Howard Hughes And The Flying Saucers

Before Area-51 existed, there was Texan Howard Hughes: the once flamboyant, eventually reclusive lanky genius, that helped change aviation, space exploration, the oil business, the film industry and the Las Vegas gaming empires. He was also one of the U.S. military’s biggest defense contactors and eventually became intimately involved with the U.S. military’s investigation—and sometimes outright battles—with flying saucers.

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Saucers down: the early years

After the end of World War Two, Howard Hughes busied himself with two things: movie making and his love affair with aviation.

Howard Hughes at Senate Committee Investigations

It was the latter that eventually landed him in trouble with the U.S. Congress and also brought him into contact with people that had stumbled upon a great secret that was literally out of this world.

Hughes was introduced to the reality of flying saucers.

Saucers over nation’s capital during two-week UFO flap

As the press splashed headline stories across the nation’s newspapers from the late forties to the mid-Fifties about flying saucers, none of the country’s journalists thought to ask one of America’s greatest aviators for his opinion.

It was just as well, as Hughes probably wouldn’t have answered and was hip deep in the cover-up as it was.

Hughes’ magnificent Hercules — the largest plane in the world

The brilliant industrialist was also, very briefly, an unofficial advisor to President Harry Truman’s infamous Majestic-12, and although a strong critic of Washington politics (especially after the Congressional hearings that attempted to crucify him for the Hercules troop carrier project), he was a very patriotic American.

Hughes learned about the saucer retrieval from the ranch near the Roswell US Army Air Force base before the close of 1947. Later, under the Official Secrets Act, he helped to establish the Nevada aviation test base near Nellis outside of Las Vegas—the notorious Area-51 that was flying the prototypes of the SR-71 Blackbird (the A-12) as early as April 1962, and Lockheed’s first stealth fighter versions in 1974-1975.

Hughes and Roswell

After 1947, rumors were rampant within the military-industrial complex—of which Hughes was simultaneously an insider and outsider—about flying saucers and if the military had its hands on one or more of them. Hughes stayed outside the circle of rumormongers.

Perhaps that’s why he was approached by some in the administration and asked to participate in a project to study damaged alien craft that had been retrieved.

Independent verification of this comes from the daughter of a former Hughes’ employee. Although her story is anectodal, it has credibility because it supports what some in the aviation industry had already suspected during those days.

In an article that originally appeared in OpEd News, researcher Bill Knell relates how a retired teacher named Linda contacted him and shared the experience of her father. At the time, he was an employee of Howard Hughes and worked as a consultant on the mammoth Hercules project during 1947 and later became a full-time employee of Hughes Aircraft.

During 1947 Hughes had the U.S. Senate on his back and worked around the clock to get the Hercules airborne. He was also under fire for the way he allegedly mismanaged the XF-11 Photoreconnaissance Aircraft project.

“Linda says that shortly after he testified at the Senate hearings, Howard Hughes returned to oversee work on the Hercules and spoke to her father about his possible involvement in an important government project:

“According to Linda, Howard Hughes and her father were not friends and her dad would probably not be considered a part of Hughes‘ inner circle if such a thing existed.

“However, he did spend a lot of time with Hughes during the Hercules project and the two had a casual working relationship as long as her father delivered the goods. She told me that her dad said he was busy brainstorming with some engineers when Hughes summoned him into an empty office. Hughes had a kind of inquisitively stern look on his face and that usually meant that he wanted some advice on how to solve a problem or was about to start a new project.

“Howard stepped away from the door to the office, but didn’t close it. There was enough noise outside of the office so that no one could hear their conversation anyway. Howard sat down on a stool near the window. Linda’s father stepped over to where he was sitting and listened intently. Hughes hated repeating himself and despised people that were not good listeners.

“Hughes told her dad that he had been contacted by a ‘high ranking member of the United States Armed Forces’ while he was in Washington, D.C.

“The [future] billionaire was used to receiving unusual requests from the military. He was known as someone that could keep a secret and solve complicated problems. According to Linda’s father, this one might have been the mother of all the most secret and complicated situations that the government ever faced. Hughes said that he visited a military base on the way back from the congressional hearings.

