Lloyd Berkner
Physicist, IGY proposer; Robertson Panel member
- Born
- 1905, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
- Died
- 1967
- Field
- Ionospheric physics, radio engineering
- Known for
- Proposing the International Geophysical Year (1957–58)
- Post in 1953
- President, Associated Universities (Brookhaven)
Radio physicist who proposed the International Geophysical Year and sat on the CIA's 1953 UFO panel; MJ-12 papers later used his name.
What is Lloyd Berkner known for?
Lloyd Viel Berkner was an American physicist and engineer known for research on the ionosphere. As a young radio engineer he served on Richard Byrd's 1928 Antarctic expedition, and Berkner Island is named after him. He worked on naval radar and electronics and later on the Distant Early Warning Line.
In 1950 he proposed what became the International Geophysical Year of 1957–58, a large international study of the Earth. From 1951 to 1960 he was president of Associated Universities, which ran Brookhaven National Laboratory.
In January 1953 he served on the CIA-sponsored Robertson Panel, which found no evidence of a national security threat in UFO reports. Decades later, his name was one of those listed as members in the MJ-12 documents, which the FBI and the National Archives regard as unsupported.
Member of the CIA's 1953 Robertson Panel on UFOs.
Mentioned on these pages
- Rabbit holeThe Robertson Panel
Sources
- Gerald K. Haines, 'CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90', Studies in Intelligence (CIA)Primary text
- Wikipedia, 'Lloyd Berkner'Reference
Pictures on profile pages are drawn placeholders, not likenesses. Public-domain portraits and photographs will replace them.