Spanish Interview

For those fluent in Spanish, researcher Alan Brain has just posted an interview with me on his Web site.  Some pertains to the movie, and the rest is a discussion about the status of UFO research in general.  The visuals are great and I did a double-take when I found my photo and name time-warped onto a "UFO" lobby card image!  Thanks to Alan for providing Spanish-speaking people a window into UFO history from this American researcher's perspective, and I am humbled by his efforts.  The link is here:

http://losdivulgadores.com/2012/05/40-anos-de-ufologia-una-retrospectiva-extraterrestre-con-robert-barrow/

An Unfamiliar Face with a Familiar Name

This little photo (bordered here in yelllow)) has made the rounds for years and is said to show, from left to right, Dewey Fournet, Al Chop and Edward Ruppelt.  Trouble is, the man on the left is not Fournet.  I've never seen a larger, better quality print of this picture, so in the past I just assumed the accompanying photo captions were correct and posted it as is.

But thanks to the continuing eagle-eye research of Barry Greenwood, we now learn that the man striking a pose on the left is actually "U.F.O." screenwriter Francis Martin, and a comparison to a photo of Martin from 1937, shown here, appears to confirm this.

(Promotional photo of Francis Martin courtesy of Paramount Pictures, 1937, per B. Greenwood)

Spanish Language Web Site Features Movie Info

Thanks to Alan Brain for alerting me to his Spanish-language Web pages regarding UFOs and -- particularly -- his interest in informing Spanish-speaking people about the 1956 movie.  That page may be accessed here:

http://losdivulgadores.com/2012/04/los-intentos-de-revelacion-sobre-el-contacto-extraterrestre-i/

Harry Morgan ("Red Dog One") Dies

Actor Harry Morgan died a few days ago, relevant here because his was the voice of "Red Dog One" (the pilot surrounded by UFOs over Washington, D.C.) in the movie. Morgan's distinctive voice and face graced numerous motion pictures and TV shows over the years, and he was perhaps best remembered for his role as Col. Sherman Potter in TV's "M*A*S*H," and as police officer Joe Friday's (Jack Webb) partner in later episodes of "Dragnet." Of minor interest to those intrigued by such patterns, it may be noted that veteran actor Morgan performed in a movie about UFOs, while Webb later created a TV series based upon Project Bluebook's files ("Project UFO").

I made an attempt to get a few answers from Mr. Morgan back in the seventies about his role in the UFO documentary, but received no response.

The Movie Search Continues

Despite the lack of recent blog entries, I still look for updates, and continue to expect some rather interesting news about the motion picture when it develops -- so please check in now and then.

Posters: Dazed and Amused

Good grief. Okay, this blog deals exclusively with the 1956 documentary, "UFO: The True Story of Flying Saucers." In 1970, British TV produced a sci-fi series entitled, "UFO." Soon, in 2012, a big-screen aliens-on-the-attack film also called "UFO" will appear. As long as blog visitors realize we are neither the 1970s or 2012 offspring of this much-used term, we'll survive the latest cinematic title confusion. One wishes public UFO research was as popular as science fiction movie posters and productions.

Andrew Gold 1951-2011

You knew Andrew Gold as a popular recording artist, most familiar for his songs, "Lonely Boy" and"Thank You for Being a Friend." I knew him -- for one brief e-mail moment during the summer of 2001 -- as the son of Ernest Gold, the award-winning composer who developed musical scores for such movies as "Exodus" and, of particular interest to me, for United Artists' 1956 documentary motion picture, "UFO: The True Story of Flying Saucers."

Andrew died last week following lingering health issues. Drawing upon messages saved 10 years ago, I decided to post his one e-mail message and my two, keeping in mind how rare and appreciated it can be when a celebrity spares a minute or two to answer questions from inquiring minds. Frankly, I was a little surprised that he shared his and his grandparents' thoughts about UFOs in an e-mail to a stranger such as I, but including those few words of a personal nature really did speak kindly about the writer.

(Recently, I discovered that the soundtrack music for "UFO" is missing no longer, and I hope to offer further details later this year.)

2011 Movie Update

We may have a very interesting update regarding "U.F.O." later this year. If you have an appreciation for the motion picture's production values, please be sure to check this blog now and then.

Towers on the Newspaper Beat, 1958 & 1959

We've noted that Tom Towers never shied away from reporting about UFOs as aviation editor of the (defunct) Los Angeles Examiner. These gems from his newspaper career reflect upon some intriguing UFO history, including a serious meeting about the subject hosted and attended by Disney personnel in the company of scientists and engineers. Some Walt Disney personnel and factions appear, at least in the past, to have entertained a curious interest in things far more "out there" than The Mouse and flying elephants.

Towers had little tolerance for UFO-related hoaxes and frauds, though he apparently enjoyed directing his readers' attention to the absurd and controversial. The heated dismissal by NICAP director Donald E. Keyhoe and NICAP's Los Angeles subcommittee of a conference focusing upon "contactees" was hardly unusual, as NICAP had been critical (generally for good reason) from its inception of people claiming outrageous stories of meetings and good times with space aliens. However, when the Barney and Betty Hill UFO abduction story emerged publicly in the sixties, followed by other seemingly credible accounts offered up by terrified witnesses, NICAP and serious researchers began to make a sharp and characteristically viable distinction between contactees' tall tales and disturbing abduction reports.

