"The Man Who Named the UFO" · 1923–1960
Edward James Ruppelt was born on 17 July 1923 in Flint, Michigan. He served as a bombardier in World War II, flying multiple combat missions, and subsequently graduated from Iowa State University in aeronautical engineering. He was a USAF Captain when he was assigned to head Project Blue Book from 1951 to 1953 — the period widely regarded as the programme's most vigorous and scientifically earnest phase. He died young of a heart attack on 9 September 1960, aged 37.
Ruppelt is historically significant for two contributions: he coined the term "Unidentified Flying Object" (UFO) as a systematic replacement for the media-driven "flying saucer," and he wrote the indispensable insider account of the early Air Force UFO investigation, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects (1956), which remains the most important primary source on Project Blue Book and the 1952 Washington D.C. UFO wave.
Under Ruppelt's direction, Blue Book was taken more seriously than at any other period in its existence. He established systematic data collection procedures, built a working relationship with the Battelle Memorial Institute that produced the first major statistical analysis of UFO reports (Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14), and attempted to put UFO investigation on a genuine scientific footing. The 1952 Washington D.C. UFO wave — in which unknown radar and visual objects were tracked over the national capital on multiple nights — occurred on his watch and produced the largest Pentagon press conference since World War II.
Ruppelt's book, published three years after his retirement from the Air Force, was remarkably candid for an officer still connected to the service community. He described the institutional pressure to debunk rather than investigate, acknowledged that many cases were genuinely unexplained, and provided detailed accounts of specific incidents — including the Lubbock Lights and the 1952 Washington radar cases — that challenged the official explanations. He described a culture within the Air Force intelligence community that privately took the phenomenon seriously while publicly maintaining the debunking line.
When The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects was republished in 1959, three new chapters were added that significantly softened Ruppelt's earlier conclusions — moving from cautious open-mindedness toward a conventional sceptical position. Researchers including Richard Dolan have speculated that these chapters were added under pressure or that Ruppelt's views genuinely changed in his final years. Ruppelt died less than a year after the republication. The three addendum chapters are generally treated by historians as less reliable than the original 1956 text.