--- alias: - C. B. Scott Jones - C.B. Scott Jones - CB Scott Jones - Scott Jones - Cecil B. Jones - Cecil B. Scott Jones - Cecil Beam Jones Jr. - Dr. Scott Jones born: 1928-02-19 category: UFO & Anomalous Phenomena created: 2026-10-02 died: 2023-01-16 location: Falls Church, Virginia relations: - end: 1976 fn: 3 role: fighter pilot, then naval intelligence officer, including assistant naval attache in New Delhi and Kathmandu start: 1946 type: employed_by with: '[[United States Navy]]' - fn: 2 role: managed intelligence contact with the Defense Intelligence Agency for two years after leaving the University of Wyoming in 1978 type: employed_by with: '[[CACI]]' - fn: 3 role: research scientist; editor of the 1983 seminar proceedings on parapsychological applications type: employed_by with: '[[Kaman Tempo]]' - end: 1991-03 fn: 2 role: special assistant, Senate office start: 1985-01 type: employed_by with: '[[Claiborne Pell]]' - fn: 2 start: 1985 type: founded with: '[[Center for Applied Anomalous Phenomena]]' - fn: 2 role: with Pell; president start: 1989 type: founded with: '[[Human Potential Foundation]]' - fn: 3 role: trustee from 1985 and president, per the 1992 white paper type: head_of with: '[[American Society for Psychical Research]]' - fn: 3 role: special consultant in international relations, per the 1992 white paper start: 1989 type: member_of with: '[[Mutual UFO Network]]' - fn: 2 start: 1998 type: founded with: '[[Peace and Emergency Action Coalition for Earth]]' summary: Navy fighter pilot and intelligence officer who served as Senator Claiborne Pell's special assistant for psychic and UFO matters from 1985 to 1991, then ran the Human Potential Foundation, financed by Laurance Rockefeller. tags: - Person - UFO - Parapsychology - NavalIntelligence - SenateStaff - HumanPotentialFoundation - RockefellerInitiative updated: 2026-10-02 --- Cecil B. "Scott" Jones (February 19, 1928, at Emporia, Kansas, to January 16, 2023) was a Navy fighter pilot and intelligence officer who worked from 1985 to 1991 on the staff of Senator [Claiborne Pell](/people/claiborne-pell/) of Rhode Island, then as president of the [Human Potential Foundation](/organizations/human-potential-foundation/).[^1] His birth year is also recorded as 1924, in the register of his papers at the University of Colorado Boulder.[^2] ### Navy and Intelligence Career Jones joined the [United States Navy](/organizations/us-navy/) about 1946, was commissioned in 1950 after the Aviation Midshipman Program, flew two combat tours in VF-191 in the [Korean War](/events/korean-war/) in the F9F-2 Panther from the [USS Princeton](/places/uss-princeton/), and served about fifteen years in naval intelligence, including with Carrier Division 14 and as assistant naval attache in New Delhi and Kathmandu in the 1960s. He held an A.B. in government from George Washington University (1961), an M.A. from the University of Maryland (1963) and a Ph.D. in international studies from American University (1975), with a dissertation on how the Indian Lok Sabha handles defense matters, and taught at Casper College and the University of Wyoming.[^3] By another account he spent twenty years in naval intelligence, then taught at Army colleges from 1970 to 1972, at the University of Kansas for the Navy in 1973 to 1975 and as a professor at the University of Wyoming from 1975 to 1978, then two years at the contractor CACI managing intelligence contact with the [Defense Intelligence Agency](/organizations/defense-intelligence-agency/), "during which spent 10% of his time on applied anomalous phenomena," then work for Kaman Tempo on reporting on oceanic nuclear tests for the Defense Nuclear Agency; he met Pell during this period and organized two symposia on applied anomalous phenomena and on consciousness and survival.[^2] Grant Cameron gives a contractual consultancy to the Defense Nuclear Agency from 1981 to 1985.