Atomic scientist Robert J. Oppenheimer [the Father of the Atomic Bomb] loses his US security clearance.

Guatemala - CIA overthrows the democratically elected Jacob Arbenz in a military coup. Arbenz has threatened to nationalize the Rockefeller-owned United Fruit Company, in which CIA Director Allen Dulles also owns stock. Arbenz is replaced with a series of right-wing dictators whose bloodthirsty policies will kill over 100,000 Guatemalans in the next 40 years.

North Vietnam - CIA officer Edward Lansdale spends four years trying to overthrow the communist government of North Vietnam, using all the usual dirty tricks. The CIA also attempts to legitimize a tyrannical puppet regime in South Vietnam, headed by Ngo Dinh Diem. These efforts fail to win the hearts and minds of the South Vietnamese because the Diem government is opposed to true democracy, land reform and poverty reduction measures. The CIA's continuing failure results in escalating American intervention, culminating in the Vietnam War.

Gray Barker, editor of The Saucerian Bulletin, author of They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers and The Silver Bridge, tells us that his first contact with Morris Jessup was when he received a letter from him on November 5, 1954. Barker had sent Jessup a copy of his magazine, The Saucerian. This was just shortly before Jessup's first book was published. We discover from Jessup's letter that Barker was apprised of his existence and work by John Bessor who was, apparently, a subscriber to the magazine. Jessup wrote:

Yes, I'm doing a book. It is far along in the final draft stages, and we are hoping to get it in the hands of the publishers sometime next week. It is rather conservative as compared to some of the wild things so far printed, but I have tried to keep it factual, and have confined it to phenomena in the pre-Arnold era - particularly around 1875-1885. Altogether it makes quite a formidable array of proof and background.

Gray Barker describes Jessup as "a most cordial person, and greatly enthusiastic about finding some solution to the UFO mystery - though he indicated that in his professional writing he felt it necessary to take a more conservative approach. This conservative, scientific attitude, demonstrated in his first two books, may have been the reason that his writings were not popular with many saucer "fans."" Jessup wrote to Barker on December 16, 1954:

There is so damned much nonsense being put out by silly people that one gets disgusted with a lot of it. I do feel that we are in a remarkable phase of human experience and that the waters should not be muddied by stupidity - the problem is tough enough without any Adamski's in the picture.

And then on December 20th, along with two articles he sent to Barker, Jessup wrote:

The Mexican craters are real - I found them myself, and I've seen the air force negatives. [...] The extension of the motive-power theme to include some jolts ro religion are rather obvious. This space race COULD be our GOD. They COULD have left the Earth millennia ago. Our book will hint at how Sun-worship may be connected with the space denizens. I read your report regarding Albert K. Bender with great interest. Looks like SOMETHING did happen. He probably did stumble onto the truth. I will be glad of any additional information you may uncover. In my humble opinion, you are absolutely correct in your thought that the power source is the key to the whole UFO deal. I am convinced of it from my own introspection and reading.

The Fund for Theological Education - supported in the main by the Rockefeller Foundation, was established in the early 1950s as a response to a perceived crisis in Protestant theological education. In order to encourage talented college graduates to consider the ministry, an unprecedented initiative was launched in 1954 to attract promising but otherwise undecided candidates to seminary education. Begun in close affiliation with the American Association of Theological Schools , the Fund for Theological Education grew both in scope and size over the next forty years. To date close to 5000 scholarships have been awarded, and the Fund can number among its past recipients some of today's most eminent theological educators and clergy.

Rockefeller Foundation supports the Growth of American Families project, the first of the national fertility studies now carried out every five years with U.S. government support.

Air Chief Marshall Lord Hugh Dowding "Of course UFOs are real--and they are interplanetary.....The cumulative evidence for the existence of UFOs is quite overwhelming and I accept the fact of their existence." Dowding, commanding officer of the Royal Air Force during WWII, and during the Battle of Britain made this statement in August of 1954.

"More than 10,000 sightings have been reported, the majority of which cannot be accounted for by any "scientific" explanation... I am convinced that these objects do exist and that they are not manufactured by any nation on Earth."

"I can therefore see no alternative to accepting the theory that they come from some extraterrestrial source." Printed in Sunday Dispatch, London, July 11, 1954.

General Douglas MacArthur. General MacArthur is believed to have been involved in establishing the Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit (IPU), which was formed to investigate crashed and retrieved flying saucers. In 1955 MacArthur stated: "The nations of the world will have to unite for the next war will be an interplanetary war. The nations of the earth must some day make a common front against attack by people from other planets." This statement has led to intense speculation that the IPU uncovered more facts about UFOs than has ever been revealed.

United States, Cochise, New Mexico. An instructor and student pilot in USAF B-25 bomber trainer witness a metallic disc, shaped like two pie pans face-to-face, and 120- 130' in diameter, paced the B-25, showing both its edge and its face, for 5-7 minutes.

Morris Allen of the CIA conducted the ultimate hypnosis experiment: the creation of a "Manchurian Candidate," or programmed assassin.

France was the scene of the greatest UFO activity. Witnesses of all ages and backgrounds claimed to see landings of UFOs and their short, humanoid occupants. Researchers uncovered 46 humanoid reports in France alone during a six week period. Descriptions of the beings varied, although most were between three and four feet in height. None of the sightings included descriptions of what are now called "Greys."