(Thanks to researcher and author Barry Greenwood for these clippings.)

The Movie's Music Revisited

Researcher and co-author of the book, Clear Intent, Barry Greenwood continues to discover interesting pieces of history surrounding both "U.F.O." and the people involved with its production, and I'm grateful that he shares his work with us. Today, he contributes another gem I knew nothing about when exploring the 1956 motion picture's background in the seventies.

I've long wondered, attempting even to prod recorded music companies on the issue, why the admirable musical soundtrack for "U.F.O." was never released in an LP or CD anthology. If showbiz folks can get away with consuming an entire disc with music from the movie, "Night of the Living Dead," is it so much more to ask that the beautifully multifaceted composition for an obscure film scored by the accomplished Ernest Gold be re-released or newly performed for commercial sale?

A few years ago, recording artist Andrew Gold -- son of Ernest -- recalled for me that he vaguely remembered his father working on the music for "U.F.O." but he was a very young child at that time and was unable to offer any information. All I knew, even after consultation with a music publishing company, was that the score for the movie was also called "U.F.O."

However, I never dreamed that the score's various movements and cues, both short and long, each had a name. Thanks to the efforts of Mr. Greenwood, the pages shown here -- for some reason, these items of United Artists publicity material are stored among a collection at the Wisconsin Historical Society -- allow more of the story to be told.

Immediately apparent on the first page, beyond attributions to the cataloging organization B.M.I., is a reference to Ivar Productions. "U.F.O." was a Greene-Rouse production released through United Artists, but during my earliest inquiries decades ago, the only time I encountered this production co. name arose when I discovered there was a very early videotape (commercially released, I assume) of the movie, and a printed description in some obscure page (not in my collection) listed Ivar Productions. As I recall, and I'm stretching what I think I remember, Ivar had some connection to Ricou Browning of the "Creature From the Black Lagoon" movies. Whatever relationship any of this had with the UFO documentary (I suspect none), I simply do not know.

But aside from that -- how wonderful and logical that key portions of Clarence Greene's "U.F.O." music were marked off with titled orchestral segments. From Capt. Thomas Mantell's death ("Col. Hicks" and "The Wreckage") to the important introduction of Al Chop ("Al Chop") and an eventual historic UFO chase over Washington, D.C., coupled with subsequent official government concern, the cue sheets designate how Ernest Gold's composition (conducted for the film by Emil Newman), created a dramatic mood and musical intrigue for a 1956 documentary motion picture requiring and enhanced by both. Even standing alone, had there been no movie, Gold's work remains a treasure -- yet, curiously undiscovered by the musical soundtrack industry.

Tom Towers as Writer

A month after "U.F.O." hit national movie screens, Towers wrote this column for the old Los Angeles Examiner. As aviation editor, he never shied away from the UFO issue while informing his readers about topics of aviation in general.

(Thanks to researcher Barry Greenwood for this clipping.)

Tom Towers and the Junket

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s Tom Towers worked tirelessly in helping southern California plan for airport growth and expansion, and early on he recognized the need for noise abatement as "the jet age" came into fashion. His familiarity with progress in aviation gave him the opportunity to write about all manner of things in the air -- including UFOs -- during his time as aviation editor for the old Los Angeles Examiner. An old fifties newspaper photo reproduced (poorly) here shows writer Towers, standing second from left, attending a session previewing a 1959 Beechcraft airplane in Palm Springs at the Palm Desert Airport.

Apparently, for a time in 1957 Towers also moderated his own local Sunday TV show, though I'm unaware of its content. Airports and noise were probably involved, and perhaps UFOs as well, as only a year had passed since the release of the movie starring Towers. Complicating things, A TV host named Chris Roberts was listed as talking about UFOs earlier on the Sunday Morning shown in the scan displayed here (sorry about the visual quality).

During my correspondence with Tom Towers in the 1970s, one subject that never came up was his minor notoriety in a seventies "junket" controversy. Even though he had done crime reporting in his earlier newspaper career, I was unaware of the public admonishment awarded his own "crime" via local California media, particularly via articles appearing in the Van Nuys Valley News (ref. especially Nov. 12, 1977). Towers, then an administrative assistant for the Dept. of Airports, and several other airport and city officials flew off to the annual International Civil Airports Association conference, held in Vienna in September, and made the mistake of flying first class -- which cost the city of Los Angeles almost an extra $1,000 for each of the five.

The uproar from the city controller about the "expense account mentality" obviously reverberated throughout Los Angeles and hands were slapped through the power of the press. The conference seems to have provided some valuable insight regarding airport noise and the like, but the first class flight expenses apparently negated the benefits accrued in the eyes of some and portrayed Towers and other officials equivalent to, yes, snakes on a plane.

Following this, I wonder if future conference attendees were forced to fly in the cargo hold, accompanied only by crated dogs and cats? Sure wish I could have had a few words from Tom himself about this colorful situation.