[^4] His papers include correspondence with [Laurance Rockefeller](/people/laurance-rockefeller/), Hans-Adam II, Prince of Liechtenstein, Rima Laibow, [Uri Geller](/people/uri-geller/) and [Dick Cheney](/people/dick-cheney/), and drafts of letters to Presidents [George W. Bush](/people/george-w-bush/), [Bill Clinton](/people/bill-clinton/) and Barack Obama.[^2] In the 1992 white paper's account, Kaman Tempo organized a seminar on parapsychological applications in 1983 for federal employees, with Jones as editor of the proceedings, and Jones's MUFON biographical sketch says he worked on government-sponsored projects for the Defense Nuclear Agency, the DIA and the [United States Army Intelligence and Security Command](/organizations/united-states-army-intelligence-and-security-command/).[^3] ### Pell's Office, 1985 to 1991 Jones served as Special Assistant to Pell from January 1985 until March 1991 "with the purpose of investigating consciousness research being conducted in other countries, primarily the [USSR](/places/soviet-union/)."[^2] The Washington Times reported in 1989 that Pell "has a full-time staff member, C.B. Scott Jones, whose exclusive job is to monitor reports of psychic activities."[^5] The United Press International, summarizing the Providence Sunday Journal of July 17, 1988, reported that Jones "retains a top secret security clearance and earns nearly $50,000 a year on the public payroll," and that Jones said the senator wanted scientists to have a fair chance at funding for the research.[^6] The two reports give the figures differently. The UPI summary says "nearly $50,000 a year"; the version of C. Eugene Emery Jr.'s Providence Journal story printed in *The San Francisco Examiner* of August 13, 1988 states the amount as $48,853 a year, describes Jones as "Pell's point man" in the effort to make the government more receptive to paranormal research, and says that in his spare time he was a UFO enthusiast who ran a psychic-research center out of his home. Both give the clearance as top secret (the Examiner prints "top-secret security clearance").[^7] The *Winston-Salem Journal* of July 18, 1988, also summarizing the Providence Journal, described Jones as a former naval intelligence officer and one of Pell's "government-paid researchers" who researched telepathy, unconventional healing and near-death experiences.[^8] Jones used a Senate office and stationery; U.S. News and World Report of December 5, 1988 mentioned Pell and Jones, and in 1991 a personal letter from Jones to "Dear Dick" Dick Cheney was published in Harper's Magazine (January 1991, p. 25).[^3] The University of Rhode Island's register of the Pell Senatorial Papers lists three files titled "Human Potential Foundation: Scott Jones File" (1987; 1987 to 1994; 1988 to 1991) in the subject file series.[^9] ### The White Paper of 1992 "Will the Real Scott Jones Please Stand Up?," dated February 20, 1992 and credited to Robert J. Durant, appears in the [CIA](/organizations/central-intelligence-agency/) reading room as CIA-RDP96-00792R000400300004-7; a note at its end states that George P. Hansen co-authored it without his name appearing.[^3] It opens by describing Jones as "the Renaissance Man of the Paranormal." Its claims, attributed to Durant, include that Jones chaired a panel and acted as liaison to "the Prince of Liechtenstein who was the major benefactor of the conference," at the TREAT II abduction conference at Virginia Tech in January 1990 organized by Rima Laibow; that MUFON appointed him Special Consultant in International Relations in 1989; that in 1991 he told the Chinese officials he visited about UFOs, in a story he later told at the Omega conference, that his questions were taken for pretense, and that metal given to him there proved to be debris from an electrical transmission tower; that he delivered "Government UFO Connections" at the 1991 MUFON symposium and there said he "honestly did not know of any activity of the [U.S. government](/organizations/us-government/)" on UFOs; and that he spoke approvingly of [William L. Moore](/people/william-l-moore/) and met Moore and [Richard Doty](/people/richard-doty/) while on Pell's payroll.