---
alias:
- Morris K. Jessup
- Morris Ketchum Jessup
- M. K. Jessup
- Dr. M. K. Jessup
- Dr. Jessup
- Jessup
category: UFO & Anomalous Phenomena
created: 2026-10-02
location: Miami, Florida
relations:
- fn: 3
  role: annotated copy of his paperback received at ONR and passed to Special Projects
    officers (Varo Edition introduction dates the postmark 1955, Barker dates it April
    1956)
  start: 1955
  type: subject_of
  with: '[[Office of Naval Research]]'
- fn: 2
  role: Varo retyped the annotated paperback; Barker wrote that Jessup was called
    in by Varo, shown the book and given several copies
  type: subject_of
  with: '[[Varo Manufacturing Company]]'
summary: Author of The Case for the UFO (1955), whose annotated paperback reached
  the Office of Naval Research and was retyped by Varo; he died in Dade County, Florida,
  on April 20, 1959.
tags:
- Person
- UFO
- Astronomer
- ONR
- PhiladelphiaExperiment
- VaroEdition
updated: 2026-10-03
---

Morris Ketchum Jessup (born March 2, 1900) wrote four books on unidentified flying objects, the first of which, The Case for the UFO, was published in 1955.[^1][^2] A copy of the paperback reprint carrying handwritten annotations in three inks reached the [Office of Naval Research](/organizations/office-of-naval-research/) (ONR), and the [Varo Manufacturing Company](/organizations/varo-manufacturing-company/) of Garland, Texas retyped it with the annotations in red type for a small number of copies, now called the Varo Edition or Annotated Edition.[^3] Gray Barker wrote that on the evening of April 20, 1959, Jessup died in his station wagon in a Dade County, Florida park from automobile exhaust piped in by hose, and described the death as a suicide; he added that after the death ufologists began delving into it and into its connection with the book.[^2]

### Education and early work

The jacket of The Case for the UFO describes Jessup as a former instructor in astronomy and mathematics at the University of Michigan and Drake University who completed a doctoral thesis in astrophysics at Michigan. Barker wrote in 1973 that the jacket does not say whether the degree was awarded, that Jessup never used the title "Doctor" on his covers or in correspondence, and that "very likely Jessup was never actually awarded the degree."[^2] The jacket credits him with discovering several thousand physical double stars catalogued in the Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society, a United States Department of Agriculture assignment to study sources of crude rubber in the headwaters of the Amazon River, Maya archaeological work for the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and exploration of Inca ruins in [Peru](/places/peru/), where he concluded the stonework had been "erected by the levitating power of space ships in antediluvian times." A final jacket paragraph describes a group of craters on the [Mexican](/places/mexico/) plateau he believed to have been made by objects from space. According to James W. Moseley, former publisher of Saucer News, Jessup sought university, foundation and private sponsorship for the crater study and did not obtain it.[^2]

### The Case for the UFO

The first edition appeared from Citadel Press in 1955.[^1] Barker wrote that the book "came and went with relatively few sales" and that its publisher sold the remainder to second-hand bookstores at one dollar each; he also wrote that it was a paperback edition "published in 1955 by Bantam Books" that "enmeshed Jessup in one of the most bizarre mysteries in UFO history," and that permission to reproduce the text was obtained "both from the author and the publisher, Citadel Press."[^2] Barker counted four Jessup books on the subject in all.[^2] The Varo transcription reproduces the text of the paperback that carried the annotations.[^3]

### The Allende letters

Jessup received the first of two letters from a man who signed himself Carlos Miguel Allende on Friday, January 13, 1956, in [Miami](/places/miami/). It was postmarked Gainesville, Texas, in an envelope of the Turner Hotel, Gainesville. It is addressed from "R. D. #1 Box 223, New Kensington, Penn." and signed "Carl M. Allen." The letter says that "the result was complete invisibility of a ship, Destroyer type, and all of its crew While at Sea. (Oct. 1943)," that half the officers and crew were afterward "Mad as Hatters," that two men "Froze" and "caught fire" while carrying small-boat compasses and "BURNED FOR 18 DAYS," and that another walked through his quarters wall in sight of his wife and child and was never seen again. It tells Jessup to check Philadelphia newspapers of 1944 to 1946 for a paragraph on sailors raiding a bar near the Philadelphia Navy Yard, and to check the crew of a Matson Navigation Company Liberty ship out of Norfolk, Virginia, transcribed as the S.S. "Andrew Furnseth," naming a chief mate "Mowsely" and a crewman Richard "Splicey" Price of Roanoke, Virginia, who "Were Witnesses." A postscript gives a number, "Z416175." A second part, "Days Later," advises him to "contact Rear Admiral Ransom Bennett for verification of info herein. Navy Chief of research. He may offer you a job, ultimately."[^4]

