The National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) is an unidentified flying object (UFO) research group most active in the United States from the 1950s to the 1980s.
NICAP was a non-profit organization and faced financial collapse many times in its existence, due in no small part to business ineptitude among the group's directors.
Following a wave of nationally publicized UFO incidents in the mid-1960s, NICAP's membership spiked dramatically and only then did the organization become financially stable.
[1] NICAP advocated transparent scientific investigation of UFO sightings and was skeptical of "contactee" tales involving meetings with space visitors, the alien abduction phenomenon, and the like.
[2] Though any UFO-related group attracts a number of uncritical enthusiasts along with a small percentage of cranks, astronomer J. Allen Hynek cited NICAP and Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) as the two best civilian UFO groups of their time, consisting largely of sober, serious-minded people capable of valuable contributions to the subject.
"[4] In other words, NICAP did not necessarily dismiss occupant reports out of hand, but elected to focus on other aspects of the UFO phenomenon which would be perceived by mainstream observers as less outlandish and more believable.
The attention given to the contactees of the 1950s such as George Adamski and Truman Bethurum (who typically claimed ongoing contact with benevolent "Space Brothers") was almost certainly a factor in NICAP's reluctance to study UFO occupant reports too closely.
Fahrney replaced him, then convened a press conference on January 16, 1957, where he announced that UFOs were under intelligent control, but that they were of neither American or Soviet origin.
Another prominent figure joined NICAP's board of governors: Keyhoe's Naval Academy classmate VADM Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter, USN (Ret.)
Keyhoe's financial management and business skills were only slightly better than Brown's, and NICAP hobbled along throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, facing collapse on several occasions.
Another section examined observed patterns, such as descriptions of shape, colors, maneuvers, flight behavior, and concentrations of sightings.
One person specifically named as a suspected CIA infiltrator was retired Air Force Colonel Joseph Bryan III.
His son, writer C. D. B. Bryan, dismisses this idea, suggesting that "Anyone who knows anything about the history of NICAP knows that the group didn’t need anybody's help in its disintegration; it simply self-destructed."