Office of Naval Research

The Office of Naval Research (ONR) is an agency within the U.S. Navy responsible for the science and technology programs of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. It funds basic and applied research to develop new technologies and capabilities for naval operations.¹

In the context of psychic research, the ONR funded the development of the superconducting-shielded magnetometer used by Arthur Hebard at Stanford University, which was later used in Hal Puthoff's experiments with Ingo Swann. The ONR also provided contracts to scientists like Allan H. Frey for research on the effects of microwave radiation on the human body.¹

The Jessup annotated copy

The introduction to the Annotated Edition of Morris K. Jessup's The Case for the UFO states that the annotated paperback arrived at ONR in a manila envelope addressed to "Admiral N. Furth, Chief, Office of Naval Research, Washington 25, D.C.," postmarked Seminole, Texas, 1955, marked "Happy Easter"; that in July or August of that year it appeared in the incoming correspondence of Major Darrell L. Ritter, USMC, of the Aeronautical Project Office; that Captain Sidney Sherby, on reporting aboard, obtained it from Ritter; and that Sherby and Commander George W. Hoover, Special Projects Officer, "indicated direct interest in some of the material therein" in light of "the possibility of discovering clues to the nature of gravity." The Varo Manufacturing Company of Garland, Texas "offered to re-publish the book together with all notations in a very limited edition."² Gray Barker, in his 1973 preface to the facsimile, wrote that Admiral Furth received the envelope in April 1956 and that Sherby and Hoover "were deeply involved in satellite development."² ONR's house publication reported that Rear Admiral Rawson Bennett II relieved Rear Admiral Frederick R. Furth as Chief of Naval Research on December 31, 1955, that Furth had served two years as Chief, that his duties had included the "Vanguard" satellite project, and that he was to join the International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation.³ The first Allende letter to Jessup, dated January 13, 1956, advised him to "contact Rear Admiral Ransom Bennett for verification of info herein. Navy Chief of research."²

McDonald, 1966

Paul E. McCarthy wrote that James E. McDonald's ONR project monitor, Jim Hughes, told him in May 1966 that, because McDonald's work was for ONR, it would pay the trip expenses to read the Blue Book files at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base; that McDonald wrote Hughes that he wished a briefing on "the rumored Navy studies of UFOs" and asked whether ONR might fund his travel for UFO research; and that this began "a controversy within a controversy" over use of ONR atmospheric research funds for UFO research. McCarthy also wrote that in early 1968 McDonald sent Hughes copies of the Condon Committee "Low memo" and National Academy of Sciences correspondence, in light of "the day when he would apply to the ONR for funding to do UFO work."⁴⁵

CIA funds in the 1977 Defense Department memorandum

A Department of Defense General Counsel memorandum of September 20, 1977 states that the Navy searched archival material of the Office of Naval Intelligence, the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery and ONR, and that ONR acted as financial intermediary in several programs. The CIA transferred at least 282,215 dollars to ONR for a project on a nonaddictive substitute for codeine carried out at the United States Public Health Service hospital at Lexington, Kentucky, with instructions that the CIA's interest "is classified Secret"; 20,000 dollars for a study of blast concussion by a California contractor in 1954 and 1955, which the CIA moved to Project MKUltra as subproject 54 in 1956; and up to 117,938 dollars between February 26, 1971 and June 23, 1972 for a Massachusetts contractor's work on analogs of central nervous system drugs. The CIA authorization document for the last stated: "This project is funded through the Office of Naval Research. This arrangement protects the Agency's association with this area of research and provides the contractor with credible sponsorship." The Navy list of documents has 42 items, many of them CIA memoranda to ONR dated 1954 to 1961.⁶