Ben Rich, Lockheed Martin and UFOs
Ben R. Rich, brilliant scientist, aeronautical engineer and Father of Stealth is more of an enigma now than he was during his lifetime. He is most noted for designing a stealth fighter-plane that flew undetected by radar and for his role as the second director of Lockheed Martin’s top-secret Skunk Works program. Born in 1925, Rich passed away in 1995 with controversy still brewing among his friends, critics and those who heard him speak publicly about whether or not he believed in UFOs and extraterrestrials.
Many questions remain unanswered. Was there a Ben Rich deathbed confession where he admitted that he knew that extraterrestrials and UFO visitors are real? Did he publicly mean it when he claimed that, “We now have the technology to take ET home,” or was it a joke? Is there credibility to other statements attributed to him in which he allegedly claimed technology learned at Roswell was used to influence the development of top secret U.S. aircraft? Are the alleged communications from Rich to his friend John Andrews credible?
With Rich’s last breath, definitive answers to these questions were lost forever.
Ben Rich and Skunk Works
Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Development Projects (ADP), known officially as Skunk Works, was a secret aeronautical research facility in Burbank, California. The founder and first director of Skunk Works was Clarence “Kelly” Johnson, who was the designer of a U.S. spy plane called the U-2. Ben Robert Rich joined Skunk Works in 1954 and helped design various aircraft, including a prototype that could reach speeds more than 1,300 mph. He became the second director of Skunk Works, holding that position from 1975 until his retirement in 1991.
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Rich was best known for his design of the first operational stealth aircraft, which are aircraft that are undetectable by radar. According to one source, “Nearly all of the programs he worked on began as top-secret projects…that were tested at the infamous Area 51 in Nevada, focus of much UFO lore.”
Rich received many awards through the years, including the award from the Department of Defense for Distinguished Public Service. After his retirement, he continued to speak around the country on the achievements of Skunk Works. Some believe things he said at those public events support his belief in UFOs and ETs. Others say he was only “joking” with some of his comments. There are also letters he wrote to a friend and evidence of an important phone conversation he had just a few days before his death; both shed light on his UFO and ET beliefs.
Communications Between John Andrews and Ben Rich
John Andrews was a Lockheed engineer and personal friend of Ben Rich. Andrews expressed his own personal opinion that UFOs existed in a letter he wrote to Rich, asking Rich to share his own opinion. Andrews claimed that Rich responded that he believed “there are two types of UFOs, the ones we build, and the ones they build…I am a believer in both categories. I feel everything is possible. Many of our man-made UFOs are Un-Funded Opportunities.” Rich underlined the “UFO” in “Un-Funded Opportunities,” but gave no explanation.
Rich continued, stating that most “biomorphic” aerospace designs were inspired by Roswell spacecraft. Rich wrote that he believed the American public “could not handle the truth” about UFOs and ETs. However, he changed his mind toward the end of his life and felt that keeping the secret could be more of a danger to “citizens’ personal freedom under the United States Constitution than the presence of off-world visitors themselves.”
Ben Rich’s Standard Speech: True Comments or Jokes?
During a 1993 Alumni Speech at UCLA, Rich stated: “We already have the means to travel among the stars, but these technologies are locked up in black projects and it would take an Act of God to ever get them out to benefit humanity…Anything you can imagine, we already know how to do.” At the end of the speech, Rich said, “We now have the technology to take ET home.”
Critics say that Rich either did not make the comment about taking ET home or he was not serious if he did say it. They point out that Rich first used that statement to conclude his speech in 1983, shortly after the Steven Spielberg film E.T.: The Extraterrestrial hit the big screen. The comment at that time was made as a joke and received a positive audience response, so he continued to use it.
Critics discount the reports of two reputable witnesses at the 1993 speech who spoke with Rich after the speech was over. Jan Harzan and Tom Keller, both engineering alumni of UCLA and UFO enthusiasts, caught up with Rich after his speech and asked him to explain his “taking ET” home comment. The following oft-reported exchange occurred.
Harzan reported that Rich said, “We know how to travel to the stars. We found an error in the equations and it won’t take a lifetime to do it.”
Harzan laments that Rich “didn’t say what the equations were,” so Harzan pursued questioning Rich on “the workings of interstellar propulsion systems.”
Rich turned to Harzan and asked, “How does ESP work?”
Harzan replied, “I don’t know. All points in space and time are connected?”
Rich said, “That’s how it works.”
According to Harzan, Rich then turned and walked away. Harzan interpreted Rich’s comments to mean that U.S. scientists are aware of the existence of “interstellar propulsion technology” which involves a known set of equations. Critics say it was just Rich’s way of continuing the joke.
Ben Rich’s “Deathbed Confession”
James Goodall, aerospace journalist and an in-demand public speaker, became friends with Ben Rich. Goodall states that he spoke with Rich about 10 days before Rich died. The conversation took place over the phone while Rich was in the USC Medical Center in Los Angeles where Goodall claims that Rich said, “Jim, we have things out in the desert that are fifty years beyond what you can comprehend. If you have seen it on Star Wars or Star Trek, we’ve been there, done that, or decided it wasn’t worth the effort. They have about forty-five hundred people at Lockheed Skunk Works. What have they been doing for the last 18 or 20 years? They’re building something.”
