--- alias: - John Gibbons - John H. Gibbons - John Howard Gibbons - Jack Gibbons - Dr. John H. Gibbons - Dr. Gibbons born: 1929 category: Political Figure created: 2026-10-02 died: 2015-07-17 location: Washington, D.C. relations: - fn: 1 role: physicist, fifteen years per the White House biography" start: 1954 type: employed_by with: '[[Oak Ridge National Laboratory]]' - end: 1993 fn: 1 role: director start: 1979 type: director_of with: '[[Office of Technology Assessment]]' - fn: 1 role: director and Assistant to the President for Science and Technology start: 1993-02-02 type: director_of with: '[[Office of Science and Technology Policy]]' - fn: 1 reverse: true start: 1993-02-02 type: appointed with: '[[Bill Clinton]]' summary: Physicist, director of the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment from 1979 and of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy from 1993, point of contact for Laurance Rockefeller's UFO inquiries. tags: - Person - Physicist - OSTP - OTA - ClintonWhiteHouse - OakRidge - UFO updated: 2026-10-02 --- John H. "Jack" Gibbons (January 15, 1929, to July 17, 2015) was born in Harrisonburg, Virginia, took bachelor's degrees in mathematics and chemistry from Randolph-Macon College in 1949 and a doctorate in physics from Duke University in 1954.[^1][^2] The [White House](/places/white-house/) biography states that he spent fifteen years at Oak Ridge National Laboratory studying atomic nuclei, with emphasis on the role of neutron capture in the nucleosynthesis of heavy elements in stars, became in 1973 the first director of the Federal Office of Energy Conservation, directed the University of Tennessee Energy, Environment and Resources Center for two years, and in 1979 became director of the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, where he served two six-year terms before his presidential appointment on February 2, 1993 as Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and Director of the [Office of Science and Technology Policy](/organizations/office-of-science-and-technology-policy/).[^1] He was a member of the [Council on Foreign Relations](/organizations/council-on-foreign-relations/).[^1] The National Academy of Engineering lists his years as 1929 to 2015, and the American Institute of Physics obituary gives his death at Crozet, Virginia.[^2] ### Contacts with Laurance Rockefeller Gibbons met [Laurance Rockefeller](/people/laurance-rockefeller/) and C. B. Scott Jones in April 1993, three months into his term, after a request from Rockefeller's attorney Henry L. Diamond of March 29, 1993; Rockefeller's letter of April 21, 1993 records that Gibbons said he had "not learned that the [United States](/places/united-states/) Government has a body of knowledge on UFOs or ETI that is being withheld from the public."[^3] In the further correspondence described under the [Rockefeller Initiative](/programs/rockefeller-initiative/) Gibbons suggested approaching the [Defense Department](/organizations/department-of-defense/), proposed an informal inquiry into agency records on the 1947 [Roswell Incident](/events/roswell-incident/), and received from Secretary Sheila Widnall an interim status report on May 24, 1994, the full Roswell report on February 27, 1996 (with the request to pass it to Rockefeller) and the second volume, *The Roswell Report: Case Closed*, on June 20, 1997. Rockefeller's letter of February 14, 1994 credited Gibbons with the suggestion to begin with a specific incident, and Gibbons's note of August 1994 to Rockefeller says he received the [Air Force](/organizations/us-air-force/) material "yesterday."[^3] A handwritten note on Jones's letter of February 17, 1994, signed "JHG" and dated 3/29/94, reads: "Scott Jones used to be associated with Senator Pell. He was formerly a [Navy](/organizations/us-navy/) pilot. The [Human Potential Foundation](/organizations/human-potential-foundation/) is funded in part, I believe, by L.R."[^4] In a note to Rockefeller dated 8/19/94 he wrote that he had told Senator [Claiborne Pell](/people/claiborne-pell/) of the Air Force report the day before, and a note to "Clay" of the same date encloses the report's summary text and a lecture of his own and thanks Pell for lunch.[^5] On August 4, 1995 he wrote to President [Bill Clinton](/people/bill-clinton/) that Rockefeller would likely see the President in the Tetons and "will want to talk with you about his interest in extrasensory perception, paranormal phenomena, and UFO's"; that "I persuaded Rockefeller to not bother you with this issue but instead to let me talk with defense officials"; that "all evidence points to a failed U.S. Air Force balloon experiment, and no evidence of a 'flying saucer' or cover-up conspiracy"; and that "I've made no secret about my conviction that we must not be too diverted from more earthly imperatives."[^6] A draft letter from Rockefeller to the President of August 23, 1995 proposed that "Your Science Advisor, Jack Gibbons, might be the right person" to coordinate government information on the subject.[^7] The OSTP files include a letter from the physicist Bruce Maccabee of January 2, 1997 stating that in April 1993 "at the request of Dr. [Ronald Pandolfi](/people/ronald-pandolfi/) of the [CIA](/organizations/central-intelligence-agency/)" he had faxed Gibbons an information paper on UFOs, and Gibbons's reply of April 26, 1995 to the General Accounting Office that his office had "no direct knowledge of what occurred at Roswell and no records, except for the information I received from the Air Force."[^8] [^1]: The White House, "Biography of Dr. John H. Gibbons," Clinton White House archive, https://clintonwhitehouse4.archives.gov/WH/EOP/OSTP/director/Gibbons_Bio.html. [^2]: National Academy of Engineering, "John H. (Jack) Gibbons 1929-2015," https://www.nae.edu/192022/john-h-jack-gibbons-1929-2015; "John Howard Gibbons," *Physics Today*, December 2015, https://physicstoday.aip.org/obituaries/john-howard-gibbons (birth date and place of death). [^3]: Henry L. Diamond to Gibbons, March 29, 1993; Rockefeller to Gibbons, April 21, 1993 and later letters; Widnall to Gibbons, May 24, 1994, February 27, 1996 and June 20, 1997, and Rockefeller to Gibbons, February 14, 1994, at http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller_Initiative_Documents.htm. [^4]: Jones to Gibbons, February 17, 1994, with note signed JHG and dated 3/29/94, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-2-17-94.htm. [^5]: Gibbons, handwritten notes to Rockefeller and to Pell, RID-8-17-94.htm and RID-9-19-94.htm, same site. [^6]: Gibbons, memorandum for the President, "Inquiry from Laurance Rockefeller," August 4, 1995, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-8-4-95.htm. [^7]: Rockefeller, draft letter to President Clinton, faxed August 23, 1995, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-8-23-95.htm. [^8]: Maccabee to Gibbons, January 2, 1997, RID-1-2-97.htm; Gibbons to William Hunt, GAO, April 26, 1995, RID-4-26-95.htm, same site.