[^3] The paper also relates a story that Lee Graham, an Aerojet technician, told Don Ecker and Durant: after an [FBI](/organizations/federal-bureau-of-investigation/) agent and an unidentified man visited Graham in 1987 and discussed the [MJ-12](/events/majestic-12/) papers, Jones telephoned Graham, said they had "a mutual acquaintance," and sent on Senate letterhead the Air Force biography of Major General Michael Kerby, the Air Force legislative liaison director, whom Graham recognized as the visitor. In the paper's account Jones explained that Kerby had called on Pell, noticed Jones, and told him of the visit because "Kerby knew of my interest in these matters"; Jones declined to elaborate. Durant also wrote that an unnamed informant learned that [Jaime Shandera](/people/jaime-shandera/) and Moore were in contact with Jones, and listed rumors, which the paper attributes to unnamed "Scott watchers," that Jones had asked parapsychologists about recruiting psychics for military intelligence, had been involved for years in classified research on electronic mind control, and had approached media representatives in 1986 about a UFO program offering secret government information. The paper also describes dolphin telepathy experiments by Jones with Colonel [John B. Alexander](/people/john-b-alexander/) and Theodore Rockwell. The paper states of Jones's organizations that the Human Potential Foundation was established in 1989, was housed in the Vienna, Virginia, offices of the law firm Sandground Barondess and West with Mark Sandground and Pell on its board, and was "reportedly funded by Laurance Rockefeller."[^3] ### Human Potential Foundation, 1989 to 1998 Jones left Pell's staff in March 1991 and ran the Foundation until its dissolution in 1998.[^2] The Foundation's primary donor in its first two and a half years was Laurance Rockefeller, "whose support was conditional with a program designed to get the [United States](/places/united-states/) government to acknowledge the existence of alien life."[^2] Jones wrote as its president to John Gibbons at the [Office of Science and Technology Policy](/organizations/office-of-science-and-technology-policy/) from 1993 to 1995, to Representative Steven Schiff, and in August 1995 to the congressional leadership; the letters are described under the [Rockefeller Initiative](/programs/rockefeller-initiative/).[^10] Dinah Eng's wire story of May 1995 on the Foundation's conference "When Cosmic Cultures Meet" (May 27 to 29, Washington) identified Jones as the Foundation's president and as a former naval intelligence officer who served on Pell's staff; it reported that the program would examine contact with extraterrestrials rather than debate whether intelligent life exists elsewhere, and quoted Jones as saying he had "no doubt that intelligent life exists elsewhere" and that there was "an extraordinary amount of fear associated with this phenomena."[^11] In a letter of February 17, 1994 he wrote to Gibbons: "My mention of mind-control technology at the February 4 meeting was quite deliberate. Please be careful about this. There are reasons to believe that some government group has interwoven research about this technology with alleged UFO phenomena."[^12] In his letter of August 11, 1994, after describing a conference of the Institute of Noetic Sciences in [Chicago](/places/chicago/) and Pell's seat on its board, he advised Gibbons to speak with James Woolsey; the passage that follows (the scan is torn) reports that Woolsey had a document search under way in his agency that had found nothing of significance, and quotes the statement: "If I had the responsibility to run a super safe black program on this subject, I would take it completely out of the government's [...] and run it from the private sector, probably somewhere within [the] aerospace community, or perhaps General Motors."[^13] A handwritten note signed "JHG" and dated 3/29/94 on the same letter reads: "Scott Jones used to be associated with Senator Pell. He was formerly a Navy pilot. The Human Potential Foundation is funded in part, I believe, by L.R."