Albert M. Chop

Albert M. Chop (January 4, 1916 – January 15, 2006) was a newspaper reporter, a public relations officer in the aerospace industry, and a founding member of NASA's public relations office who served as Deputy Public Relations Director. Under Chop's leadership, cartoon character Snoopy became a symbol for NASA safety, with artist Charles M. Schulz drawing posters for NASA.

Childhood and education
Albert Mathew Chop was born in Michigan, and educated in Calumet, Michigan and Cleveland, Ohio.

Attended night school at the University of Dayton. He met future wife, Delores Henderson, and began work in the Wire Photo Department of the Cleveland News, before transferring to Dayton and working as a reporter there.

Public relations career
He joined the Marines around 1943. He served as a state-side correspondent during World War II and left the service in 1946.

After the war, Chop became Press Chief for Air Materiel Command in Dayton, Ohio. Starting in 1951, he spent two years at the Air Force press desk at the Pentagon. He left the Pentagon in February 1953 for Douglas Aircraft in Santa Monica, a post he held from 1953 to 1962. In 1956, Chop was played by actor Tom Towers in the film Unidentified Flying Objects: The True Story of Flying Saucers.

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Unidentified Flying Objects: The True Story of Flying Saucers.



Directed by: Winston Jones
Written by: Francis Martin
Release date : May 9, 1956
Running time: 90 minutes

UFO (full title: Unidentified Flying Objects: The True Story of Flying Saucers) is a 1956 American semi-documentary about the development of the UFO phenomenon in the United States. Clips from the documentary have often been used in other UFO documentaries and television episodes related to UFOs.

Origins and plot

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nick_Mariana_UFO_Footage_1950_Great_Falls_Montana.webm
Duration: 4 minutes and 58 seconds.4:58
A segment from UFO, which includes footage of the incident, testimony from Nick Mariana, and an analysis by Robert M.L. Baker

In 1952 Hollywood producer Clarence Greene saw an unusual object twisting in the sky. He decided to report the sighting, and contacted US Air Force public information officer Albert M. Chop, who was in charge of answering UFO questions from reporters and the public. Intrigued by his experience, Greene decided to film a documentary movie about the UFO phenomenon. When Chop told Greene about the existence of film footage of UFOs, Greene obtained the footage for analysis and display in his documentary.

The film begins with a statement about its genre:

"Many times in the history of our civilization the introduction of a new thought has brought skepticism, even ridicule. Despite this, there always has remained the duty and inalienable right to tell the people the truth. The Motion Picture you are about to see is true. It is not fiction. Much of the information in it has never been told. You will see it here for the first time."

The documentary starts in 1947, with the first widely publicized UFO sightings in the United States, including recreations of the Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting, the Mantell UFO incident, and the Gorman Dogfight. It then traces the development of UFOs as both a popular fad and a serious concern for the US Air Force. The history of Project Sign, the first Air Force study of the UFO phenomenon, is discussed.

The documentary then focuses upon protagonist Albert M. Chop, who is assigned as the public information officer at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, in the late 1940s. In that position he is required to answer numerous news media queries about UFO sightings and what the Air Force knows about them. Chop interviews a German rocket scientist (formerly of Peenemünde's V-2 rocket program) now working for America; the scientist lends credence to the possibility that UFOs exist. Although he is initially portrayed as a UFO debunker, Chop gradually changes his views as the movie progresses, and he comes to believe that UFOs are unknown, and possibly extraterrestrial, aircraft.

By 1952 Chop has moved to Washington, D.C., where he is the press spokesman for Project Blue Book. The documentary analyzes two famous pieces of UFO footage: the Mariana UFO Incident of 1950, in which the manager of the Great Falls, Montana minor-league baseball team claimed to have filmed two UFOs flying over the local baseball stadium, and the 1952 UFO film taken near the Great Salt Lake in Utah by a US Navy photographer, Delbert Newhouse. The documentary concludes with the famous 1952 Washington, D.C. UFO incident, in which Albert Chop played a central role. The documentary recreates Chop's experiences during the incident, and at the end of the documentary Chop states his belief that UFOs are a "real", physical phenomenon of unknown origin.

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Unidentified Flying Objects: The True Story of Flying Saucers - 1956 trailer

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Apr 28, 2021
Unidentified Flying Objects: The True Story of Flying Saucers - 1956 trailer

UFOs The True Story of Flying Saucers 1956

Ufo Bevy
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Enjoy this drama-documentary, based on the experiences of Al Chop, a reporter who served as press liaison for the Pentagon during its investigation of UFO's from 1947 to the early 1950s.

Miller, Soule, and Tremayne provide the voices for the narrated portions of the film. Although the movie contains only two brief film clips to serve as photographic evidence of UFO's, the producers build a good case based on the credibility of certain UFO witnesses (airline pilots, military personnel, radar operators, etc.).

On a more subtle level, director Winston Jones pulls off a clever trick; he begins the film as a pure documentary, but he gradually modifies this approach and focuses on reporter Al Chop's personal involvement in the UFO investigation. Chop slowly changes from UFO skeptic to UFO believer

The climax is a gripping reenactment of a true incident which occurred in 1950, when a group of UFO's cruised above Washington DC for several hours. The voice of Harry Morgan is heard over the radio as an Air Force pilot whose plane is literally surrounded by UFO's, during which Al Chop and a group of bewildered military men cluster around the radar scope, watching in wide-eyed wonder. Dramatically speaking, this scene is far superior to its counterpart in `Close Encounters of the Third Kind'. The most amazing thing about this film is the fact that it was made with the full cooperation of the United States government, and every scrap of evidence it presents was made available to any and all scientific agency who wanted to examine it.

Watch it and make up your own mind about UFO's -- but you'll loose some sleep over it before you do. Note: Some reviews mistakenly identify the star of `Unidentified Flying Objects' as Tom Powers, a co-star of `Destination Moon' (1950). The star of `UFO' is actually a Los Angles newspaper reporter (not a professional actor) named Tom Powers, who portrays the real-life reporter Al Chop.

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Music
4 songs

Main Title {From "UFO"}
Ernest Gold
The Ernest Gold Collection Vol. 1

Washington {From "UFO"}
Ernest Gold
The Ernest Gold Collection Vol. 1

Polished Silver
Logical Confusion
Elefanté

Washington National {From "UFO"}
Ernest Gold
The Ernest Gold Collection Vol. 1