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Memorandum, for the D/CI
Subject: Air Force Request to Declassify CIA Material on Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO)
- The following is a brief review of events pertinent to the subject matter.
- In 1953 0SI convened a panel of scientists to consider reports on unidentified flying objects and to advise us on the potential threat to national security. This resulted in a report classified “secret.”
- In 1957 following some publicity on CIA involvement in the UFO problem, the USAF requested and obtained an unclassified version of the conclusions of the 1953 report. That version avoided mentioning CIA
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involvement. (See attachment A) - On 12 July 1966 USAF again requested declassification of the 1953 report, (jog attachment B) Prior publicity was given as justification for downgrading.
■ o. In as much as a sanitised version of the 1953 report had been released to the Air Force in 1957; we requested clarification in a meeting with an Air Force representative on 19 July. (See attachment C) During this meeting the Air Force representative showed us a USAF copy of the 1953 CIA report. It was stamped unclassified, indicating that the classification had been changed sometime prior to 19 July.
7- A new request dated 27 July was prepared by USAF. (See attachment D)
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Approved M Release 2004/03/26 : CIA-RDP81R0^0R000100040001-7 - On 10 August the Air Force representative called to ask about the status of our reply. She stated that i-ir. John Lear^. a newsman, had published on article on UFO’s in the Saturday Review. (See attachment E, paragraph 3) This was the first indication during the recent interchanges that the US/J wanted to release the complete CIA report to the public.
- On 15 August a declassified version of the complete 1953 report was forwarded to the Air Force. (See attachment F)
- Prior to USAF receipt of the 0SI reply, the Air Force called twice on 16 August to determine the status of our response and to ask about the extent of the sanitizing.
- They called again on 18 August to request return of the USAF copy of the CIA report which had been sent to us for sanitizing. (See attachment (1)
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^dddijtiv^’ui^ce:
0SI/D6D/ACM3:
ch/7621 (1 September 66)
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COMMENTS AND SUGGESTIONS OF UFO PANEL
General.
The Panel Members were impressed with the lack of sound data in the great majority of case histories. Among the case histories of significant sightings discussed in detail were the following:
Bellefontaine, Ohio (1 August 1952); Tremonton, Utah (2 July 1952); Great Falls, Montana (15 August 1950); Yaak, Montana (1 September 1952); Washington, D.C. area (19 July 1952); and Haneda A.F.B., Japan (5 August 1952), Port Huron, Michigan (29 July 1952); and Presque Isle, Maine (10 October 1952).
After review and discussion of these cases (and about 15 others, in less detail), the Panel concluded that reasonable explanations could be suggested for most sightings and ”by deduction and scientific method it could be induced (given additional data) that other cases might be explained in a similar manner”. The Panel pointed out that because of the brevity of some sightings (e.g., 2-3 seconds) and the inability of the witnesses to express themselves clearly (semantics) that conclusive explanations could not be expected for every case reported. Furthermore, it was considered that, normally, it would be a great waste of effort to try to solve most of the sightings, unless such
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action would benefit a training and educational program (see below). The writings of Charles Fort were referenced to show that ’’strange things in the sky” had been recorded for hundreds of years. It appeared obvious that there was no single explanation for a majority of the things seen.
On Lack of Danger.
The Panel concluded unanimously that there was no evidence of a direct threat to national security in the objects sighted. Instances of “Foo Fighters” were cited. These were unexplained phenomena sighted by aircraft pilots during World War II in both European and Far East theaters of operation wherein “balls of light” would fly near or with the aircraft and maneuver rapidly. They were believed to be electrostatic (similar to St. Elmo’s fire) or electromagnetic phenomena or possibly light reflections from ice crystals in the air, but their exact cause or nature was never defined. If the term “flying saucers” had been popular in 1943-1945, these objects would have been so labeled.
Air Force Reporting System.
