Dr. Eric Walker

Eric Arthur Walker (1910–1995) was an underwater-acoustics engineer who became president of Pennsylvania State University and one of the senior science administrators of the early Cold War [S1][S2]. He matters to the UFO story for one reason: in 1950–51 he was executive secretary of the Pentagon's Research and Development Board, the same body that Robert Sarbacher advised when he told Wilbert Smith in 1950 that crashed saucers were real [S1][S3]. From the late 1980s researchers named Walker as a man who had attended meetings about recovered craft. Every such statement reaches us through a researcher's account of a conversation, and his name entered the story by deduction rather than from any document naming him [S3][S4].

Career

Walker was associate director of the Harvard Underwater Sound Laboratory during the Second World War, then moved to Penn State, where he ran the Navy-sponsored Ordnance Research Laboratory and headed electrical engineering (1945–51) [S1][S2]. On leave in 1950–1951 he served as executive secretary of the Department of Defense Research and Development Board [S1][S2]. He came back as dean of engineering (1951–56) and was president of Penn State from 1956 to 1970 [S1][S2].

Alongside the presidency he chaired the National Science Board (1964–66) [S5] and the Naval Research Advisory Committee (1963–65), was president of the National Academy of Engineering (1966–70) [S1], and was associated with the Institute for Defense Analyses from 1958, later as its chairman; sources disagree on whether the chairmanship began in 1978 or 1981 [S6]. He finished his career as Alcoa's vice-president for science and technology (1970–75) [S1].

How he entered the crash-retrieval story

Neither founding document names him. Smith's notes of the September 1950 conversation (1950 Briefings on UFO Crash Retrievals) mention only Vannevar Bush's group [S7], and Sarbacher's 1983 letter to researcher William Steinman (Crash Retrieval and UAP acknowledgement) names von Neumann, Bush and possibly Oppenheimer, but not Walker [S3]. By the account of Stan Crain and Grant Cameron, Steinman worked the name out from "clues" Sarbacher gave Stanton Friedman, then says Sarbacher agreed on an unrecorded call [S4]. Steinman also states that Walker, on the telephone in August 1987 (Steinman Telephones Eric Walker), acknowledged attending meetings at Wright-Patterson about recovered discs and said he had known of MJ-12 since 1947. The transcript Steinman made has not been located [S4]. Walker does not appear in either MJ-12 document set [S8], and skeptic Kevin Randle reads the "since 1947" line as an echo of the 1984 papers [S9].

The Research and Development Board coordinated military R&D, but it did not handle UFOs. That job belonged to the Air Force's Sign–Grudge–Blue Book line at Wright-Patterson and, in 1953, to the CIA's Robertson Panel [S10]. No record found places Walker in that chain. What the record does show is the overlap with Sarbacher, and that overlap is also exactly how a researcher would have arrived at Walker's name.

The ESP remarks and the Kit Green meeting

Walker is best known in the literature for turning UFO questions toward ESP. Grant Cameron says that during a 1990 interview Walker asked "How good is your sixth sense? How much do you know about ESP?" (see Eric Walker's "Sixth Sense" Remark) [S11]. A version credited to Armen Victorian talks instead of a "seventh sense" as the price of entry to a "control group" [S12]. No documented link between Walker and psi research has been found in his papers or in the remote-viewing record [S6][S13].

In 1990 CIA veteran Kit Green met Walker at Penn State through Bill Moore (Kit Green Meets Eric Walker at Penn State). Cameron, drawing on Jacques Vallée's journals, says Walker became agitated when UFOs came up, implied that the room was bugged, and ended the meeting [S14]. A timeline filed with 2024 House Oversight testimony dates a Walker "neither confirm nor deny" to Green in September 1990 [S12].

Assessment

His career is thoroughly documented; his UFO role rests entirely on testimony. Several researchers, contacting him independently between 1987 and 1990, describe the same evasive non-denial. Whether that reflects knowledge or mischief is unresolved. Three things could settle it: Steinman's original call record, the folder-level contents of Walker's papers, or an RDB record placing him in a UFO discussion. Later claims that he met Lyndon Johnson on 3 August 1964, worked on Project Azorian, or was present at Kecksburg are not supported, and the Johnson meeting is contradicted by the President's Daily Diary [S15].

