Sumner Shapiro

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Rear Admiral Sumner Shapiro (1926–2006) was a U.S. Navy intelligence officer. He served as Director of Naval Intelligence from 1978 to 1982. His Washington Post obituary notes his regret over his early handling of Jonathan Pollard, the Navy civilian who later pleaded guilty to spying for Israel [S1]. After leaving the Navy he joined BDM as Vice President of Advanced Planning.

The "recovered vehicles" referral

Shapiro enters UAP research through a 1989 telephone call that Bob Oechsler recorded. Oechsler asked whether recovered vehicles might ever be made available for study outside the military. Admiral Bobby Ray Inman said he honestly did not know, and suggested Oechsler put the question to Everett Hineman at the CIA and to Shapiro at BDM. Inman's words were hedged, and a referral does not show that either man knew of such a program.

Accounts of Oechsler's later meeting with Shapiro say that Shapiro gave some indication that he knew of crash retrievals. Those accounts rest on Oechsler. No first-hand statement from Shapiro on the subject is cited in this graph, and nothing attributed to him about recovered craft has been independently confirmed.

Sources

[S1] "Sumner Shapiro, Long-Serving Director of Naval Intelligence" | The Washington Post, 2006-11-16 URL: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2006/11/16/sumner-shapiro-long-serving-director-of-naval-intelligence/911fab8d-ca81-4f8b-b397-bc6116334ca0/ Claim: his tenure as Director of Naval Intelligence; the Pollard remark