Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Tom Towers Returns




Absolutely, I was in awe of both Al Chop and Tom Towers, Chop because he was so honest, integral to and opinionated about the early government UFO project, and Towers because he was the epitome of the newspaper writer whose thoughts we want to read.. Further, Towers had ascended to become aviation editor for The Los Angeles Examiner and turned out some great articles. From the UFO aspect, he wrote a piece about the late Senator Richard Russell's possible UFO encounter, brilliantly executed simply by letting the senator's words in a letter to Towers tell a story that otherwise might have remained unknown; Towers' article regarding Russell is freely available and written about on the Internet.


His newspaper days behind him by the seventies, however, he then held the prestigious position of executive assistant at LA's Dept. of Airports -- and he apparently didn't mind taking a little time at the office to answer me on airport letterhead.


The letter posted today was very informative for my attempts to find Clarence Greene, Capt. Sperry and others, but I can't vouch for his friend whom he claims coined the term, "flying saucers" because I've encountered so many variations of who-was-first over the years.