BornMay 17, 1910 - Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada
DiedDecember 27, 1962 - Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
AliasesWilbert Brockhouse Smith, W.B. Smith
Service1939-1962 (Canadian Department of Transport)
ClearanceTop Secret (Canadian government; active during Project Magnet)
Summary
Senior Canadian government radio engineer who authored the classified 1950 Smith Memorandum - one of the most significant government documents in UAP research - documenting that U.S. officials had privately told him flying saucers were classified above the H-bomb and that a small group under Vannevar Bush was analyzing recovered hardware. Smith subsequently founded and directed Project Magnet, Canada's official government UFO investigation program (1950-1954). His memo was declassified by the Canadian government in 1979 and later partially corroborated when Dr. Robert Sarbacher confirmed in a 1983 letter that Smith's account of their 1950 conversation was accurate.
Roles
- -Superintendent of Radio Regulations Engineering - Canadian Department of Transport
- -Director - Project Magnet (1950-1954)
- -Radio Engineer, Government of Canada
Organizations
Canadian Department of TransportProject MagnetProject Second Storey
Education
- -B.Sc., Electrical Engineering, University of British Columbia, 1933
- -M.Sc., Electrical Engineering, University of British Columbia, 1934
Early Career
- -Joined the Canadian Department of Transport in 1939 as a radio engineer; rose to Superintendent of Radio Regulations Engineering
- -Managed Canada's national radio monitoring and broadcast engineering infrastructure during and after World War II
- -Became personally interested in UAP reports in the late 1940s through analysis of anomalous radio signal data