FigureDonald Keyhoe (1897–1988)
aka Donald Keyhoe · Maj. Donald Keyhoe · Keyhoe
Retired U.S. Marine Corps major and naval-aviation writer; author of *The Flying Saucers Are Real* (1950); director of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) 1957–1969 — the largest civilian UFO research body of the period.
What's documented
Retired U.S. Marine Corps major and aviation journalist. Keyhoe’s January 1950 True magazine article “The Flying Saucers Are Real” — expanded to a paperback the same year — sold over half a million copies and is the document that made the UFO question a postwar mass-circulation subject. He directed NICAP from 1957 to 1969; the NICAP board at various points included retired Adm. Roscoe Hillenkoetter, the first Director of Central Intelligence (1947–1950). On 22 January 1958, Keyhoe was cut off mid-sentence on Mike Wallace’s CBS Reports live broadcast when he attempted to read prepared remarks that had not been pre-approved; CBS later confirmed the cut was on Air Force instructions. The Wallace cutoff is on the surviving CBS tape and is one of the more straightforwardly documented examples of mid-century Air Force pressure on UFO reporting.