Sources

[S1] "ERIC A. WALKER 1910-1995" | NAE Memorial Tributes Vol. 8 URL: https://www.nae.edu/188470/ERIC-A-WALKER-1910195 Accessed: 2026-09-18 Claim: career posts and dates, RDB executive secretary 1950–51, NAE presidency

[S2] "Eric A. Walker papers (Collection 00332)" | Penn State University Archives URL: https://archives.libraries.psu.edu/repositories/3/resources/548 Accessed: 2026-09-18 Claim: biographical note; career dates

[S3] "Sarbacher letter to Steinman, 29 Nov 1983 (full text)" URL: https://santitafarella.wordpress.com/2009/08/21/two-interesting-ufo-documents-the-smith-memo-1950-and-physicist-robert-sarbachers-1983-letter Accessed: 2026-09-18 Claim: names von Neumann, Bush, Oppenheimer; not Walker; Sarbacher's limited RDB role

[S4] "An MJ-12 Informant" (Crain/Cameron) URL: http://www.daves-world.co.uk/ufo/text/pages076-100/page86.html Accessed: 2026-09-18 Claim: Steinman's deduction of Walker; 30 Aug 1987 call as reported by Steinman

[S5] "Former Board Members" | National Science Board URL: https://www.nsf.gov/nsb/members/former Accessed: 2026-09-18 Claim: NSB member and chair dates

[S6] "State and Federal Government Agencies, 1937-1994" | Eric A. Walker papers URL: https://archives.libraries.psu.edu/repositories/3/archival_objects/1298151 Accessed: 2026-09-18 Claim: IDA files; no UFO/ESP subject at series level

[S7] "Smith–Sarbacher interview notes, 15 Sep 1950" URL: https://luforu.org/smith-sarbacher-interview Accessed: 2026-09-18 Claim: notes name Bush's group, not Walker

[S8] "Majestic 12" membership list (archived Wikipedia mirror) and SOM1-01 URL: http://taggedwiki.zubiaga.org/new_content/94c0fada76119b3c9b390d9e68c24f21 ; https://majesticdocuments.com/pdf/som101_part1.pdf Accessed: 2026-09-18 Claim: Walker absent from both MJ-12 document streams

[S9] "Truth, MJ-12 and Fatal Flaws" | Kevin Randle URL: http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2016/09/truth-mj-12-and-fatal-flaws.html Accessed: 2026-09-18 Claim: skeptical reading of Walker's "since 1947" remark

[S10] "AFR 200-2" | Wikisource; "UFO Research Guide" | Naval History and Heritage Command URL: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Air_Force_Regulation_200-2,_Unidentified_Flying_Objects_Reporting ; https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/bibliographies-and-research-guides/research-guides/ufo-research-guide.html Accessed: 2026-09-18 Claim: chartered UFO chain (ATIC/AMC)

[S11] "Grant Cameron — The UFO ESP Link" | Skeptiko #179 URL: https://skeptiko.com/grant-cameron-ufo-sightings-and-extended-consciousness Accessed: 2026-09-18 Claim: Cameron's account of Walker's 1990 ESP remark

[S12] Michael Shellenberger, written testimony to House Oversight, 13 Nov 2024 (appended UAP timeline) URL: https://docs.house.gov/meetings/GO/GO12/20241113/117721/HHRG-118-GO12-Wstate-ShellenbergerM-20241113.pdf Accessed: 2026-09-18 Claim: Victorian "seventh sense" version; Green "neither confirm nor deny", Sept 1990

[S13] "CIA-Initiated Remote Viewing at Stanford Research Institute" | H. Puthoff URL: https://www.newdualism.org/papers/H.Puthoff/CIA-Initiated%20Remote%20Viewing%20At%20Stanford%20Research%20Institute.htm Accessed: 2026-09-18 Claim: SRI program personnel (Green, Price, Puthoff); Walker not named

[S14] "The Kit Green UFO Investigation" | Grant Cameron (White House UFO blog) URL: http://whitehouseufo.blogspot.com/2022/10/kit-green-ufo-investigation-throughout.html Accessed: 2026-09-18 Claim: early-1990 Green–Walker meeting, per Vallée's journals

[S15] "President's Daily Diary, August 3, 1964" | LBJ Library URL: https://lbj-discoverlbj-live.s3.amazonaws.com/2025-08/192429-pdd-19640803.pdf Accessed: 2026-09-18 Claim: no meeting with university presidents or Walker that day

Full research report