While searching for photos of SSS Members, I found a name I didn’t recognize and a photo of a pilot in front of an F-100. Richard French, (LtCol USAF, Ret) had a host of news articles about his role in Project Blue Book.
A little background on French… “He was born [on] December 1929, in Chicago, and joined the Oregon National Guard shortly after his 17th birthday. He then gained his commission in the U.S. Air Force, where he went on to become a fighter aircraft pilot. He served in multiple locations during his military career, including Korea, Vietnam, Laos, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. In addition to his flying career, Lt Col French held numerous college degrees, including a PhD in astrophysics and another in philosophy. During his Air Force career, Dick was awarded many decorations, among them the Silver Star, Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal, and two Purple Hearts. He served as flight commander at Nellis Air Force Base, and Luke Air Force Base, Ariz. Lt Col French retired from the Air Force Sept. 1, 1974. He was active in a number of veterans’ organizations, including the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion and the River Rats. (This is taken from his obituary, French died in 2014.)
Here is the photo I found, and the remarkable story from the Huffington Post that accompanied it. It’s fun reading and listening for UFO enthusiasts.
“When Air Force Lt. Col. Richard French was an alleged lead investigator of Project Blue Book in the 1950s, his job was to shoot down false reports of UFOs. Given his job, French never dreamed he’d end up in Newfoundland one day watching what appeared to him to be two extraterrestrials performing repairs on a submerged, unknown circular craft.
In Washington, D.C., recently, the 83-year-old retired officer testified at the Citizen Hearing On Disclosure panel of six former members of Congress about his work as a UFO debunker in 1952.
French recounted how the Newfoundland incident unfolded decades ago, in the early 1950s, after two UFOs were seen by many people off the coast of St. John’s. French’s superiors ordered him to look into the situation.
“They said, ‘We have a UFO report and we want you to investigate it,’ and that was standard for what I was doing,” French told The Huffington Post. “They told me there were two of them involved and that they were deep under the water, after entering the water doing roughly 100 miles an hour.
“There were a lot of people assembled on the wharf, at least 100 standing around just looking in amazement at the water, including several local policemen.”
French recalls the water was very clear and he could see two circular craft, each one about 18 feet in diameter and approximately 3 feet thick. He said the two objects were floating below the surface of the water, a couple of feet apart, not more than 20 feet from the shore. And he saw two beings in the water near the ships.
“The first thing I saw was the UFOs, and it was apparent to me that they were doing something to the craft, and I couldn’t really tell what because they were on the bottom side of it and not visible to me except when they would occasionally get over to the side where I could see them. The water was fairly clear and I could see without any trouble. They weren’t down at the bottom of the [seabed] — they were about half way down.”
French told HuffPost that the two beings he saw “were about 2 or 3 feet tall, light grey in color, very thin, long arms with either two or three fingers. The top of their heads was much wider than their jaw line, their eyes were very slanted and you couldn’t see pupils in them. They looked the way [aliens] have been depicted in motion pictures.”
As the Air Force UFO debunker watched, he claims one of the ships began to rise out of the water.
“When it hit the [surface], it was going about 100 miles an hour. It then accelerated to somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,500 to 3,000 miles an hour and disappeared. It returned about 20 minutes later, slowed down to nearly a stop before it entered the water, then went down, and the two [beings] worked together.
“It took them about 20 minutes and then the two ships departed together, again slow when they exited the water, and immediately they sped up to a very high speed. I believe they were repairing [the ship] and tested that the repairs had been adequate, and then away they went.”
Ironically, French’s job at the time — as a Project Blue Book investigator — was to debunk UFOs. So, what kind of report did he file with Blue Book about this case he had personally witnessed?
“Needless to say, it was a fictitious report, as all of them were. I didn’t really say that they were UFOs — I said that there was something we didn’t know — some type of foreign or unrecognizable vehicle there. In other words, I weasel-worded it.
“Oh, I think without a doubt it was a UFO and I think there were aliens aboard it. There’s no question in my mind that was exactly what it was, and my duty was to debunk the story, so I did my best to do so.”
The events of the Newfoundland UFO and alleged aliens took place some 60 years ago, in the days before everyone had a digital camera or image-capture cell phone in their pocket. Despite the fact that there are no photographs to substantiate the report, it’s still an amazing story.
So what are we to make of this? Because it’s not the first time French has stirred up the UFO-ET pot.
Last year, he told HuffPost exclusively that there wasn’t just one UFO crash near Roswell, N.M., in 1947 — he said there were two.”
To watch the video of LtCol French giving testimony on his UFO sighting go to: Citizen Hearing on UFO Disclosure
Source: Richard French, Ex-Air Force Lt. Colonel, ‘It Was A UFO And . . . There Were Aliens Aboard It’ by Lee Speigel
Huffington Post, May 13, 2013, 12:21 PM EDT | Updated Dec 6, 2017
A note about the Citizen Hearing:
“The last congressional hearing dealing with the extraterrestrial issue was before the House Science and Astronautics Committee in July of 1968 – 49 years of silence from the U.S. Congress.
The Citizen Hearing on Disclosure was a mock congressional hearing held in April/May of 2013 to do what the Congress has failed to do since 1968 – seek out the facts surrounding the most important issue of this or any other time – evidence pointing toward an extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race.
Forty-two persons including researchers and military/agency/ political witnesses of rank and station came to the National Press Club in Washington, DC to testify before six former members of the United States Congress.
The main ballroom of the National Press Club was configured to resemble a Senate hearing room. There were press areas, an audience area, witness tables and committee tables. Protocols for congressional hearings were followed as closely as possible during the testimony. Committee members received written statements from witnesses, heard oral statements and asked whatever questions they wished about the subject matter at hand.
Hearing witnesses testified for thirty hours over five days in five morning and five afternoon sessions, each composed of two panels of witness, each panel lasting approximately ninety minutes.
In the evenings, additional lectures were given by a number of the Hearing witnesses.
The entire Citizen Hearing on Disclosure was filmed and this video record would be delivered to every member of Congress in November of 2014. This marked the beginning of PRG’s Election 2016 Political Initiative that would force presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, President Clinton, John Podesta and President Obama to publicly address the extraterrestrial issue a dozen times during the campaign.”(1)
(1) Source: Paradigm Research Group