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CIA's Role in the Study of UFO's, 1947- 1990


CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs

This article from the CIA journal Studies in Intelligence was
released to the public in the summer of 1997. The report, by
intelligence community historian Gerald K. Haines, reviews the
"CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-1990," and explains how
U.S. officials lied to the public about top secret spy planes that
were reported as UFOs.

Quick Index:

Background
Early CIA Concerns, 1947-52
The Robertson Panel, 1952-53
The 1950s: Fading CIA Interest in UFOs
CIA's U-2 and OXCART as UFOs
The 1960s: Declining CIA Involvement and Mounting Controversy
The 1970s and 1980s: The UFO Issue Refuses To Die
Notes


CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90

Gerald K. Haines

An extraordinary 95 percent of all Americans have at least heard or
read something about Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs), and 57
percent believe they are real. (1) Former US Presidents Carter and
Reagan claim to have seen a UFO. UFOlogists--a neologism for
UFO buffs--and private UFO organizations are found throughout
the United States. Many are convinced that the US Government,
and particularly CIA, are engaged in a massive conspiracy and
coverup of the issue. The idea that CIA has secretly concealed its
research into UFOs has been a major theme of UFO buffs since the
modern UFO phenomena emerged in the late 1940s. (2)

In late 1993, after being pressured by UFOlogists for the release of
additional CIA information on UFOs, (3) DCI R. James Woolsey
ordered another review of all Agency files on UFOs. Using CIA
records compiled from that review, this study traces CIA interest
and involvement in the UFO controversy from the late 1940s to
1990. It chronologically examines the Agency's efforts to solve the
mystery of UFOs, its programs that had an impact on UFO
sightings, and its attempts to conceal CIA involvement in the entire
UFO issue. What emerges from this examination is that, while
Agency concern over UFOs was substantial until the early 1950s,
CIA has since paid only limited and peripheral attention to the
phenomena.

Background

The emergence in 1947 of the Cold War confrontation between the
United States and the Soviet Union also saw the first wave of UFO
sightings. The first report of a "flying saucer" over the United States
came on 24 June 1947, when Kenneth Arnold, a private pilot and
reputable businessman, while looking for a downed plane sighted
nine disk-shaped objects near Mt. Rainier, Washington, traveling at
an estimated speed of over 1,000 mph. Arnold's report was
followed by a flood of additional sightings, including reports from
military and civilian pilots and air traffic controllers all over the
United States. (4) In 1948, Air Force Gen. Nathan Twining, head of
the Air Technical Service Command, established Project SIGN
(initially named Project SAUCER) to collect, collate, evaluate, and
distribute within the government all information relating to such
sightings, on the premise that UFOs might be real and of national
security concern. (5)

The Technical Intelligence Division of the Air Material Command
(AMC) at Wright Field (later Wright-Patterson Air Force Base) in
Dayton, Ohio, assumed control of Project SIGN and began its work
on 23 January 1948. Although at first fearful that the objects might
be Soviet secret weapons, the Air Force soon concluded that UFOs
were real but easily explained and not extraordinary. The Air Force
report found that almost all sightings stemmed from one or more of
three causes: mass hysteria and hallucination, hoax, or
misinterpretation of known objects. Nevertheless, the report
recommended continued military intelligence control over the
investigation of all sightings and did not rule out the possibility of
extraterrestrial phenomena. (6)

Amid mounting UFO sightings, the Air Force continued to collect
and evaluate UFO data in the late 1940s under a new project,
GRUDGE, which tried to alleviate public anxiety over UFOs via a
public relations campaign designed to persuade the public that
UFOs constituted nothing unusual or extraordinary. UFO sightings
were explained as balloons, conventional aircraft, planets, meteors,
optical illusions, solar reflections, or even "large hailstones."
GRUDGE officials found no evidence in UFO sightings of
advanced foreign weapons design or development, and they
concluded that UFOs did not threaten US security. They
recommended that the project be reduced in scope because the very
existence of Air Force official interest encouraged people to believe
in UFOs and contributed to a "war hysteria" atmosphere. On 27
December 1949, the Air Force announced the project's termination.
(7)

With increased Cold War tensions, the Korean war, and continued
UFO sightings, USAF Director of Intelligence Maj. Gen. Charles
P. Cabell ordered a new UFO project in 1952. Project BLUE
BOOK became the major Air Force effort to study the UFO
phenomenon throughout the 1950s and 1960s. (8) The task of
identifying and explaining UFOs continued to fall on the Air
Material Command at Wright-Patterson. With a small staff, the Air
Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC) tried to persuade the public
that UFOs were not extraordinary. (9) Projects SIGN, GRUDGE,
and BLUE BOOK set the tone for the official US Government
position regarding UFOs for the next 30 years.


