Bob Echler
Bob Echler is a former NASA mission specialist who, in 1989, conducted a personal inquiry into the possibility of making recovered UFO vehicles available for civilian scientific and technological research. His inquiry — facilitated by British Admiral Lord Hill Norton — led to direct contact with several of the most senior US intelligence officials of the era, producing documented admissions regarding US possession of recovered non-human craft. His interactions with Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, former Director of Naval Intelligence Sumar Shapiro, and CIA DS&T Deputy Director Everett Heinman constitute some of the most directly sourced official disclosures in UAP research history.
| Role | NASA mission specialist; UAP inquiry witness |
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Background and Lord Hill Norton Connection
Echler's inquiry was facilitated by Admiral Lord Hill Norton, a former Chief of the British Defence Staff and Chairman of NATO's Military Committee, who maintained relationships with senior figures across US and UK intelligence communities. Norton's introduction gave Echler access to officials who would not otherwise have engaged with civilian UAP researchers.
1989 Phone Call with Bobby Ray Inman
In 1989, Echler placed a telephone call to Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, then retired from his roles as Director of Naval Intelligence, Director of the NSA, Deputy Director of the CIA, and Director of the classified National Underwater Reconnaissance Office (NURO). Echler asked whether recovered UFO vehicles might ever become available for technological research outside military channels.
Inman's response confirmed the existence of recovered vehicles: he stated that ten years earlier the answer to their availability would have been "no," but acknowledged the situation might be evolving. He directed Echler to CIA DS&T Deputy Director Everett Heinman as "the best person to ask" about recovered craft — a specific institutional referral UAP researchers treat as evidence that Inman understood the CIA DS&T as the managing authority for recovered craft programs.
A portion of the Inman–Echler call is available as recorded audio. A subsequent follow-up call from Inman's office warned Echler that he would be "breaching confidence and/or violation of the secrecy laws" by discussing Inman's involvement.
Meeting with Everett Heinman at CIA Langley
Following Inman's referral, Echler arranged a meeting with CIA DS&T Deputy Director Everett Heinman at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, on 10 August 1989. At this meeting, Heinman denied any knowledge of UFOs or UFO legacy programs. However, in 2022, when Twitter researcher RGH_UFOs contacted Heinman referencing Inman's claim that Heinman was the right person to ask, Heinman did not issue a flat denial — instead stating he was "a long way and quite a few years from working in the area you are researching." UAP researchers note this equivocal response contrasts with what would be the expected categorical denial from someone with no knowledge.
Meetings with Sumar Shapiro
Inman additionally connected Echler to former Director of Naval Intelligence Sumar Shapiro, then serving as an executive at defense contractor BDM International. In his first meeting with Shapiro in 1989, Echler learned that factions within the US government possessed extraterrestrial vehicles, that Shapiro had studied one at close quarters, and that teams would disassemble the craft, pack them up, and ship them across the country to different laboratories. The craft featured unique interlocking components that required disassembly in an exact sequence. Shapiro declined to specify where the craft were taken.
A second meeting at Shapiro's Virginia home in 1990 ended abruptly. When Echler displayed a small hologram of an alien head to draw a link between the technology and its non-human source, Shapiro became visibly upset. He paced about his living room, expressed concern that he had not been able to reach Inman to confirm the purpose of the meeting, and terminated the visit, suspecting Echler was there under false pretenses.
EMPRESS / EMP Experiments Claim
Echler additionally claimed that the Navy conducted EMP (electromagnetic pulse) experiments using onboard generators designated EMPRESS and EMPRESS 2 out of Pensacola Naval Air Station, employing directed electromagnetic pulses to disable and bring down UFOs for retrieval operations.
Sources
- US Navy UFO Crash Retrieval & Reverse Engineering Programs
- National Reconnaissance Office - UFO Crash Retrievals, Surveillance, and Legacy Program Gatekeepers
- Timothy Good (relayed Echler's account of the second Shapiro meeting)