The introduction to the Varo Edition states that a second Allende letter was postmarked Du Bois, Pennsylvania, on May 25, 1956, and that Jessup said he "had felt from the first that this man was the one who mailed the book to the Navy."[^3] The unsigned introduction reasons from handwriting, spelling and phrasing that the writer of the letters was the annotator it calls Mr. A.[^3] Barker wrote that his own interest began after he heard of Jessup's death and that his findings became the 1963 book The Strange Case of Dr. M. K. Jessup, published by Saucerian Books and reprinted in 1965 and 1967.[^2]

### The annotated copy and the Navy

The introduction to the Varo Edition gives the following sequence. The annotated paperback, addressed to "Admiral N. Furth, Chief, Office of Naval Research, Washington 25, D.C.," arrived in a manila envelope postmarked Seminole, Texas, 1955, bearing the words "Happy Easter." In July or August of that year it appeared in the incoming correspondence of Major Darrell L. Ritter, USMC, of the Aeronautical Project Office at ONR. When Captain Sidney Sherby "reported aboard at ONR" he obtained the book from Ritter, and Sherby and Commander George W. Hoover, Special Projects Officer at ONR, "indicated direct interest in some of the material therein." The introduction opens with the sentence "Because of the importance which we attach to the possibility of discovering clues to the nature of gravity, no possible item, however disreputable from the point of view of classical science, should be overlooked." The Varo Manufacturing Company, Garland, Texas, "offered to re-publish the book together with all notations in a very limited edition as a prelude to consideration of further pursuit of this unconventional material," and its president's secretary, Miss Michael Ann Dunn, retyped it, preserving the three ink colors by type and footnotes.[^3]

Barker's preface to the 1973 facsimile gives a different sequence. He wrote that Varo's involvement "began a few months after February 1956," that "in April of that year" Admiral N. Furth, Chief of the Office of Naval Research, received the envelope, and that the history "from a confidential source" next surfaces in July or August of the same year, when the paperback was passed to Major Darrel L. Ritter, USMC, Aeronautical Project Officer of ONR; he wrote that Captain Sherby then joined ONR and, with Hoover, "indicated interest in the book," and that Sherby and Hoover "were deeply involved in satellite development." The January 1956 issue of Naval Research Reviews, ONR's house publication, reports that Rear Admiral Rawson Bennett II relieved Rear Admiral Frederick R. Furth as Chief of Naval Research on December 31, 1955; that Furth, "piped ashore" after two years as Chief, requested retirement from the Navy after thirty years' service; that his duties had included the "Vanguard" satellite project; and that he was to join the [International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation](/organizations/itt-corporation/) as a civilian.[^5] Barker added that Furth's reactions were unknown. He offered two theories, that senior officers had arranged the printing through a contractor to avoid publicity, or that Sherby and Hoover personally asked Varo as a favor; he wrote that the second was "the writer's best guess," and that Jessup was "called in by Varo and shown the book" and "given several copies." He stated that Varo said its personnel records failed to show Dunn's employment. Barker did not give the number of copies printed; he described the printing as "a very small run" and the volume as spiral bound, more than 200 pages, with each page run twice through an office duplicator, black ink for the text and red for the annotations.[^2]

The annotations are in three hands, identified in the introduction as Mr. A, Mr. B and "Jemi," and are said there to refer to two kinds of space people, "L-M's" and "S-M's," the first described as peaceful and the second as not, as well as undersea cities and a "stasis neutral." The introduction proposes that the writers were Gypsies and that two of them may have been twins.[^3] Barker wrote that a copy had been given to the late Bryant H. Reeves, an author published by Ray Palmer; that Riley H. Crabb, director of Borderland Sciences Research Foundation, told him he saw it while visiting Reeves in Virginia Beach, Virginia, that Crabb said he and Reeves felt "under surveillance," and that a loaned copy Crabb posted to himself in [California](/places/california/) was lost in the mail.[^2]

