Philip Corso

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Philip Corso

Philip J. Corso
Corso in U.S. Army uniform
Born Philip James Corso(1915-05-22)May 22, 1915California, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Died July 16, 1998(1998-07-16) (aged 83)Jupiter, Florida, U.S.
Resting place Florida National Cemetery
Occupations U.S. Army intelligence officer; author
Known for The Day After Roswell (1997); claimed Roswell reverse-engineering program; National Security Council staff service
Children Phillip Corso Jr.

Maj. Philip Corso receiving the Bronze Star from Brig. Gen. Brown, Rome, 1945.

Philip James Corso (May 22, 1915 – July 16, 1998) was a United States Army Lieutenant Colonel, military intelligence officer, and former National Security Council staff officer under President Eisenhower. He claimed to have observed one of the reportedly recovered non-human beings at Fort Riley in 1947 and, from 1961 to 1963, to have allegedly distributed recovered Roswell artifacts to American defense contractors through the Foreign Technology Desk seeding program, as recounted in his memoir The Day After Roswell. He served in the United States Army from February 23, 1942 to March 1, 1963, reaching the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.

Biography

Corso was born on May 22, 1915, in California, Pennsylvania, and died July 16, 1998, in Jupiter, Florida, of a heart attack. He is interred at Florida National Cemetery.

Military career

Corso served in World War II and the Korean War as a career military intelligence officer. After joining the Army in 1942, he served in Army Intelligence in Europe and became chief of the US Counter Intelligence Corps in Rome. In 1945, Corso arranged the safe passage of 10,000 World War II Jewish refugees from Rome to the British Mandate of Palestine, serving as personal emissary to Giovanni Battista Montini (later Pope Paul VI) during the period when the "Nazi Rat Lines" were most active.

During the Korean War (1950–1953), Corso performed intelligence duties under General Douglas MacArthur as Chief of the Special Projects branch of the Intelligence Division, Far East Command. He was responsible for tracking prisoner of war camps in North Korea and investigating the estimated numbers and treatment of US and United Nations POWs held at each camp. At later hearings in 1992 of the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs, Corso testified that he believed hundreds of American POWs had been abandoned in those camps.

He was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in 1953 and joined the National Security Council under President Eisenhower, serving for four years (1953–1957). Corso's DA Form 66 (Officer Qualification Record) confirms he served in various intelligence positions in Washington, D.C., from July 1953 to October 1956, including a short temporary duty to the Psychological Strategy Board at the State Department.

In 1961, Corso was assigned to the Army's Foreign Technology Division (Research and Development) under Lieutenant General Arthur Trudeau. Army personnel records (DA Form 66) show that Corso served in the Foreign Technology Division for thirteen months — from 20 June 1961 to 18 July 1962 — and held the position of chief for only ninety days, from 18 April to 18 July 1962, in a two-person department. He retired from active service on March 1, 1963.

After leaving the Army, Corso served on the staff of Senator Strom Thurmond from March 1963 to December 1964, and again from February 1973 to July 1974.

Red Canyon encounters (1957)

After taking command of the 552nd Missile Battalion at Red Canyon Range Camp, Corso reportedly had several encounters with anomalous phenomena. His son Phillip Corso Jr. recounted that while resting in a cave frequently used by soldiers for recreation, Corso allegedly encountered a being that communicated with him telepathically. The being wore a type of helmet with a stone set in a headband at the center of its forehead, and asked Corso to shut down his radars for fifteen minutes — a request that troubled Corso because, as he reasoned, only he had the authority to issue that order. When Corso asked what was in it for him, the entity replied: "A new world, if you can take it." Corso ordered the radars shut down and, as he left the cave, saw the being standing at the far end; he saluted it.

In the same year, according to Corso Jr., Corso's radars tracked an object moving over 3,000 miles per hour through the atmosphere before it went down near Red Canyon. Corso flew a light airplane over the site, spotted a shiny object, and drove out alone to investigate. He found an oval, cigar-shaped craft resting against a rock that would periodically fade completely out of visibility and then reappear. He threw a tumbleweed under the craft while it was invisible; when it rematerialized, the tumbleweed was crushed, confirming the object was physical. The craft's surface was cool to the touch and perfectly smooth. When the craft began vibrating, Corso retreated to his vehicle; the craft rose, turned, and ascended into "an envelope that it kind of imploded into." Corso later related the encounter to Wernher von Braun and other Operation Paperclip scientists on his team.