Ben Rich was a brilliant engineer whose contributions to the aerospace industry are still out of this world. His inquisitiveness continued throughout his life. Even critics who question whether he made some of the comments attributed to him believe that, at a minimum, he believed in “the existence of other intelligent life in the universe” even though he thought it likely to be distant and definitely mysterious.
Want to learn more about Ben Rich and his role in deep space exploration? Be sure to view the latest episode of Deep Space: Secrets of Anti-Gravity.
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Secret Space Programs and Breakaway Civilizations
In July 2014, on the 45th anniversary of Apollo 11’s moon landing, the government declassified information about a secret space program from the 1950s called Project Horizon. The plan outlined the building of a permanent military base on the moon. Ten to twenty men would be sent with all their supplies and nuclear weapons. The secret moon base would be used for surveillance against and protection from the Soviet Union, and the men would have constant communication with the Earth.
The released documents show that the scientists knew it wasn’t possible to implement the plan, but it was expected to be put in place as technology advanced. Project Horizon never got off the ground. But, that isn’t the end nor the beginning of the story about secret space programs from the past, present and the future.
Secret Space Programs and FDR
In the 1940s, according to recently released documents, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt commissioned a secret space program. He was concerned about how to move large numbers of people in case of nuclear war to avoid massive radiation damage. He thought there might also be a need to escape the ravages of some other global cataclysmic event. Since there was no place on Earth to which large masses of people could be moved, he considered the possibility of moving to locations in space.
At first, moving to the nearest star, Alpha Centauri, seemed like an option. However, the distance made such a plan impossible. As a next step, FDR focused on the moon, Mars or Venus as alternatives to Earth.
Beginning in 1945 at the conclusion of WWII, after President Truman took over, he brought 1,500 German scientists and engineers to the U.S. The scientists, under Hitler’s leadership in Nazi Germany, made advancements in the development of flying saucers, like the Nazi Bell, before and during the war. The German scientists worked at Fort Bliss, near El Paso, Texas, and were assigned the task of developing secret space programs under the project name of Operation Paperclip.
Truman believed the Germans had knowledge of anti-gravity propulsion engines and other spacecraft flight technology. Werner von Braun was the most well-known member of this group, who eventually became the designer of the Saturn V launch vehicle, which was used to propel American astronauts to the moon. He eventually became the director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and spoke out frequently about the need for space exploration.
Secret space programs are believed to be financed by secret “Black Budget” programs with contributions made by people with great wealth, private contractors and some government agencies. This secret funding keeps the programs from being subject to congressional oversight. Since the early 1960s, the programs have been kept secret even from the president: A memo was found in the newly released documents that said to keep “Lancer,” President Kennedy’s secret service nickname, out of the loop.
Secret Space Programs and Breakaway Civilizations
Secret space programs may have developed Breakaway Civilizations in outer space. Well-respected UFO and space researcher Richard Dolan, defines a Breakaway Civilization as a secret group of technologically advanced people who don’t share their knowledge with the rest of the world. These are essentially the Earth’s elite who have knowledge far above the rest of the world.
These elite may know of an upcoming imminent global geological cataclysm event and are building space bases as shelters for themselves. For example, they could be planning their escape from Nibiru Planet X, which “triggers comet showers” every 27 million years. One of those comets is expected to crash into the Earth and totally destroy it sometime in the not too distant future.
Scotland native, Gary McKinnon, hacked into thousands of government secret files. He found evidence of an anti-gravity propulsion system that traveled at incredible speeds. Also, he found evidence of portal technology that, when coupled with anti-gravity propulsion, would allow space travel to other stars and planets to be accomplished in a short amount of time.
It appears that Einstein’s theory that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light has been debunked. It also appears the Black Budget keeps these secrets even from NASA, since NASA apparently does not have access to anti-gravity technology. It still propels its rockets with fossil fuel.
McKinnon claims he saw nearly 300 photos of structures and civilizations existing on the back side of the moon. He says these structures (alien bases on the moon) are erased out of any photos when they are released to the public. Unfortunately, when he hacked into the computers, he was using a dial-up connection so he couldn’t download the photos. He says he took a screenshot of one that was saved on his computer, but his computer was seized when he was arrested. When his computer was subsequently returned to him, the photo was gone.
McKinnon also reported viewing a file that included names of “non-terrestrial officers” who he says were assigned to ships that weren’t U.S. Navy ships. He concluded these were the officers assigned to space ships, not navy ships, indicating that Breakaway Civilizations already exist.
There are many outstanding questions about secret space programs. Why do these programs remain secret? Will there be an opportunity for non-elite citizens to be part of a Breakaway Civilization? A poll taken in 2015 shows that 54 percent of Americans believe extraterrestrial intelligence exists. With such a large number of people supporting alien existence, why is there still a need to maintain secrecy?
Want more like this article?
Don’t miss Deep Space on Gaia for more on the long and hidden history of Earth’s secret space program.
