Thornton Leigh Page was an American professor of astronomy at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

and at

Wesleyan University Wesleyan University ( ) is a Private university, private liberal arts college, liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut, United States. It was founded in 1831 as a Men's colleges in the United States, men's college under the Methodi ...

. He became embroiled in the controversy over

unidentified flying objects An unidentified flying object (UFO) is an object or phenomenon seen in the sky but not yet identified or explained. The term was coined when United States Air Force (USAF) investigations into flying saucers found too broad a range of shape ...

(UFOs) after serving briefly on the

Robertson Panel The Robertson Panel was a scientific committee which met in January 1953 headed by Howard P. Robertson. The Panel arose from a recommendation to the Intelligence Advisory Committee (IAC) in December 1952 from a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) ...

, a

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

–sponsored committee of scientists assembled in

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

from 14–18 January 1953 to study the available evidence on UFOs.

Early life

Thornton Page was born in

New Haven, CT New Haven is a city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound. With a population of 135,081 as determined by the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. census, New Haven is List ...

on 13 August 1913 to Leigh Page, a physics instructor at

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

, and Mary Page, trained as a nurse. He went on to receive a B.S. in physics from Yale in 1934, and was named a

Rhodes Scholar The Rhodes Scholarship is an international Postgraduate education, postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford in Oxford, United Kingdom. The scholarship is open to people from all backgrounds around the world. Esta ...

, later earning a D.Phil. from

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

in 1938.

Military career

During World War II, he served in the Pacific Theater with the minelaying operations research group, serving in Guam, Tinian, and at sea. He was in Tokyo for the Japanese surrender, and had reported on the atomic tests at Bikini.

Professional career

After his WWII service, Thornton Page served as a professor of astrophysics for the University of Chicago from 1946 until 1950. He then worked for the U.S. Army's Operations Research Office (ORO) from 1951 until 1958. In 1952, Thornton Page became the first editor of ''Journal of the Operations Research Society of America''. As an astronomer for the ORO, he became embroiled in the controversy involving

Unidentified Flying Objects An unidentified flying object (UFO) is an object or phenomenon seen in the sky but not yet identified or explained. The term was coined when United States Air Force (USAF) investigations into flying saucers found too broad a range of shape ...

in 1953. In 1958, he became a professor and head of the astronomy department at

. He resigned from Wesleyan in 1971 and began working for the

United States Naval Research Laboratory The United States Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) is the corporate research laboratory for the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps. Located in Washington, DC, it was founded in 1923 and conducts basic scientific research, appl ...

until his retirement in 1976. He was elected to the 2002 class of

Fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...

s of the

Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) is an international society for practitioners in the fields of operations research Operations research () (U.S. Air Force Specialty Code: Operations Analysis), often s ...

Personal life

In late 1961, he was seriously injured in an automobile accident where he broke several bones and lost sight in one eye. He died in Houston on 2 January 1996.

References

External links

Exclusive interview with member of CIA panel on UFOs, Open Minds

{{DEFAULTSORT:Page, Thornton 1913 births 1996 deaths Yale University alumni Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford 20th-century American naval officers American Rhodes Scholars University of Chicago faculty Wesleyan University faculty American UFO writers 20th-century American astronomers Scientists from New Haven, Connecticut Fellows of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences