The_Info_Web/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Office of Naval Research.md

created	updated	title	tags	description	category	summary	start	location	relations
2025-07-23	2026-10-02	Office of Naval Research	organization military research USA	The Office of Naval Research (ONR) is an agency within the U.S. Department of the Navy responsible for the science and technology programs of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps.	U.S. Government	The Office of Naval Research (ONR) is an agency within the U.S. Navy responsible for the science and technology programs of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps.	1946	Arlington, Virginia	type with start role fn subject_of Morris K. Jessup 1955 received the annotated copy of The Case for the UFO; Special Projects officers Sherby and Hoover took interest (Varo Edition introduction dates the postmark 1955; Barker dates it April 1956) 2 type with start role fn funded James E. McDonald 1966-05 ONR project monitor Jim Hughes said ONR would pay for McDonald's Wright-Patterson trip to read the Project Blue Book files 4

The Office of Naval Research (ONR) is an agency within the U.S. Navy responsible for the science and technology programs of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. It funds basic and applied research to develop new technologies and capabilities for naval operations.¹

In the context of psychic research, the ONR funded the development of the superconducting-shielded magnetometer used by Arthur Hebard at Stanford University, which was later used in Hal Puthoff's experiments with Ingo Swann. The ONR also provided contracts to scientists like Allan H. Frey for research on the effects of microwave radiation on the human body.¹

The Jessup annotated copy

The introduction to the Annotated Edition of Morris K. Jessup's The Case for the UFO states that the annotated paperback arrived at ONR in a manila envelope addressed to "Admiral N. Furth, Chief, Office of Naval Research, Washington 25, D.C.," postmarked Seminole, Texas, 1955, marked "Happy Easter"; that in July or August of that year it appeared in the incoming correspondence of Major Darrell L. Ritter, USMC, of the Aeronautical Project Office; that Captain Sidney Sherby, on reporting aboard, obtained it from Ritter; and that Sherby and Commander George W. Hoover, Special Projects Officer, "indicated direct interest in some of the material therein" in light of "the possibility of discovering clues to the nature of gravity." The Varo Manufacturing Company of Garland, Texas "offered to re-publish the book together with all notations in a very limited edition."² Gray Barker, in his 1973 preface to the facsimile, wrote that Admiral Furth received the envelope in April 1956 and that Sherby and Hoover "were deeply involved in satellite development."² ONR's house publication reported that Rear Admiral Rawson Bennett II relieved Rear Admiral Frederick R. Furth as Chief of Naval Research on December 31, 1955, that Furth had served two years as Chief, that his duties had included the "Vanguard" satellite project, and that he was to join the ITT Corporation.³ The first Carlos Allende letter to Jessup, dated January 13, 1956, advised him to "contact Rear Admiral Ransom Bennett for verification of info herein. Navy Chief of research."²

McDonald, 1966

Paul E. McCarthy wrote that James E. McDonald's ONR project monitor, Jim Hughes (Office of Naval Research), told him in May 1966 that, because McDonald's work was for ONR, it would pay the trip expenses to read the Blue Book files at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base; that McDonald wrote Hughes that he wished a briefing on "the rumored Navy studies of UFOs" and asked whether ONR might fund his travel for UFO research; and that this began "a controversy within a controversy" over use of ONR atmospheric research funds for UFO research. McCarthy also wrote that in early 1968 McDonald sent Hughes copies of the Condon Committee "Low memo" and National Academy of Sciences correspondence, in light of "the day when he would apply to the ONR for funding to do UFO work."⁴⁵

Footnotes

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1. Jacobsen, Annie. Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis. Little, Brown and Company, 2017. ↩︎

2. Introduction and Barker preface, M. K. Jessup, The Case for the UFO, Varo Edition (Saucerian Press facsimile, 1973; transcription 2003), https://archive.org/details/THECASEFORTHEUFOVaroEditionM.K.Jessup ↩︎

3. Naval Research Reviews, vol. 9, no. 1 (January 1956), pp. 22 to 23, https://www.onr.navy.mil/media/document/naval-research-reviews-vol-9-no-1-january-1956 ↩︎

4. Paul E. McCarthy, "Politicking and Paradigm Shifting," Ph.D. dissertation, University of Hawaii, 1975, chapter 2, pp. 39 to 40, https://files.ncas.org/mccarthy/chap02.html ↩︎

5. Paul E. McCarthy, same, chapter 3, p. 144, https://files.ncas.org/mccarthy/chap03.html ↩︎