Early CIA Concerns, 1947-52

CIA closely monitored the Air Force effort, aware of the mounting
number of sightings and increasingly concerned that UFOs might
pose a potential security threat. (10) Given the distribution of the
sightings, CIA officials in 1952 questioned whether they might
reflect "midsummer madness.'' (11) Agency officials accepted the
Air Force's conclusions about UFO reports, although they
concluded that "since there is a remote possibility that they may be
interplanetary aircraft, it is necessary to investigate each sighting."
(12)

A massive buildup of sightings over the United States in 1952,
especially in July, alarmed the Truman administration. On 19 and
20 July, radar scopes at Washington National Airport and Andrews
Air Force Base tracked mysterious blips. On 27 July, the blips
reappeared. The Air Force scrambled interceptor aircraft to
investigate, but they found nothing. The incidents, however, caused
headlines across the country. The White House wanted to know
what was happening, and the Air Force quickly offered the
explanation that the radar blips might be the result of "temperature
inversions." Later, a Civil Aeronautics Administration investigation
confirmed that such radar blips were quite common and were
caused by temperature inversions. (13)

Although it had monitored UFO reports for at least three years, CIA
reacted to the new rash of sightings by forming a special study
group within the Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI) and the
Office of Current Intelligence (OCI) to review the situation. (14)
Edward Tauss, acting chief of OSI's Weapons and Equipment
Division, reported for the group that most UFO sightings could be
easily explained. Nevertheless, he recommended that the Agency
continue monitoring the problem, in coordination with ATIC. He
also urged that CIA conceal its interest from the media and the
public, "in view of their probable alarmist tendencies" to accept
such interest as confirming the existence of UFOs. (15)

Upon receiving the report, Deputy Director for Intelligence (DDI)
Robert Amory, Jr. assigned responsibility for the UFO
investigations to OSI's Physics and Electronics Division, with A.
Ray Gordon as the officer in charge. (16) Each branch in the
division was to contribute to the investigation, and Gordon was to
coordinate closely with ATIC. Amory, who asked the group to
focus on the national security implications of UFOs, was relaying
DCI Walter Bedell Smith's concerns. (17) Smith wanted to know
whether or not the Air Force investigation of flying saucers was
sufficiently objective and how much more money and manpower
would be necessary to determine the cause of the small percentage
of unexplained flying saucers. Smith believed "there was only one
chance in 10,000 that the phenomenon posed a threat to the
security of the country, but even that chance could not be taken."
According to Smith, it was CIA's responsibility by statute to
coordinate the intelligence effort required to solve the problem.
Smith also wanted to know what use could be made of the UFO
phenomenon in connection with US psychological warfare efforts.
(18)

Led by Gordon, the CIA Study Group met with Air Force officials
at Wright-Patterson and reviewed their data and findings. The Air
Force claimed that 90 percent of the reported sightings were easily
accounted for. The other 10 percent were characterized as "a
number of incredible reports from credible observers." The Air
Force rejected the theories that the sightings involved US or Soviet
secret weapons development or that they involved "men from
Mars"; there was no evidence to support these concepts. The Air
Force briefers sought to explain these UFO reports as the
misinterpretation of known objects or little understood natural
phenomena. (19) Air Force and CIA officials agreed that outside
knowledge of Agency interest in UFOs would make the problem
more serious. (20) This concealment of CIA interest contributed
greatly to later charges of a CIA conspiracy and coverup.

Amateur photographs of alleged UFOs

Passoria, New Jersey, 31 July 1952 Sheffield, England, 4 March
1962 & Minneapolis, Minnesota, 20 October 1960


The CIA Study Group also searched the Soviet press for UFO
reports, but found none, causing the group to conclude that the
absence of reports had to have been the result of deliberate Soviet
Government policy. The group also envisioned the USSR's possible
use of UFOs as a psychological warfare tool. In addition, they
worried that, if the US air warning system should be deliberately
overloaded by UFO sightings, the Soviets might gain a surprise
advantage in any nuclear attack. (21)

