Summary
Rear Admiral Delmer S. Fahrney is widely regarded as the father of the U.S. Navy's guided missile programme, having directed the Navy's early guided missile development through World War II and into the Cold War era. He became the founding chairman of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) in 1956, lending the fledgling organization the credibility of one of the most technically distinguished officers in American naval history. His public statements calling UFOs real and unaccounted for by any known power, and his advocacy for a serious congressional investigation, carried exceptional weight precisely because of his unimpeachable background in advanced weapons technology. The 1971 Australian Joint Intelligence Organisation classified assessment cites him as NICAP's first chairman in its analysis of organized efforts to counter official U.S. government suppression of UFO evidence.
Roles
- -Rear Admiral, United States Navy (Retired)
- -Director, U.S. Navy Guided Missile Programme
- -First Chairman, National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP), 1956-1957
Organizations
Education
- -U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis
Early Career
- -Commissioned as a naval officer upon graduation from the Naval Academy
- -Served in naval aviation and technical development roles through the 1930s and WWII
- -Rose to lead the Navy's guided missile development programme - one of the most strategically critical technical programmes in the post-WWII period