1971 Harry Turner Memo
TopicDocument Collection1971 Harry Turner Memo
TopicDocument CollectionThe 1971 Harry Turner Memo is an Australian Joint Intelligence Organisation paper on the UFO problem that resurfaced in 2026 after David Grusch cited it and the Pentagon reissued it.
The 1971 Harry Turner Memo is an Australian Joint Intelligence Organisation paper on the UFO problem that resurfaced in 2026 after David Grusch cited it and the Pentagon reissued it.
The 1971 Harry Turner Memo is the common name for "Scientific and Intelligence Aspects of the UFO Problem," papers that the physicist Harry Turner, head of the Nuclear Branch of Australia's Joint Intelligence Organisation, sent to the organisation's director on 27 May 1971. The main paper reviews American investigations from Projects Sign, Grudge and Blue Book through the 1953 Robertson Panel and the Condon study, and argues that public discouragement of the subject ran alongside serious intelligence interest. It also criticises the Royal Australian Air Force's explanations for local cases and recommends a scientifically competent Australian investigation. A second part drew on Jacques Vallée's catalogue of landing reports.
The director, R. W. Furlonger, responded the same day with a draft proposal that the Department of Supply investigate a handful of sightings a year on trial; it was never adopted. The researcher Keith Basterfield obtained the file's release through the National Archives of Australia in 2008. On 9 June 2026, at a Capitol press conference, David Grusch urged the public to read pages 7 through 16 of what he called a "formally classified secret assessment" on an American cover-up. Three days later a 19-page copy appeared as file CIA-UAP-019 in PURSUE UFO Files Release 03, and Grusch discussed it again on an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience released on 30 September.
Bill Chalker, who interviewed Turner at length and holds many of his papers, published what he called "a reality check" in July 2026. He wrote that the paper was never an official position ("It was Harry's view"), that its phrase "crash program" is military shorthand for a rapid effort rather than a reference to recovered craft, and that the CIA supplied no analysis of the file. The skeptic Mick West called the document "a prime example of circular reporting," derived from public books, articles and reports of the 1950s and 1960s and "repackaged by an Australian UFO enthusiast." Turner's statements about covert American programs and their motives are his own interpretations, not admissions by the agencies he describes.
The memo is a genuine record of a government scientist arguing from inside Australian defence intelligence for a sustained UFO study, and of superiors who declined to commit resources to one. Its revival by Grusch, Jesse Michels, Eric Weinstein and others made a decades-old archival file one of the most cited documents of the 2026 disclosure debate, although its content summarises the published literature of its day rather than adding new evidence.
😲😲😲😲 https://t.co/Tvtv8eNkAs [Quoted] Insane story. My dad was visting from Kenya, Africa where he lives, when I gave this presentation about my grandfather. My dad is not interested in UFOs, but came along to learn more about his own fathers history. When the picture of Harry Turner came up (who wrote the famous 1971 Australian Joint Intelligence UFO memo), my dad distinctly remembered Harry Turner being at our family home in Glenelg in Adelaide on occasion, and another German Scientist...
Im not sure if this is the right place but i found some interesting connections when i was looking over this document. Fair warning I experienced mania and psychosis last year when i was researching all of this so ill admit some of it may have just been my over fueled pattern recognition but i have no one else i can really springboard this off of without sounding crazy lol. The Australian document is this one: https://www.war.gov/medialink/ufo/061226/release_03/documents/CIA-UAP-019-Australia...
Full breakdown, year by year, every quote verbatim with the page on screen: Submission statement: On The Joe Rogan Experience #2560, around 1:59:00, David Grusch described a 1971 assessment written by O.H. (Harry) Turner, head of the Nuclear Branch of Australia's Joint Intelligence Organisation. He called Blue Book a facade and said the Air Force built a plan of ridicule. The document itself, page 8 of the scan, says the CIA "persuaded the USAF to use Project BLUE...
RT @TheUFOzzie: 🚨Here is Harry Turner who wrote the 1971 Australian Intelligence UFO Memo that David Grusch referenced. Harry Turner tells…
RT @TheUFOzzie: 🚨Here is Harry Turner who wrote the 1971 Australian Intelligence UFO Memo that David Grusch referenced. Harry Turner tells…
RT @TheUFOzzie: 🚨Here is Harry Turner who wrote the 1971 Australian Intelligence UFO Memo that David Grusch referenced. Harry Turner tells…
Very cool. https://t.co/CWUyZyF2ax [Quoted] 🚨Here is Harry Turner who wrote the 1971 Australian Intelligence UFO Memo that David Grusch referenced. Harry Turner tells how his boss at the Woomera Prohibited Area, Colonel Richard Durance, was in the Washington DC radar room, during both weekends of the 1952 Washington DC UFO flyovers. Richard Durance was the Australian Army Attache for the US at the time. Durance confirmed he was shown the radar data himself during the Washington DC 1952 UFO f...
RT @TheUFOzzie: 🚨Here is Harry Turner who wrote the 1971 Australian Intelligence UFO Memo that David Grusch referenced. Harry Turner tells…
Eric Weinstein: "Everything changed when we let of a nuclear weapon. UAP's started appearing" 🛸😱 UFO's have clustered around nuclear tests globally for decades. Weinstein notes a 1971 Australian intelligence document recording the same pattern near UK tests that the United States has seen around its own. His claim is precise: “Somehow UAPs are very tied to nukes. And I believe that a nuke is the sign that you become advanced enough that the next thing you figure out how to do is to leave an...
RT @TheUFOzzie: @pavelibarrameda and I get deep into UFOs, the 1971 Australian Harry Turner Memo, Skywatcher, disclosure, consciousness and…