“He didn’t mention where it was located and provided few details about what happened there. [The base was probably Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio.]

“Linda’s father said that Hughes seemed uncomfortable talking about his visit to the base. He hated situations that he couldn’t personally control and seemed to indicate that the entire event was orchestrated and controlled by the military. With the exception of Hughes, no civilians were present. Howard said that they showed him a new type of aircraft. Most of it was in pieces and it was obvious that the thing had crashed or been shot down. Hughes assumed it might have been something that the Russians cooked up.

“It wasn’t until Hughes got closer to the material that he noticed it was anything but conventional. He didn’t pick up or touch any of it, but told Linda’s father that it looked like ‘the damnedest stuff I’ve ever seen.’

“The military officers present told him that despite the fact that it was in pieces, the material was extremely resistant to heat, cold and pressure. They also said that it was almost impossible to penetrate, yet it might have been an implosion that caused the crash. Howard never said if it had any writing on it and provided no further details about the material or the aircraft.

“Hughes told Linda’s father that the dead bodies of the crew members from the aircraft had also been recovered by the military and were mostly intact. He said they allowed him to view the bodies and described them as looking like ‘dwarves’ or ‘deformed midgets’ wearing seamless flight suits.

“‘He added no details about where or how they were being kept. Instead, he got right to the point: ‘They want me to figure this thing out and I want you on board,’ Hughes explained.

“That was the end of their meeting.”

According to Linda, a few weeks later Hughes met her father again and told him to forget the conversation they’d had about the project. “He gave her dad the impression that there were too many hassles and not enough money for him to get involved with that project. Her father felt it was more plausible to believe that Hughes wouldn’t have been able to run the show and didn’t want to get involved with something he couldn’t fully direct.”

Hughes, offered insider access at the very beginning of the UFO cover-up, instead tried to distance himself.

President Eisenhower recruits Howard Hughes

After Truman left office and former General Dwight D. Eisenhower ascended to the presidency, Howard Hughes was again wooed by the military. This time they offered Hughes a piece of the action and the possibility of making big money. How? By reverse-engineering alien technology. They convinced the industrialist he could undertake the project secretly at his facilities in California and Texas.

Lt. Colonel Philip J. Corso at the Pentagon

This was the program that preceded the Pentagon project overseen by Lt. Colonel Philip Corso.

Hughes assigned the projects to a few trusted engineers at Hughes Tool and Hughes Aircraft. The government funded the research surrepticiously and Hughes would benefit from any patents and revenure that came from the new technology. Of course, the military would share in it.

To cement the deal, Hughes met with Eisenhower and the two inspected the remains of the craft that went down in Roswell. New Mexico and several other flying saucers. Again, Hughes observed deceased aliens kept in cold-storage.

This incident was actually the subject of an inquiry letter from researcher Larry Bryant to U. S. Senator Kay Hagan dated March 1, 2009:

Excerpt:

“…certain 16-mm film footage showing President Eisenhower and the late aviation pioneer Howard Hughes inspecting the apparent remains of a crash-landed flying saucer and its alien crew. (See my below-quoted transcript of ‘Bob’s’ account.) This latest evidence implicating Eisenhower in the federal government’s sequestering of hard evidence of UFO-E.T. reality dovetails with earlier leakage to certain UFOlogists of a copy of the so-called Eisenhower Briefing Document from the allegedly CIA-created/managed ‘Majestic-12′ operation that began during the late 1940s. “

The full letter and transcript can be found here. Scroll down about two-thirds of the page to letter.

Hughes Aircraft becomes one of the contractors receiving Corso’s alien technology

Corso funneled alien technology to several defense contractors such as General Electric, Bell Laboratories, Douglas Aircraft, Lockheed, and Hughes. For the full story, refer to Corso’s book, The Day After Roswell.

As Hughes became emeshed in the flying saucer projects, he began working more closely with the security state apparatus that had been launched by President Truman during the late 1940s. Eventually, Hughes developed an intimate working relationship with the CIA, NSA, and Pentagon’s DIA.