Because of the tense Cold War situation and increased Soviet
capabilities, the CIA Study Group saw serious national security
concerns in the flying saucer situation. The group believed that the
Soviets could use UFO reports to touch off mass hysteria and panic
in the United States. The group also believed that the Soviets might
use UFO sightings to overload the US air warning system so that it
could not distinguish real targets from phantom UFOs. H. Marshall
Chadwell, Assistant Director of OSI, added that he considered the
problem of such importance "that it should be brought to the
attention of the National Security Council, in order that a
communitywide coordinated effort towards it solution may be
initiated." (22)

Chadwell briefed DCI Smith on the subject of UFOs in December
1952. He urged action because he was convinced that "something
was going on that must have immediate attention" and that
"sightings of unexplained objects at great altitudes and traveling at
high speeds in the vicinity of major US defense installations are of
such nature that they are not attributable to natural phenomena or
known types of aerial vehicles." He drafted a memorandum from the
DCI to the National Security Council (NSC) and a proposed NSC
Directive establishing the investigation of UFOs as a priority
project throughout the intelligence and the defense research and
development community. (23) Chadwell also urged Smith to
establish an external research project of top-level scientists to study
the problem of UFOs. (24) After this briefing, Smith directed DDI
Amory to prepare a NSC Intelligence Directive (NSCID) for
submission to the NSC on the need to continue the investigation of
UFOs and to coordinate such investigations with the Air Force.
(25)

The Robertson Panel, 1952-53

On 4 December 1952, the Intelligence Advisory Committee (IAC)
took up the issue of UFOs. (26) Amory, as acting chairman,
presented DCI Smith's request to the committee that it informally
discuss the subject of UFOs. Chadwell then briefly reviewed the
situation and the active program of the ATIC relating to UFOs. The
committee agreed that the DCI should "enlist the services of
selected scientists to review and appraise the available evidence in
the light of pertinent scientific theories" and draft an NSCID on the
subject. (27) Maj. Gen. John A. Samford, Director of Air Force
Intelligence, offered full cooperation. (28)

At the same time, Chadwell looked into British efforts in this area.
He learned the British also were active in studying the UFO
phenomena. An eminent British scientist, R. V. Jones, headed a
standing committee created in June 1951 on flying saucers. Jones'
and his committee's conclusions on UFOs were similar to those of
Agency officials: the sightings were not enemy aircraft but
misrepresentations of natural phenomena. The British noted,
however, that during a recent air show RAF pilots and senior
military officials had observed a "perfect flying saucer." Given the
press response, according to the officer, Jones was having a most
difficult time trying to correct public opinion regarding UFOs. The
public was convinced they were real. (29)

In January 1953, Chadwell and H. P. Robertson, a noted physicist
from the California Institute of Technology, put together a
distinguished panel of nonmilitary scientists to study the UFO
issue. It included Robertson as chairman; Samuel A. Goudsmit, a
nuclear physicist from the Brookhaven National Laboratories; Luis
Alvarez, a high-energy physicist; Thornton Page, the deputy
director of the Johns Hopkins Operations Research Office and an
expert on radar and electronics; and Lloyd Berkner, a director of
the Brookhaven National Laboratories and a specialist in
geophysics. (30)

The charge to the panel was to review the available evidence on
UFOs and to consider the possible dangers of the phenomena to US
national security. The panel met from 14 to 17 January 1953. It
reviewed Air Force data on UFO case histories and, after spending
12 hours studying the phenomena, declared that reasonable
explanations could be suggested for most, if not all, sightings. For
example, after reviewing motion-picture film taken of a UFO
sighting near Tremonton, Utah, on 2 July 1952 and one near Great
Falls, Montana, on 15 August 1950, the panel concluded that the
images on the Tremonton film were caused by sunlight reflecting
off seagulls and that the images at Great Falls were sunlight
reflecting off the surface of two Air Force interceptors. (31)

The panel concluded unanimously that there was no evidence of a
direct threat to national security in the UFO sightings. Nor could
the panel find any evidence that the objects sighted might be
extraterrestrials. It did find that continued emphasis on UFO
reporting might threaten "the orderly functioning" of the
government by clogging the channels of communication with
irrelevant reports and by inducing "hysterical mass behavior"
harmful to constituted authority. The panel also worried that
potential enemies contemplating an attack on the United States
might exploit the UFO phenomena and use them to disrupt US air
defenses. (32)

To meet these problems, the panel recommended that the National
Security Council debunk UFO reports and institute a policy of
public education to reassure the public of the lack of evidence
behind UFOs. It suggested using the mass media, advertising,
business clubs, schools, and even the Disney corporation to get the
message across. Reporting at the height of McCarthyism, the panel
also recommended that such private UFO groups as the Civilian
Flying Saucer Investigators in Los Angeles and the Aerial
Phenomena Research Organization in Wisconsin be monitored for
subversive activities. (33)

The Robertson panel's conclusions were strikingly similar to those
of the earlier Air Force project reports on SIGN and GRUDGE and
to those of the CIA's own OSI Study Group. All investigative
groups found that UFO reports indicated no direct threat to
national security and no evidence of visits by extraterrestrials.

