Burgoyne Lee Griffing

Dr. Burgoyne Lee Griffing (1896-?) was an American aeronautical engineer and scientist of Dutch origin who gained U.S. citizenship in 1929. Renowned for designing the Fokker Trimotor that carried Richard Byrd over the North Pole and co-designing Waco gliders used on D-Day, he became Chief Scientist for U.S. Intelligence at ATIC in 1948 as Scientific Advisor to the Chief, Intelligence Department. In UFO research, Griffing contributed to the 1952 Air Force diffraction-grid camera network for capturing unidentified objects and participated in General Samford's press conference on the July 1952 Washington radar-visual sightings. From 1957-1959, he frequently requested UFO incident reports from Air Force bases and chaired a 1958 meeting addressing shortcomings in the UFO program, indicating oversight responsibilities.