Vannevar Bush

Vannevar Bush was an engineer and inventor who led the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development in wartime. His name is attached to several claims about a secret group studying flying saucers.

On 21 November 1950 Canadian engineer Wilbert Smith wrote that he had heard in Washington of a "small group headed by Doctor Vannevar Bush" studying how flying saucers work (The Smith Memo). The memo is genuine, but it is Smith's own summary, written weeks after a conversation he may have had only through an intermediary.

In a 1983 letter to William Steinman, Robert Sarbacher, Smith's source, confirmed what Smith had recorded and wrote that "Dr. Vannevar Bush was definitely involved." The letter misdates Sarbacher's own service, and a skeptical reading finds nothing in the correspondence implying firsthand knowledge (Sarbacher's Letter to Steinman).

The Eisenhower Briefing Document, a purported 1952 briefing that arrived as undeveloped film in 1984, names Bush among the twelve members of the alleged committee MJ-12. His inclusion is an allegation made by a contested document, not an established affiliation, and no authenticated government record of the committee has been found. Philip Klass showed that the Truman signature on the companion Truman-Forrestal memo was copied from an authentic 1947 Truman letter to Bush.

Speculative UAP literature links Bush to the NSC 5412 Special Group, which approved CIA covert actions. He is absent from the group's documented membership (NSC 5412 Special Group Established).