It was the Panel’s opinion that some of the Air Force concern over UFO’s (notwithstanding Air Defense Command anxiety over fast radar tracks) was probably caused by public pressure. The result today is that the Air Force
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has instituted a fine channel for receiving reports of nearly anything anyone sees in the sky and fails to understand. This has been particularly encouraged in popular articles on this and other subjects, such as space travel and science fiction. The result is the mass receipt of low-grade reports which tend to overload channels of communication with material quite irrelevant to hostile objects that might some day appear. The Panel agreed generally that this mass of poor-quality reports containing little, if any, scientific data was of no value. Quite the opposite, it was possibly dangerous in having a military service foster public concern in “nocturnal meandering lights”. The implication being, since the interested agency was military, that these objects were or might be potential direct threats to national security. Accordingly, the need for deemphasization made itself apparent. Comments on a possible educational program are enumerated below.
It was the opinion of one of the Panel members that the “saucer” problem had been found to be different in nature from the detection and investigation of German V-l and V-2 guided missiles prior to their operational use in World War II. In this 1943-1944 intelligence operation (CROSSBOW}, there was excellent intelligence, and by June 3 ‘
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1944 there was material evidence of the existence of “hardware” obtained from crashed vehicles in Sweden. This evidence gave the investigating team a basis upon which to operate. The absence of any “hardware” resulting from unexplained UFO sightings lends a “will-of-the-wisp” nature to the problem. The results of the investigation, to date, strongly indicate that no evidence of hostile act or danger exists. Furthermore, the current reporting system would have little value in the case of detection of enemy attack by conventional aircraft or guided missiles; under such conditions “hardware” would be available almost at once.
Artifacts of Extraterrestial Origin,
It was interesting to note that none of the members of the Panel were loath to accept that this earth might be visited by extraterrestrial intelligence beings of some sort, some day. What they did not find was any evidence that related the objects sighted to space travelers. One of the Panel members, in his presentation, showed how he had eliminated each of the known and probable causes of sightings leaving him “extra-terrestial” as the only one remaining in many cases. His background as an aeronautical engineer and technical intelligence officer could not be slighted. However, the panel could not accept any of
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the cases
reports.
cited by him because they were raw, unevaluated
Terrestrial explanations of the sightingswere
suggested
in
some cases, and in others the time of sighting
was so sh
ort
as to cause suspicion of visual impressions.
It was no
ted
by others of the Panel members that extra-
al artifacts, if they did exist, are no cause for
terrestri
alarm; ra
ther, they are in the realm
of natural phenomena
subject t
o scientific study, just as
cosmic rays were
at
the time
of their discovery 20 to 30
years ago. This
was
an attitu
de in which another of the Panel members did
not
concur, a
he felt that such artifacts
would be of immediate
and great
concern not only to the U.S.
but to all countries.
(Nothing
like a common threat to unite
peoples’.) It was
noted
tha
t present astronomical knowledge of the solar system
makes
the
existence of intelligence’ beings (as we know the
term)
elsewhere than on the earth extremely unlikely, and
ntration of their attention by any controllable
the conce’
means confined to any one continent of the earth quite
preposterous.
Tremonton
, Utah, Sighting.
This case was considered significant because of the
excellent documentary evidence in the form of Kodachrome
motion picture films (about 1600 frames). The Panel
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studied these films, the case history, ATIC’s interpretation, and received a briefing by representatives of the USN Photo Interpretation Laboratory on their analysis of the film. This team had expended (at Air Force request) approximately 1000 man-hours of professional and sub-professional time in the preparation of graph plots of individual frames of the film, showing apparent and relative motion of objects and variation in their light intensity. It was the opinion of the P.I.L. representatives that the objects sighted were not birds, balloons or aircraft were “not reflections because there was no blinking while passing through 60° of arc” and were,
therefore, “self-luminous”. Plots of motion and variation in light intensity of the objects were displayed. While the Panel Members were impressed by the evident enthusiasm, industry and extent of effort of the P.I.L. team, they would not accept the conclusions reached. Some of the reasons for this were as follows:
a. A semi-spherical object can readily prot dally great sightings should : the possible use anId be kept in upon the history – could be ” summer. rCDR000100040001-7
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