Corso himself confirmed these radar trackings in a separate recorded testimony, stating that his pencil-beam radars at White Sands Missile Range locked onto objects traveling 3,000–4,000 miles per hour that would break the radar lock with rapid acceleration. He later encountered the same phenomenon while stationed in Germany.

NSA space signals

While serving on the National Security Council staff, Corso claimed to have received a report indicating that the National Security Agency was intercepting signals from space that were allegedly not random noise but a coordinated, patterned message — though, according to Corso, the signals were never decoded.

The Day After Roswell

In his memoir, Corso alleged that from 1961 he managed extraterrestrial materials from the Roswell craft retrieval operation under authorization from General Trudeau, reportedly distributing fragments and technical data to twenty-five US defense contractors — including IBM, Hughes Aircraft, Bell Labs, and Dow Chemical — in a compartmented program designed to ensure no single company held complete knowledge of the source material. The resulting technologies, Corso maintained, included integrated circuits, transistors, fiber optics, night vision devices, the laser, Kevlar, and advances in particle accelerators. He also claimed that a secret committee, Majestic 12, was formed under CIA Director Admiral Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter to consolidate all information on extraterrestrial technology while publicly denying any contact. Corso also wrote that the recovered craft was guided not by conventional controls but by the pilot's own brain waves, describing a "brainwave guidance system" in which the pilot "was the system."

Corso further claimed in the book that the Strategic Defense Initiative ("Star Wars") was intended not only to intercept enemy warheads but to disable enemy spacecraft, including those of extraterrestrial origin.

Artifacts and technology seeding

In September 1993, Steven Greer met with Corso at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base — traveling directly from the Rockefeller Ranch — in a meeting that Greer stated was ordered by the head of intelligence for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Cramer. Greer described the purpose of the meeting as de-conflicting his CE-5 contact program with military operations: "I'm not here to see what you have here. I already know what you have here. I have people who worked in your facility... I'm here to let you know that we have an operation, CE-5 contact, and we want to de-conflict what we're doing with anything you and your colleagues are doing."

Greer recounted that Corso personally described to him having a "nut file" containing physical artifacts — including fiber optics and high-tenacity fibers — that he knew came from extraterrestrial crashes, and that it was his job to take them to major defense companies for reverse engineering. Greer stated that his personal association with Corso was what first made him understand the cover-up was fundamentally about the technology and its industrial applications rather than public panic: "Ever since my association with Corona, Philip Corso, I realize what this is about. What this is about is the toys."

According to Phillip Corso Jr., the filing cabinet — a three-drawer safe brought up from the Pentagon basements on General Trudeau's order — contained classified files (including files on the Philadelphia Experiment), a briefing document confirming the artifacts allegedly originated from the July 4, 1947, Roswell crash, and several physical items including memory metal, integrated circuit wafers, fiber-optic strands, a night vision lens, a directed-energy device later identified as a laser, and a body-scanning instrument. For a detailed accounting of each artifact and its properties, see Pieces of the Roswell craft.

Corso allegedly distributed these artifacts to defense contractors through procurement contracts and directed funding, inserting knowledge from the recovered materials to guide development. Corso Jr. characterized this as "strictly a military operation" conducted for the Army's competitive advantage. Corso himself stated that the Army insisted contractors take the patents but feed results back for the Army's competitive edge — and that the technology ultimately be given "to the American people and to the world." For the full seeding program — including the methodology, contractors, and resulting technologies — see Corso Foreign Technology Desk seeding.

According to Corso Jr., the United States Air Force retained possession of the Roswell craft itself at Edwards Air Force Base, while the Army's share consisted only of materials that had been "thrown into a jeep" at the crash site. On his deathbed, Corso Sr. reportedly revealed that a key had eventually been found that, when inserted, caused seam lines to appear across the entire surface of the craft.

