FBI Espionage Investigation Included UFO Contactee Daniel Fry

FBI records responsive to self-described UFO contactee Daniel Fry (1908-1992) were recently obtained by Expanding Frontiers Research. The records, which allude to wider investigations of which Fry was but a single aspect, consist of memos with redacted titles and numerous heavily redacted pages. FBI stated 40 of 41 pages were released and cited several FOIA exemptions for withheld material in its Nov. 26 final response.

Daniel Fry, 1967

A collaboration between Erica Lukes and this writer came to include Daniel Fry as a subject in a series of numerous FOIA requests. The requests grew out of a 1958 FBI memo obtained by EFR earlier this year that showed how Ivan Sanderson initiated contact with the FBI, alerting it that the New York Saucer Information Bureau (NYSIB) was conducting meetings ostensibly about UFOs. In reality, Sanderson asserted, the meetings were designed to convince attendees the U.S. government was no good. The memo documented that Sanderson and associate Hans Santesson specifically named contactees Daniel Fry and Truman Bethurum as staples of NYSIB meetings, and that both Sanderson and Santesson offered to assist the Bureau further if needed.

The previously obtained 1958 FBI memo contained several points of reference for follow-up FOIA requests that continue to be processed and lead to more requests. EFR subsequently obtained a 1963 FBI memo indicating the Bureau did indeed circle back to Sanderson, at which time an agent showed him a photo of a man and asked if the man was attending NYSIB meetings. That circumstance – the re-interview of Sanderson – is referenced in the records responsive to Daniel Fry and moves our research even further in the direction of Robert Stark, a man continuing to emerge as a central figure of these FBI files.

From the 1963 FBI memo, subject Robert Theodore Stark:

Hundreds of pages of FBI records responsive to Stark have been identified through recent FOIA requests. Those pages contain many references to UFO personalities of the mid-20th century. EFR is in the process of incrementally obtaining the material.

Daniel Fry

As documented by researchers Adam Gorightly and Greg Bishop in their book “A” Is for Adamski: The Golden Age of UFO Contactees, Fry worked as an explosives technician at White Sands Proving Ground in New Mexico during 1950. It was there that he constructed a story about his interactions with A-lan, pronounced “a-lawn,” an extraterrestrial. In 1955 Fry founded Understanding Inc., which published a monthly newsletter, Understanding, and in the coming years expanded into a nationwide network of 43 “study groups.”

It was such factors, along with the efforts of Fry and other contactees to ostensibly build utopian communes, that would have concerned the FBI. Fry's employment at White Sands, combined with his controversial social circles, would have raised red flags, but he landed in an investigation of Robert Stark for reasons that seem to include mutual contacts and associates. Suffice it to say it was not Fry's stories of aliens that made him a person of FBI interest, even if such stories often served as tools of assessments of reliability and character for investigating agents. In other words, if there are already concerns about questionable activity, then a subject's use of purported interactions with aliens as a means to build a following only tends to serve as evidence those concerns are justified.

Daniel Fry's reliability received plenty of doubt without the need for FBI investigation. As researcher Lance Moody documented, Fry struggled to field questions about his purported "doctor" credentials during a 1966 radio appearance on The Betty Grobley Show. When asked to discuss his BA, he seemed unaware he would have obtained such a degree prior to earning a PhD.

FBI Records

FBI records responsive to Daniel Fry reference a lot of stereotypical FBI 20th century jargon and procedures. We find references to mail “cover,” or surveillance; following the money through detailed attention to financial transactions (it's always about the money because it leads to key people, both sending and receiving); covertly collecting and subsequently examining a subject's garbage; interviewing a person “under a suitable criminal pretext” as to not reveal the actual purposes of an investigation, and similar circumstances.

The records document keeping a subject under surveillance through a cab ride and eavesdropping on a subject's call at a payphone – by pretending to make a call from a neighboring phone. One might get the impression the agents seemed to think their surveillance was to be prioritized, and at least some of it involved Robert Stark's cross-country travels and activities.

Investigation of a redacted subject – surmised to be Stark in several instances - takes the reader through interviews and surveillance of people of interest, ranging from landlords and neighbors to former employers and co-workers. One of several references to Ivan Sanderson and the New York Saucer Information Bureau:

The lone fully withheld page of the 41 responsive pages, page number 13, is surrounded by: a 1963 FBI memo and further reference to the 1958 Sanderson interview; a mail cover that established the NYSIB was in contact with a subject whose name is redacted; and reference to correspondence sent from a redacted individual to Daniel Fry about material to potentially be published in his Understanding newsletter.

Page 35 of the pdf is the third page of another 1963 FBI memo. Combined with the circumstances in the above paragraph, it might be interpreted to suggest some of the FBI concern may have been about Fry's network and newsletter being used to disseminate subversive and/or classified material. From the memo:

Further indication FBI may have been at least partially concerned about the compromise of classified documents and material:

The records also reference a woman named Gunny Larrson and her associates. She made contacts in New York, obtained a grant to come from Iceland to work in horticultural research, and attended international conferences. FBI interest in her activities is not entirely clear, aside from her association with other subjects of interest, however implied Bureau concern may arguably be. It is clear, however, that FBI was trying to establish potential connections between persons of interest, with the New York Saucer Information Bureau and Daniel Fry's newsletter serving as suspected commonalities among the cast of characters.

Records also include reference to open associations with Russian United Nations personnel. A New York woman whose name is redacted, an interviewing agent documented, said that some "would find it exciting to associate with this element."

Research is ongoing, including numerous FOIA requests.