[^12] Jones presented a talk on exopolitics in Hawaii in June 2006.[^14] He founded the Peace and Emergency Action Coalition for Earth in 1998, which received its [Internal Revenue Service](/organizations/internal-revenue-service/) ruling in October 1998.[^2][^15] [^1]: Archives for the Unexplained, "Jones, C. B. Scott" (reproducing the obituary in the *Kerrville Daily Times*: born February 19, 1928, Emporia, Kansas, to Cecil Beam Jones Sr.; died January 16, 2023), https://anomalyarchives.org/collections/file/jones-c-b-scott/. [^2]: University of Colorado Boulder Libraries, Rare and Distinctive Collections, "C. B. 'Scott' Jones papers," COU:4004, biographical note, scope note, and Series 1 and 4 descriptions, https://archives.colorado.edu/repositories/2/resources/346, read in the Wayback Machine capture of June 2024 (the live site blocks automated downloads). [^3]: Robert J. Durant, "Will the Real Scott Jones Please Stand Up?" (February 20, 1992), CIA-RDP96-00792R000400300004-7, https://cia.gov/readingroom/node/1697635; text read at http://www.tricksterbook.com/ArticlesOnline/ScottJonesWhitePaper.pdf. Hostile to Jones; sole source for the passages so cited (the Graham and Kerby episode rests on Graham's and Jones's statements as relayed by Durant; the "rumors" are unattributed). [^4]: Grant Cameron, "Extraterrestrial Politics in the Clinton White House (1993-2001) and the Rockefeller Initiative," note iii, Wayback Machine capture of May 28, 2014, http://web.archive.org/web/20140528091234/http://www.x-ppac.org/OSTP.html. [^5]: Tom Kelly, "In search of modern Merlins: Psychics gain wider credibility," *Washington Times*, June 26, 1989 (date per archive metadata), CIA-RDP96-00787R000200080027-5, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp96-00787r000200080027-5. [^6]: United Press International, "Pell keen on psychic research," July 17, 1988, https://www.upi.com/Archives/1988/07/17/Pell-keen-on-psychic-research/3613585115200/. [^7]: C. Eugene Emery Jr., "Sen. Pell flirts with phenomena on the fringe, UFOs, psychics," *The San Francisco Examiner* (from the Providence Journal), August 13, 1988, p. B-12 (newspapers.com p. 22), https://www.newspapers.com/image/461248717/. [^8]: "Pell Probing Psychic Phenomena," *Winston-Salem Journal*, July 18, 1988, p. 2, https://www.newspapers.com/image/939997164/. [^9]: University of Rhode Island Library Special Collections, "Register to the Senatorial Papers of Claiborne Pell: Subject File," Mss. Gr. 71.4, box 42, folders 464 to 466, https://webarchives.apps.uri.edu/Pell%20XML%20Files/pell/Mss.%20Gr.%2071.4b.html. [^10]: Letters of Jones to Gibbons, February 17, 1994, May 26, 1994, June 13, 1994, August 11, 1994, December 2 and 13, 1994, March 31, 1995 and August 23, 1995, and Jones to Schiff, August 17, 1995, at http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller_Initiative_Documents.htm. [^11]: Dinah Eng, "The day that cosmic cultures meet," *Pensacola News Journal*, May 17, 1995, p. 7, https://www.newspapers.com/image/267898730/; the same text appeared as "Conferees seek plan for dealing with 'Them'," *The News-Star* (Monroe, La.), May 19, 1995, p. 13, https://www.newspapers.com/image/1245983088/. [^12]: Jones to Gibbons, February 17, 1994, with Gibbons's note signed JHG and dated 3/29/94, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-2-17-94.htm. [^13]: Jones to Gibbons, August 11, 1994, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-8-11-94.htm. The speaker of the "super safe black program" sentence is not named on the surviving scan; the context (the letter's next sentence begins "Apparently Woolsey believes") indicates Woolsey as the person quoted by Jones. [^14]: Archives for the Unexplained, "Jones, C. B. Scott," as in note 1 (list of further resources, including a Hawaii presentation of June 2006). [^15]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, Peace and Emergency Action Coalition for Earth (EIN 74-2888837), https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/organizations/742888837.json.