Autopsy findings

Corso stated that autopsies of the recovered beings were performed at an Army-financed laboratory at Walter Reed Army Hospital, with all copies of the reports returned to the Foreign Technology Division and no duplicates left behind. According to Corso, the beings lacked a nose, mouth, ears, vocal cords, digestive system, and sex organs, leading him to conclude they were humanoid clones. Corso Jr. added that the beings reportedly had no lymphatic system, possessed two brains with four lobes, and that his father believed the entities were integrated into the craft itself — functioning as its propulsion and guidance systems. For the full autopsy findings and biological characteristics, see Roswell bodies.

Secrecy pact and the group of thirty

Corso maintained that approximately thirty senior military officers, generals, and key congressional figures allegedly formed an informal group bound by a personal oath — not a written mandate — to safeguard the Roswell information. This group included figures Corso had briefed, such as Speaker of the House John McCormack and Senator Strom Thurmond. Corso Jr. described their pact: "the last to die could tell," and the last to die before Corso Sr. was General Trudeau, after whose death Corso felt released from his oath and began writing. Corso himself described the oath arrangement: "The general told me, Phil, let's keep a secret. When I die, though, I relieve you of my oath. Three years ago the general died."

According to Corso Jr., the group allegedly withheld information from certain presidents whom they judged lacked "the matrix" to be briefed; Jimmy Carter was specifically named as one who "would never know." According to Corso Jr., Corso also discussed the matter with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and CIA leadership, and stated that "all branches of the services and the intelligence community" were aware at senior levels.

SDI as planetary defense

According to Corso Jr., his father characterized the Strategic Defense Initiative not as a Cold War anti-Soviet weapon but as an alleged "planetary defense system" against purported extraterrestrial incursions, and claimed that most world leaders understood this at the time. Corso Sr. reportedly told his son that the "Cold War" was actually "an extraterrestrial war" — that the beings "were terrorizing military facilities, terrorizing citizens and interfering with military facilities."

Wilbur Smith connection

Corso reportedly maintained a relationship with Canadian engineer Wilbur Smith, whom he described as a genius in magnetism and nuclear binding research along Tesla lines. According to Corso, General Trudeau told him that he and Smith "have a lot to talk about" and arranged for Corso to visit Smith's laboratory on Lake Ontario. According to Corso, Smith provided him with a piece of metal reportedly recovered from a flying saucer, and the two exchanged samples. Corso delayed the visit repeatedly, and when he finally called in 1962, he was informed that Smith had died of cancer. Corso Jr. added that his father and Smith exchanged medals in the 1960s.

Soviet pursuit and compartmentalization

Corso stated that the Soviet threat directly shaped how the Roswell materials were handled. According to Corso Jr., his father knew that Stalin's "number one mandate" was to steal Roswell technology, and that Soviet agents were reportedly dispatched throughout the area to obtain information. Corso confirmed this in his own testimony: "Stalin gave orders to get this information that came out of Roswell to some of his top scientists and agents. That order went out." Corso's belief that the CIA was compromised by Soviet penetration was, according to his account, one of the reasons his group operated without a paper trail and kept knowledge compartmented among trusted military officers rather than intelligence agencies.

Corso's son, Phillip Corso Jr., stated at the Ft. Walton Beach UFO Conference (October 2000) that his father told the truth, and that the published book contained "marketing discrepancies" introduced during the publisher's editing process; he pledged that his father's original unedited notes would fill in those gaps.

In 2010, Italian journalist Maurizio Baiata — who had worked directly with Corso — published a preview of Corso's original pre-publication manuscript, titled Dawn of a New Age, via OpenMinds.tv. The manuscript contained accounts that did not appear in The Day After Roswell as published, including a claimed face-to-face telepathic encounter with an extraterrestrial biological entity at White Sands Missile Range in 1957, and details of nine security clearances above Top Secret that Corso claimed to have held.

Per Stanton Friedman and other researchers, Corso's verifiable career details — NSC service, Fort Riley posting, FTD assignment — are accurate.

