Eric H. Wang

Eric H. Wang (1906–1960) was an Austrian-born civil engineer who ran the Air Force's research on how buried structures survive a nuclear blast, first at Wright-Patterson and from 1956 at Kirtland AFB [S1][S2]. Since the 1980s he has also been named as the head of a Wright-Patterson "Office of Special Studies" that reverse-engineered crashed saucers and reported to Henry Kissinger. Every UFO-specific part of that story traces to one source: researcher William Steinman's account of a 1984 phone call with Wang's widow [S5].

The engineer on the record

Wang was born in Vienna on 5 May 1906 and died in Albuquerque on 4 December 1960 [S1]. A 2003 historic-places evaluation of Kirtland, as quoted by a later article, says his group began in the "Special Studies Office of the Design Branch, Installations Engineering Division" of Air Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson. According to the same quotation, the group first handled "difficult or unusual civil engineering problems" and then turned to designing structures that could withstand nuclear attack [S6]. In 1956 the Air Research and Development Command moved the group to the Air Force Special Weapons Center at Kirtland as the Blast Effects Structures Group [S2]. In 1959 Wang wrote an Air Force technical note on improving the six-foot shock tube by "several orders of magnitude" [S3]. After his death the Air Force's shock tube was named for him, and so was the University of New Mexico's Eric H. Wang Civil Engineering Research Facility, which Eugene Zwoyer directed from 1961 [S2][S4].

What "Office of Special Studies" was

The popular title is a drift between names. The sources variously say "Department of Special Studies", "Special Studies Department" and "Office of Special Studies". The closest documented wording puts his office in installations engineering, the division responsible for bases and structures [S6]. Foreign equipment and technical intelligence at Wright Field belonged to a separate, chartered line: T-2 Intelligence (1945), the AMC Intelligence Department (1947) and the Air Technical Intelligence Center (1951). That line ran Project Sign and Blue Book [S7]. No record located places Wang in it.

The crash-retrieval claim

Steinman states that in 1984 he telephoned Maria Wang. In his transcript she says her husband's work involved the "Flying Saucer Program" and tells him to write to Kissinger, who was "deeply involved" [S5]. Steinman used this in his Aztec crash book. It was later repeated by Tony Brunt, by Grant Cameron and by 2020s podcasts, which add an unsourced role in a 1953 Kingman retrieval. The records these retellings bring in confirm Wang's engineering career; none of them touches the UFO role. The 2002 Wilson–Davis notes do not mention Wang: their subject is Eric W. Davis. No document connects Wang to Eric Walker, his usual pairing in the lore, beyond the fact that Steinman investigated both.

Sources

[S1] "Dr Eric H. Wang (1906-1960) — Find a Grave" URL: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/54678480/eric-h.-wang Accessed: 2026-09-18 Claim: Birth 5 May 1906 Vienna; death 4 Dec 1960 Albuquerque.

[S2] "Wings of War: An Illustrated History of Kirtland Air Force Base, 1941-1960" (AFNWC Office of History) URL: https://www.cavalcadeofwings.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Kirtland-Illustrated-History-5_13_16.pdf Accessed: 2026-09-18 Claim: Blast Effects Structures Group moved from Wright-Patterson to Kirtland in 1956; Eric H. Wang Shock Tube Facility.

[S3] "The Centrifugal Simulation of Blast Parameters" (ESL-TR-83-12), DTIC URL: https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA136978.pdf Accessed: 2026-09-18 Claim: Cites Wang, E. H., AFSWC-TN-59-13 (May 1959).

[S4] "University of New Mexico Board of Regents Minutes, December 6, 1969" URL: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1218&context=bor_minutes Accessed: 2026-09-18 Claim: Zwoyer directed the Eric H. Wang Civil Engineering Research Facility from 1961.

[S5] "Putting a face to someone who lived in the shadows" — Tony Brunt (Steinman phone transcript) URL: https://www.facebook.com/tony.brunt.173094/posts/putting-a-face-to-someone-who-lived-in-the-shadows/3086145091774975 Accessed: 2026-09-18 Claim: Maria Wang to Steinman: "write to ... Dr Henry Kissinger. He is deeply involved in the Flying Saucer Program."

[S6] "Dr Eric Wang and the Department of Special Studies" — American Alchemy (quoting the 2003 Kirtland AFB NRHP evaluation) URL: https://americanalchemymagazine.substack.com/p/dr-eric-wang-and-the-department-of Accessed: 2026-09-18 Claim: Group began in the Special Studies Office, Design Branch, Installations Engineering Division, HQ AMC; Wang hired to lead it.

[S7] "National Air and Space Intelligence Center Heritage" — NASIC URL: https://www.nasic.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Article/611728/national-air-and-space-intelligence-center-heritage Accessed: 2026-09-18 Claim: T-2 (1945) → AMC Intelligence Dept (1947) → ATIC (1951).

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