### Death

Barker's 1973 preface opens with the statement that "on the evening of April 20, 1959, an astronomer committed suicide in Dade County Park, Florida," that he inhaled automobile exhaust which he had run by hose from the tail pipe into his station wagon, and that he died "unheralded and almost unrecognized in his discipline."[^2] The coroner's file was not available for this draft. The [Miami Herald](/organizations/miami-herald/) of April 22, 1959 reported under the headline "Author A Suicide, Police Say" that Metro detectives said on Tuesday, April 21, that Morris K. Jessup, 59, an astronomer and author of several books on flying space objects, had committed suicide by asphyxiating himself; that his body was found on Monday, April 20, in his parked car at Matheson Hammock; and that investigators said a hose ran from the car's exhaust pipe to the inside of the automobile. The item states that he was survived by his wife, Ruby, that he lived at 1531 Saragossa Avenue in [Coral Gables](/places/coral-gables-florida/), having moved there six months earlier, and that he was a onetime instructor at the University of Michigan and Drake University and the author of The Case for the UFO, a 1955 publication, with another book on outer space flight before his publishers at his death. It gives no time of death and does not mention Varo or Allende. The Herald calls the vehicle a car and gives Monday as the day of discovery; Barker calls it a station wagon and gives the evening of April 20 as the time of death.[^6] Barker added that a "tradition of bad luck or strange circumstances" attached to owners of the Varo Edition: a house destroyed by fire, the heart attack of Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, former head of [Project Blue Book](/programs/project-blue-book/), "allegedly shortly after he read a borrowed copy," and the early death of the author Robert Loftin. He wrote that "except for the deaths, this is purely hearsay."[^2] Barker also wrote that "at least two national magazine articles explored Jessup's death and his connection with the book," and that Brad Steiger published reduced reproductions of three pages in Saga magazine for November 1967, in the article "Fantastic Key to the Flying Saucer Mystery," from a microfilm copy owned by Stephen Yankee.[^2]

Barker acquired an original copy in 1971 from a friend of Jessup to whom Jessup had given one, decided in July 1972 to publish, and issued a facsimile through Saucerian Press in 1973, stating the run would be no more than 500 copies.[^2] The transcription at the Internet Archive was prepared by the Quantum Future Group of Castelnau-Barbarens, [France](/places/france/), in 2003.[^2]

[^1]: Morris K. Jessup, The Case for the UFO (New York: Citadel Press, 1955), catalog record, Internet Archive item caseforufo0000mkje (metadata: publisher Citadel, date 1955), https://archive.org/details/caseforufo0000mkje (lending copy, not read).
[^2]: Gray Barker, preface dated July 1973, in the same volume, pp. 2 to 6. Barker identified a "confidential source" for the ONR routing and did not name it.
[^3]: Unsigned "Introduction" to the Annotated Edition, in the same volume, pp. 7 to 9; Barker's preface states that the original gives no information on its authorship. Sole source for the passages so cited as to the routing of the book through ONR and the identity of the officers named.
[^4]: "Appendix: The first letter received by Mr. Jessup from Carlos Allende," and "Days Later," in M. K. Jessup, The Case for the UFO, Varo Edition, transcribed by the Quantum Future Group, Castelnau-Barbarens, 2003, from the Saucerian Press facsimile of 1973, pp. 15 to 18, https://archive.org/details/THECASEFORTHEUFOVaroEditionM.K.Jessup (djvu text, reread 2026-10-03).
[^5]: Naval Research Reviews, vol. 9, no. 1 (January 1956), cover caption and "New Chief of Naval Research" and "Admiral Furth Goes Ashore," pp. 22 to 23, Office of Naval Research, https://www.onr.navy.mil/media/document/naval-research-reviews-vol-9-no-1-january-1956 (reopened 2026-10-03).
[^6]: "Author A Suicide, Police Say," Miami Herald (Miami), April 22, 1959, p. 9, https://www.newspapers.com/image/619508003/