Battelle Memorial Institute

Buried for 74 Years: Edward Ruppelt’s 1952 Flying Saucer Talk | Full Audio

Somewhere in the SkiesSep 19, 2026

A newly declassified 1952 audio recording captures Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, the first director of the US Air Force's Project Blue Book, briefing MIT Lincoln Lab scientists on the flying saucer problem. Ruppelt describes about 800 case files and says roughly 20 percent of them, many from airline pilots, scientists and military personnel, could not be explained. He walks through famous cases like the Lubbock Lights, the New Mexico green fireballs and unexplained radar tracks, raising questions that sound remarkably like today's UAP debate.