status Report V (1989)
- UFO Crash/Retrievals: The Inner sanctum : Status Report VI (1991)
- UFO Crash/Retrievals: Search for Proof in a Hall of Mirrors: Status Report VII (1994)
Stringfield Number
In 2007 The Anomaly Response Network began the Stringfield Number Project, which studies research collaboration among ufologists, similar to the Erdős NumberErdos number
The Erdős number describes the "collaborative distance" between a person and mathematician Paul Erdős, as measured by authorship of mathematical papers.The same principle has been proposed for other eminent persons in other fields.- Overview :...
Project in mathematics.