(Thanks to Barry Greenwood for providing archival news clippings and for alerting me to the Vienna matter.)

The Voice of NASA

Al Chop's government service continued long after the motion picture, "U.F.O." first saw the light of day. Magnetically recorded on an old reel-to-reel tape among my clutter were a few precious seconds of Al Chop speaking to the nation as NASA's voice of mission control during a sixties space launch, and those few seconds of audio history now reside somewhere among Wendy Connors' Faded Discs collection.

Chop served NASA well as its deputy public affairs spokesman back then, and his influence appears in numerous newspaper articles of the era. A few national headlines reflecting his work are shown here, covering the years 1962-1966.

From 1962 -- Questions had been raised about astronaut John Glenn's noticeable absence from space agency activities (due to moving his family, Chop explained) and NASA's failure to promptly inform an anxious public that astronaut Scott Carpenter landed safely after his 1962 orbital flight. (Side note: Carpenter, incidentally, said a few interesting words about the UFO issue, reflected in the book, We Seven.)

In 1965, Chop spoke at a well-attended San Antonio conference on NASA's behalf, announcing that astronauts' photos from space had profoundly opened up new frontiers of scientific research. Later, as Christmas season approached at the Houston Space Center, an Air Force officer dressed as Santa Claus appeared, and Chop quipped to an Associated Press reporter that Santa "complained about our spacecraft up there and said he has almost hit them a couple of times."

After two consecutive failures in launching the Gemini 9 spacecraft in 1966, Chop kept the press informed, though NASA seemed initially at a loss to offer details. Despite some disappointed astronauts and engineers, however, all was not doom and gloom. When Gemini 9 finally soared into space, famed NBC news commentator Chet Huntley reported humorously about Chop's announcement (a gaffe) to the world that the craft was "three minutes and 60 seconds into the flight." Simply stating four minutes, according to Huntley's often dry wit, wouldn't fit in with the newly-emerging semantics of astronautic jargon.

Years later, Herb Lawrence of the Copley News Service questioned Chop about the impressive UFO reports he encountered as chief of the Pentagon's Air Force's press desk in the fifties, long before his NASA involvement. "Chop wouldn't say whether the Air Force felt they (UFOs) were spaceships from another planet," Lawrence wrote in 1972. "But he hinted broadly that he believed this."

(Thanks to Barry Greenwood for the news clippings)

Francis Martin's Oshkosh Connection

We recently completed an informal analysis of writer Francis Martin's script for "U.F.O." in these pages. Unfortunately, I was unable to locate Mr. Martin back in the seventies, even after contacting a few (mostly) California resources available at that time. Had the Internet been commonplace back then, I dare say the lost would have been found and Martin may well have offered a wealth of information about his role in the production.

However, the June 12, 1956 edition of what appears to be the Oshkosh Daily Northwestern Reporter carried an article entitled, "Ex-Oshkosh Man is Movie Script Writer," and we learn that Martin was born in Ashland, Wisconsin in 1900. The occasion for this article was his visit to Oshkosh whilst preparing scripts for a couple of unspecified TV documentaries. Of course, the other big news, duly noted in the newspaper article, was Martin's accomplishment of the movie script.

A veteran of both World Wars I and II, Martin actually experienced a very interesting career. He started as a dancer in Los Angeles nightclubs and began appearing in movies as a dancer and actor in the 1920s. By his own estimate, he had "a couple of hundred screen credits" before he began directing and writing scripts in 1926, and had been under contract with major studios such as Universal and Paramount. Martin proudly admitted turning out movie scripts for the likes of Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Rudy Vallee, George Burns & Gracie Allen and W.C. Fields.

Fields was a favorite, and the two were close friends. While Martin described Fields as "a delightful and generous person," and one of the greatest entertainers ever, admittedly Fields could be difficult, often rewriting portions of script at the list minute, or resorting to ad libs and scrapping his lines altogether when the cameras rolled -- still, according to Martin, resulting in brilliant results, even if such antics angered other actors and studio executives.

The article's remaining paragraphs summarize Martin's new UFO movie with words of encouragement, and I would suspect that, when the film came to town, loyal Oshkosh and area residents congregated in neighborhood theaters to view the work of a native son.

(Credit: Barry Greenwood. Note -- I put a link up to Mr. Greenwood's revised Web site in the link list on my adjoining blog, http://robert-barrow.blogspot.com/ and his thoughtful analysis of UFO-related issues as a veteran researcher must not be missed.)

The Movie's New York Synopsis

In the earliest pages of this blog we posted a lengthy 1956 synopsis of "U.F.O." issued by a Greene-Rouse Productions representative in Los Angeles. Now, a shorter description of the movie has come to light, shown here, issued by United Artists' New York office. This appears to be the same synopsis whose words were chosen for printing in the British version of the motion picture pressbook, and this, therefore, was the source for my Argosy UFO magazine article (to read it, see link in margin re two magazine articles at the NICAP.org site) about the motion picture in which I quoted and commented upon the complete synopsis. The U.S. pressbook, for some reason, did not use this document, relying instead upon studio-prepared newspaper articles, all of which have been scanned and appear on this blog. (Credit: Barry Greenwood)