A voice stress analysis of Corso's July 23, 1997 Coast to Coast AM interview with Art Bell, conducted independently by analyst William Michael Kemp (commissioned by researcher Ed Gehrman), found that Corso's stress levels averaged 9.5 Hz throughout the interview — rated as "dead normal, unstressed, and truthful" — with no sustained elevation indicating deception when discussing his Roswell claims.

Declarations

During the 1997 Rome presentation of The Day After Roswell, Corso stated:

On the night of 4 July 1947, an extraterrestrial craft crashed in Roswell, New Mexico. [...] Two days later, one of my sergeants urged me to open one of the wooden crates from Roswell. I was stunned: inside was something submerged in a bluish gelatinous liquid, a soft, shiny shape like the belly of a fish. At first I thought it was the body of a child, but in reality it was a humanoid figure, about one meter long, with long thin arms and legs, hands and feet with four fingers, and a huge, bulbous head. [...] In 1961 I was made head of the Army's Foreign Technology Division. General Trudeau entrusted me with the study of a special file: the Roswell Files. [...] I selected twenty-five locally loyal industries and entrusted them, first, with only technical information and then with fragments of the materials recovered in the Roswell crash [...] Extraterrestrial technology has been extraordinarily useful to us. From it, we have developed devices such as integrated circuits, transistors, and particle accelerators. In the spacecraft there were super-resistant fibers [...] we obtained Kevlar from it. There was a thin, unbreakable piece of metal: by analyzing its molecular composition, we discovered the existence of fiber optic networks. I found a kind of torch [...] when exposed to radiation, the object lit up: it was a laser. The beings found in the craft were creatures without vocal cords, in telepathic contact with each other, with four brain lobes instead of two, and with lymph instead of blood. The autopsy revealed that they were clones, humanoid beings created by extraterrestrial intelligences to traverse space.

Mainstream reception and skeptical critique

The Day After Roswell spent three weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, peaking at number 12, and received mixed reviews. Skeptical analysts have catalogued numerous factual errors in the text, as well as chronologically impossible feats attributed to Corso, and the book has repeatedly been alleged to be a hoax. The Guardian included the work among its 2001 list of "Top 10 literary hoaxes."

UFO skeptic Philip J. Klass questioned how Corso could plausibly have managed alien wreckage at the Foreign Technology Division without "a bachelor's degree in science or engineering," and identified specific factual errors — including a misdated location for Eighth Air Force headquarters at the time of the Roswell incident, an incorrect chronology for Walter Haut's 1947 press release, and a mischaracterization of the MIM-23 Hawk missile as "heat-seeking" when the operational system was radar-guided. Researcher Brad Sparks, writing in the Skeptical Inquirer, objected to "placing Corso as a central, heroic figure in an improbably large number of the 20th century's seminal moments" — including the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Kennedy assassination — when no historical record beyond Corso's own memoir documents his presence at those events.

Former Pentagon UFO investigator and ufologist Karl T. Pflock, who met Corso in 1993, described his impression of him as a "blowhard loony tune," and noted that many UFO researchers regarded the book as "from far out of left field." Pflock identified an additional chronological impossibility: Corso credits himself with helping develop the CORONA reconnaissance satellite program during a Pentagon posting, but the first CORONA launch occurred two years before his stated assignment. UFO investigator and former Air Force intelligence officer Kevin D. Randle documented that Corso's claim of entering CIA headquarters at Langley, Virginia in 1961 to confront "old adversary" Frank Wisner was impossible: the Langley headquarters was not yet open to staff in 1961, and Wisner was stationed in London at the time. A 2011 declassified UK Ministry of Defence memo, released as part of that ministry's UFO file release, characterized Corso as having a "previous track record of unreliable testimony" in the assessment of his Roswell claims.

Notwithstanding the criticisms, Stanton Friedman and other ufologists have stated that Corso's verifiable career details — National Security Council service, Fort Riley posting, and Foreign Technology Division assignment — match the army personnel records (DA Form 66) released through the Freedom of Information Act.

See also

References

External links