Donald Keyhoe

Donald Keyhoe (1897–1988) was a U.S. Marine Corps aviator, a Naval Academy graduate who left the Marines after an injury, managed Charles Lindbergh's 1927 tour and became a prolific aviation writer, returning to naval aviation training in the Second World War and retiring as a major. His article "Flying Saucers Are Real" in True in January 1950, and the book that followed, were among the most widely read pieces ever written on the subject; Edward Ruppelt wrote that Keyhoe generally had his facts right but that his interpretation of them was another matter.

Keyhoe argued that the saucers were interplanetary and that the Air Force was hiding what it knew, a charge he pressed in later books such as The Flying Saucer Conspiracy (1955). As director of NICAP from 1957 to 1969 he led the main civilian campaign for open investigation and congressional hearings, until the organisation's finances collapsed and its board forced him out. He is a reporter and advocate, not a witness.

Sources: Wikipedia · Keyhoe, The Flying Saucers Are Real (1950, Project Gutenberg) · Ruppelt, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects