James "Jim" T. Westwood - some information about his crash retrieval program research

 Introduction

With all the current information flow about the phenomena, Jacques Vallee's book "Forbidden Science: Volume Five," slipped by relatively unreported and unanalysed by the UAP community. The only concerted area of comment on FS5, was in relation to what Vallee had to say about the Wilson/Davis notes.

Image courtesy of Amazon Books

Upon reading FS5 when it was first published, I noticed that there were entries referring to the investigation of one James T. Westwood; specifically into crash retrievals and reverse-engineering programs. In the light of recent clues by David Grusch and others, coming forward to relate their individual knowledge of such things, I thought it worthwhile to review what Vallee's diary entries, and others, had to say about the work of James T. Westwood. Below, is what I found.

1970-1988

In the timeframe 1970 to 1988, Lieutenant Commander James T. Westwood, U.S. Navy, wrote numerous articles for the U.S. "Naval War College Review," with titles such as "The Barometer" (1970); "Set & Drift: A Contemporary Political Dillema:The Impact of Intelligence Operations" (1977); "Soviet Naval Strategy: 1968-1978: A Reexamination" (1978); during which he became a specialist concerning the navy of the Soviet Union. He also authored at least one article found on the website of the NSA; titled "Electronic Warfare and Signals Intelligence at the Outset of World War 1."

1994

Westwood receives a mention in an 8 May 2020 article titled "UFO Study Programs and US Military Technology" :

"James T Westwood has an interesting background encompassing electronic warfare, unmanned aerial vehicles, cryptology and was a Sovietologist working as a military intelligence consultant. Westwood also had an interest in UFOs and wrote several articles including "Why Do The Lights Go Out?" in "UFO Magazine" May/June 1994, which examined electrical failures related to UFOs, but he also looked at microwave radiation as a weapon to produce similar effects..."

1998

Peggy O'Farrell, writing in the 27 June 1998 edition of the "Southeast Missourian," newspaper, mentions that one James Westwood of Centerville, Va was spending some time in the area, (June 23 to 28) looking at the claimed UFO crash, in 1941, at Cape Girardeau. Philip J. Klass's Winter 2001-2002 Newsletter also carried the fact that Westwood took time out to look into the claimed crash. I didn't find any material which indicated what Westwood's views were on this alleged crash.  

1999

Image courtesy of Amazon Books

Vallee's book "Forbidden Science: Volume 4" had one reference, dated 1 January 1999, to Westwood. Vallee was describing Bob Wood's analysis of the so-called MJ-12 documents:

"Actually, Hal had hired James Westwood, former CIA expert on fake soviet documents who had created similar fakes for disinformation. He paid him to bring his services to Bob Wood's project. Jim's verdict was that the 'Eisenhower briefing document," cornerstone of the UFO coverup arguments, had all the earmarks of a fake, an American disinformation document meant to fool the KGB."

Note: "Hal" is Hal Puthoff. 

2000

Vallee's FS5 in an entry dated 5 May 2000, notes:

"Counter-intelligence expert Jim Westwood has reviewed the MJ-12 documents: a sophisticated 'authentic fake,' he said, whose authors must be within the Intelligence structure. Jim also believes the Roswell crash may have been invented to flush out Soviet spies."

2001

A 10 June 2001 entry in Vallee's FS5 states:

"We flew back this afternoon and one of the first people to call me was Jim Westwood. Talking to him is to enter a universe of shadows and deception. His information on the "undercurrent" goes back to World War II, when Stalin asked the chief designer of his rockets, engineer Korolev, what flying saucers were. Korolev answered there was a real phenomenon, but it wasn't a great threat. Stalin is reported to have told him he'd received the same answer from other sources. Westwood pointed out that the Germans never built a real flying disc, but 'the Nazi did destroy a lot of stuff and machines; so we don't know everything.'

Jim assures me that in the course of his research he'd spoken to a 90-year-old gentleman who was involved in government UFO research in the fifties, when there was active classified interest. 'We never understood the phenomenon,' he told him. 'I was against using it to manipulate the silly UFO believers, but the boys on the dark side of the house went ahead anyway.'

Westwood said there was still an ongoing collection effort, a low-level project. He tracked down another man, now 84 years old, who worked on the Robertson Panel. 'Puthoff really wants to find the hardware. Well, I've been in this business for 48 years, and I know for a fact there isn't any.'

'When did the disinformation start' I asked "Surely in the forties and fifties it would have been hard to fly a fake flying saucer?'

I am still thinking of what I saw over Pontoise in 1955, a perfect lens with a transparent dome, hovering in the clear afternoon sky.

'Not before the early 1970's,' answered Westwood. 'Or perhaps the late 60's because I knew a pilot then who flew over Cleveland, carrying special light patterns that simulated a UFO. But the technology wasn't good enough to be effective before the 1970's.'

Westwood then went on to discuss 'the feasibility of infecting farms exploited by the Soviet Army...But we will do anything, repeat anything, not to fight a nuclear war or a bugs-and-gas war. That's what fascinated me about your book, Samizdat, when you described the sightings in Voronezh. You obviously didn't know it, but Voronezh is a major nuclear site, the most important one outside Moscow. It's like the underground command post we've got in Pennsylvania.'

'And those rumors about Roswell?' I asked.

'For over 20 years we had a thing going, it was called Operation Shocker. It was run through a double agent, an Army officer they thought they'd turned, but he worked for us, feeding them data to convince them we had capabilities we didn't have, and that the things we did have didn't work. The UFO business was woven into that.'

I decided to dig deeper: 'What about Bentwaters?' I asked.

'It may have been an American experiment, as you've argued in Revelations, but I doubt it. The timing would be right however. You have to understand my only theme is chronology. I keep this on little cardboard cards, organized by dates. When you reach a point of data density, you suspect that's more than coincidence.' "

Notes:

Westwood's 2001 statement that there isn't any hardware, is at odds with a number of other individuals who came forward around then.

His statement that around the early 1970's or perhaps the late 60's he knew a pilot who flew over Cleveland simulating a UFO, struck a cord with me; something I came across a few years ago-"Project Skylite."  The internal UFO project run at McDonnell-Douglas between 1967-1970 was contacted by one of the US intelligence agencies. This agency expressed an interest to "mimic, imitate or duplicate the observables associated with UFOs." Robert M. Wood, head of the McDonnell-Douglas project titled this mimicry as "Project Skylite." However, Wood stated that "It never materialized within McDonnell-Douglas to my knowledge," despite a lot of work going in to show what was necessary to mimic UFO sightings. Perhaps the intelligence agency concerned undertook "Project Skylite" on their own volition and that is what Westwood's pilot was doing?

"Operation Shocker" was real. It was a 23 yearlong counter-intelligence operation against the Soviet Union run by the FBI. 

2002

A short Vallee diary entry dated 1 March 2002 reads:

"Eric also told me about a recent conversation with Jim Westwood, who claimed to have located two genuine reports about UFO crashes with hardware recovery and bodies."

Note: "Eric" is Dr. Eric W. Davis.

2003

Vallee discusses the Wilson/Davis notes in an entry dated 3 October 2003, then poses the question:

"Where does all this leave Bob Lazar's story? It smells of official disinformation, my friends say, like the doctored MJ-12 documents, serving the purpose of confusing the crowd researchers and wasting their time. I think Jim Westwood is wrong with his idea of linking ufology with biological warfare; it nust be even bigger than that."

2004

(1) In a diary entry dated 6 March 2004 Vallee records:

"Westwood has covered the same investigative ground as Hal Puthoff and Eric Davis, even identifying their four secret "iron posts;" sources they believe to be unimpeachable, well connected in the Intelligence establishment. They confirm the existence of a hidden program for reverse engineering of Alien hardware."

"As Westwood writes, they are 'two senior flag officers, one defense industry/high OSD official; and one civilian high official of the Reagen and Clinton administrations, all pretty much telling the same story. Three of them helping manage the defense budget.' The two officers I already know to be Wilson and Sheehan."

Note: Elsewhere in FS5, Vallee relates that Four star General Jack Sheehan had found a $9bn discrepancy in the budget, which led him to locate and actually touch a craft. The Sheehan story emerged in the period 1996-1999. Joe Firmage, Hal Puthoff and John Petersen met Sheehan during this timeframe and heard his direct account.

(2) On 24 September 2004, Vallee recorded in his diary:

Charles A. Bowsher https://www.nti.org/about/people/charles-bowsher/

"Jim Westwood, in Virginia, has come up with new data, looking up archives and inspecting government documents. He's close to Fred Durant (of the old Robertson panel) and his contemporaries. He's uncovered a third official trail into the secret UFO program through Charles Bowsher, Comptroller General of the United States under President Reagan, from 1981 to 1996. He may be one of the four "iron posts" beyond Sheehan and Wilson. Bowsher found a crashed UFO program during a massive audit of classified projects; 'Less than a handful of officials knew about it.'

In the period 1984-1985, Bowsher uncovered a bizarre special access program coverup which surely violated every classification, executive order, regulation and Congressional rule. They contemplated turning it over to Justice for prosecution, but 'a powerful person in DoD quenched it.' The program according to the reviewers, had to do with an exotic, non-Earthly vehicle."

Note: So, three leads into the secret program via Bowsher, Sheehan and Wilson.

Note: Frederick C. Durant was born on 1916 and is most likely the individual mentioned in the diary entry dated 10 June 2001, re a man aged 84.

FS5 End notes

"49. James Westwood was retired from a classified unit that designed fake documents on behalf of the US in order to disinform foreign intelligence agents. He was also an expert in the analysis of Soviet documents, obtained by US intelligence."

2005

In a Fall 2005 letter to the "Skeptic" magazine (Volume 12, issue 3); James T. Westwood, in part, wrote:

"Over 20 years ago, as senior defense analyst-cum-engineer employed by a foremost US defense electronics corporation, I was part of an early concept and design team to produce a computer based artificial intelligence flying contraption for the CIA, masquarading as a U.S. Air Force project; in other words an airborne artificial intelligence analyst to fly over denied areas and trouble spots, nominally inside a latter day U-2 known as a TR-2. As I studied the problem, it became clear to me that the artificial intelligence analyst would never fly, neither literally or figuratively. Sure enough, it did not. James T. Westwood, Unionville, Va."

2008

On the website of GlobalSecurity.org is a 2008 article where Charles P. Vick interviewed James T. Westwood, named as Senior Consultant, Military Science and Defense Analytics, Unionville, Va.

Westwood told Vick about a black prgram going back to 1949 and the 1952-53 CIA project which found 'that the flying saucer phenomenon had inherent potential for both Soviet and US psychological warfare operations...'

He related that the CIA's Desmond Fitzgerald flew flying saucers inside remote airspace of the People's Republic of China during the Kennedy administration.

In 1967 and 1975 'the black program was live-tested over some of the US Air Force's former strategic Air Command (SAC) bomber and ICBM bases in Montana, Michigan and Maine. This was a strategic C3CM application intended to shut down Soviet ICBM sites in situ.' According to Westwood, the program used the UFO phenomenon, as cover.

'The counter C3 capability, it turned out, tested so well in 1975 against "friendly" ICBMs, according to Westwood, that the ultimate effect was disasterous...Guidance and control circuits of Minuteman ICBMs were so thoroughly 'cooked' that an emergency contract had to be let to repair and replace critical components  of the ready strategic force.'

Note: Here Westwood is stating that the cause of the 1975 Northen Tier incursions, and the 1967 Malmstrom AFB events were due to a black US program. It is one explanation which has been discussed and debated in the UAP literature, but never so boldly stated as in Westwood's claims. 

End notes

1. Did Westwood's UAP interests extend beyond 2008, when he would have been aged 69?

2. Today, if still alive, Westwood would be aged 84.

3, I hope that someone, somewhere, had a chance to conduct an oral history interview with Westwood.

4. I would be interested to hear from anyone who has additional information about Westwood professional life, and specifically his interest in the UAP.

Update 1: 30 June 2023

Thank you to "anonymous" who left a comment on the blog about this article. They pointed out something I missed in my hard copy of FS5, due to an indexing error. Here is an additional comment about Westwood by Vallee, dated 5 May 2001. Vallee was in Las Vegas attending a meeting of the NIDS Science Advisory Board.

"In the afternoon we heard from Jim Westwood, the intelligence consultant who has done extensive work for Hal. In a scholarly but cynical way, he spoke about the history of the field and the disinformation associated with it. He left this idealistic group of scientists with an impression of dread mixed with disgust.

Westwood surfaces from the Cold War like a rusty submarine emerging from past eras. He first called our attention to various links with biological warfare and again dismissed MJ-12 and Roswell as counter-intelligence exercises designed to flush out foreign spies. He'd kindly bought a copy of my Samizdat for me to sign, saying he especially liked this book 'as a sovietologist.' He'd underlined the passage where Azhazha told me that soviet experts had long considered UFO rumours as CIA tricks...and 'and they were largely right,' Westwood said, 'much of the phenomenon in Russia was phony, part of our own disinformation.' "

Update 2: 30 June 2023

Westwood spoke about US aircraft being flown which mimicked UFOs as part of a black program. I found the following extract from FS5 which adds to this.

"12 January 2001

Kit has related to Eric and Colm that on one of his missions to Asia, he had a bodyguard who was a tactical helicopter pilot. The man assured him that his unit had flown 1000 hours in machines designed to look like UFOs. He gave no details, but made clear the purpose of the flights was to make certain the guards responded appropriately. This may not explain all the cases (especially when launching sequences are tampered with) but we shall take it into account."