THE KEY TO KEYHOE

Linda Powell.  Against the Odds. Major Donald E. Keyhoe and his Battle to End UFO Secrecy, Anomalist Books, 2023.

To those of us who just think of Donald Keyhoe as the author of some of the earliest and most important UFO books, and as a director of NICAP, this biography gives us an excellent insight into his early career and how he came to be involved with this subject.

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He went through an intense regime at the US Navy Academy, Annapolis, Maryland, to become a Marine aviator. When he graduated the prospects were not that great as World War One was over, and the future for the Maine aviation corps looked bleak.

At the beginning of 1920, Keyhoe’s first posting was to the Naval Air Training Station at Pensacola, Florida. Here he made about 25 balloon untethered balloon flights, these were dangerous adventures underlined by the fact that 24 of them ended up landing in trees. Another danger was that people would sometimes take pot shots at their balloons.

The following year Second Lieutenant Keyhoe was sent to Guam island in the Pacific, to set up an airfield and a seaplane base. There he got the opportunity to test fly the massive and unwieldy F-5L seaplane that Powell describes as little better than a garden shed on wings.

On one flight heroically (or stupidly) he flew it to a height of 8,600 feet, three times higher than its designated ceiling height. He was not so lucky on a night-testing flight on 17 May 1922, when he crashed the plane into the ocean. The accident resulted in a severed nerve that paralysed his right hand. Despite a lengthy recovery and treatment he never regained the use of his hand, which had consequences for his future career.

Not being able to fly, he took to supplement his income by writing articles about aviators and aviation. This led to him being a cheerleader for the growing aviation industry in the USA, and in that capacity he was a publicist and organiser for Charles Lindberg’s multi-state flight over the USA in 1927. As one of the most famous people on the planet, for his feat of single-handedly flying over the Atlantic, Lindberg was constantly mobbed by crowds. Keyhoe’s involvement showed the potential for air travel and was heralded as a great success.

By the 1930s, besides writing factual articles Keyhoe took to writing syndicated aviation adventure stories featuring daring pilots who had almost supernatural flying skills; much like Lindberg.

In World War Two, Keyhoe was promoted to Captain and given the task of writing Navy training literature in the style of easy-to-read novels. A story of his, 'Honeymoon Freight' was even bought by Hollywood, although it never got to the big screen.

Given his interest in anything related to aviation, and his background, it is not surprising that Keyhoe became intrigued by UFOs after pilot Kenneth Arnold’s sighting of flying saucers in 1947.

Aged 52, in 1949 Keyhoe’s pulp fiction career was virtually over, and he no longer had to write propaganda or rousing articles about the wonders of flight. As a writer for True magazine he was strong armed into writing a piece about flying saucers if he wanted to keep his job.

After six months of research and preparation, his article in True, “The Flying Saucers Are Real” had such an explosive impact that Keyhoe could no longer give-up on the subject.

Powell describes in detail how Keyhoe became a persistent thorn in the side of the Air Force. He firmly believed these craft, based on interviewing numerous pilots and reliable witnesses, were interplanetary vehicles spying on our planet. Furthermore, he believed the Air Force and other Government agencies were covering up the truth about UFOs visiting us.

NICAP was mainly set-up by Thomas Townsend Brown, who wanted to use it to fund his own anti-gravity research, and by contactee supporter Clara John. Keyhoe was quickly appointed to replace him and his over-ambitious projects, and talk of getting $3million in funding. Keyhoe quickly set to the job of using the organisation to argue with the Air Force’s about its lamentable UFO explanations and investigations. On the top of his agenda was to get open Congressional hearings on the subject.

Doesn’t this all sound like the UAP fiasco of today on a repeat cycle!

Keyhoe not only tussled with the Air Force, he worked hard to keep NICAP afloat despite it always running low on funds, plus he has a running battle with contactees whom he regarded as “crackpots,” who muddy the field. Ironically, the day-to-day running of NICAP relied on Rose Campbell, who unknown to Keyhoe gave membership cards to George Adamski and other contactees.

Rose became increasingly keen to push for NICAP to accept the claims of contactees and in a letter to Adamski’s secretary noted: “Donald Keyhoe is vastly ignorant of the contact angles of truth in the saucer story and I personally think that is shocking and short-sighted.” By the end of 1956 she would not accept NICAP’s rejection of contactees and resigned.

Powell does an expert job of showing us the major characters and factors that constituted that influential period of UFO politics and we get a few fascinating glimpses into Keyhoe’s behaviour and character. I’m sure he would have been in the thick of the current UAP controversy.

The 475 page book includes extensive footnotes, sources and an index. Essential for anyone wanting to learn more about the history of US ufology, and understand the position it is in today.

• Nigel Watson