Exotic materials, engineering, electronics and avionics were harvested from UFOs

Hughes created cover companies Maheu & Associates and Raven Industries. Both corporations worked on secret government projects for the military and intelligence community. They also worked on UFO technology.

Hughes’ Culver City, California airfield

Hughes wanted to test the propulsion and alien avionics of some of the reverse-engineered technology, but couldn’t do it secretly at his Culver City, California airfield. So those ulta-sensitive projects were moved to a remote desert facility built especially for that purpose at Harper Dry Lake.

Aerial view of Harper Dry Lake and the old airfield

Map of Hughes’ secret test airfield in the desert

After several years, the secret Hughes facility was abandoned and projects moved to a new location supported by Nevada’s Nellis Air Force Base at Groom Lake designated as Area-51.

Groom Lake AFB designated as Area-51, also called ‘Dreamland’

Project Azorian: Howard Hughes, a Soviet sub, and a flying saucer

During the latter half of 1969, Hughes’ CIA contacts approached him with an incredible and audacious plan to build a floating platform designed to retrieve a Soviet sub that sank in 1968.

The Hughes Glomar Explorer at Philadelphia shipyard

The CIA officers suggested that Hughes Tool Company could build the infrastructure inside a gutted ocean going vessel they would provide. They even had an initial target in mind: a sunken sub approximately 1,560 nautical miles northwest of the Hawaiian Islands. The Soviet vessel, diesel submarine K-129, had gone down with all hands and three nuclear missiles.

The opportunity to obtain sensitive submarine technology from the USSR was a juicy plum for the CIA and so was the chance to get three Soviet nuclear missiles.

A third objective was the possible retrieval of yet another flying saucer, in this case an unidentified submerged object (USO).

USOs are known and tracked by military and intelligence agencies

The National Security Agency eavesdropping on Soviet military radio channels during the Russian’s search after the loss of their sub led them to suspect another undersea collision between a sub and USO. The same thing may have occurred to the USS Scorpion in the 1960s off the Azores. [See: Alien Craft Attacks, Sinks U.S. Nuclear Sub]

Since Hughes had close ties with the intelligence scommunity and was already somewhat of an insider on the great secret—and ongoing cover-up—of the existence of extra-terrestrials, the reclusive billionaire was tapped for his resources and knowledge.

The Hughes Glomar Explorer (HGE), was constructed in the Sun Shipbuilding yard in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Although the official story released to the public at the time claimed the ship would search for ocean mineral deposits, it was actually a highly sophisticated deep sea salvage and retrieval vessel.

Later, after the story was divulged by The New York Times on what HGE really attempted, it was said that Hughes had no real involvement in the operation. He had, reported the media, only lent his name to the vessel at the request of the CIA as part of the cover.

That information is untrue. Hughes was intimately involved and even maintained a liason at Lockeed. The aerospace competitor had been contracted to build the mammoth claw designed to grab objects from the ocean floor and raise them to the surface.

The operation commenced during the summer of 1974 with part of the Soviet Navy impotently observing from the sidelines.

According to his Mormon aides—with the billionaire since he’d established operations in Las Vegas—Hughes was in regular contact with the CIA personnel running the HGE operation northwest of Hawaii.

Hughes ran his empire from the penthouse at Acapulco Princess

The billionaire was especially keen about any news regarding the USO. He ran the operation from the top floor of the Acapulco Princess overlooking the Pacific along the Mexican coast. Most of the time he was naked or only wore an old, thin robe.

Reportedly, the HGE operation was partially successful. According to The New York Times and several best-selling books, the HGE managed to retrieve about one-third of the Russian sub, much to the fury of the Soviet Navy. Ostensibly, the nuclear missiles were not salvaged asnd still remain at the bottom of the Pacific.

No mention was made about the USO. Whether part, or all of it was taken—or if it even existed at all—only those aboard the HGE at the time and certain Washington officials knew. And, of course, Howard Hughes knew.

Hughes, the world’s first billionaire and one of the men who held the secrets of the saucers, died on April 5, 1976 during an emergency flight from Acapulco to his private medical center in Houston, Texas.

He took what he knew about flying saucers with him to the grave.

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