Following the Robertson panel findings, the Agency abandoned
efforts to draft an NSCID on UFOs. (34) The Scientific Advisory
Panel on UFOs (the Robertson panel) submitted its report to the
IAC, the Secretary of Defense, the Director of the Federal Civil
Defense Administration, and the Chairman of the National Security
Resources Board. CIA officials said no further consideration of the
subject appeared warranted, although they continued to monitor
sightings in the interest of national security. Philip Strong and Fred
Durant from OSI also briefed the Office of National Estimates on
the findings. (35) CIA officials wanted knowledge of any Agency
interest in the subject of flying saucers carefully restricted, noting
not only that the Robertson panel report was classified but also that
any mention of CIA sponsorship of the panel was forbidden. This
attitude would later cause the Agency major problems relating to its
credibility. (36)




The 1950s: Fading CIA Interest in UFOs

After the report of the Robertson panel, Agency officials put the
entire issue of UFOs on the back burner. In May 1953, Chadwell
transferred chief responsibility for keeping abreast of UFOs to
OSI's Physics and Electronic Division, while the Applied Science
Division continued to provide any necessary support. (37) Todos
M. Odarenko, chief of the Physics and Electronics Division, did
not want to take on the problem, contending that it would require
too much of his division's analytic and clerical time. Given the
findings of the Robertson panel, he proposed to consider the
project "inactive" and to devote only one analyst part-time and a file
clerk to maintain a reference file of the activities of the Air Force
and other agencies on UFOs. Neither the Navy nor the Army
showed much interest in UFOs, according to Odarenko. (38)

A nonbeliever in UFOs, Odarenko sought to have his division
relieved of the responsibility for monitoring UFO reports. In 1955,
for example, he recommended that the entire project be terminated
because no new information concerning UFOs had surfaced.
Besides, he argued, his division was facing a serious budget
reduction and could not spare the resources. (39) Chadwell and
other Agency officials, however, continued to worry about UFOs.
Of special concern were overseas reports of UFO sightings and
claims that German engineers held by the Soviets were developing a
"flying saucer" as a future weapon of war. (40)

To most US political and military leaders, the Soviet Union by the
mid-1950s had become a dangerous opponent. Soviet progress in
nuclear weapons and guided missiles was particularly alarming. In
the summer of 1949, the USSR had detonated an atomic bomb. In
August 1953, only nine months after the United States tested a
hydrogen bomb, the Soviets detonated one. In the spring of 1953, a
top secret RAND Corporation study also pointed out the
vulnerability of SAC bases to a surprise attack by Soviet long-range
bombers. Concern over the danger of a Soviet attack on the United
States continued to grow, and UFO sightings added to the
uneasiness of US policymakers.

Mounting reports of UFOs over eastern Europe and Afghanistan
also prompted concern that the Soviets were making rapid progress
in this area. CIA officials knew that the British and Canadians were
already experimenting with "flying saucers." Project Y was a
Canadian-British-US developmental operation to produce a
nonconventional flying-saucer-type aircraft, and Agency officials
feared the Soviets were testing similar devices. (41)

Adding to the concern was a flying saucer sighting by US Senator
Richard Russell and his party while traveling on a train in the
USSR in October 1955. After extensive interviews of Russell and
his group, however, CIA officials concluded that Russell's sighting
did not support the theory that the Soviets had developed
saucerlike or unconventional aircraft. Herbert Scoville, Jr., the
Assistant Director of OSI, wrote that the objects observed probably
were normal jet aircraft in a steep climb. (42)

Wilton E. Lexow, head of the CIA's Applied Sciences Division,
was also skeptical. He questioned why the Soviets were continuing
to develop conventional-type aircraft if they had a "flying saucer."
(43) Scoville asked Lexow to assume responsibility for fully
assessing the capabilities and limitations of nonconventional
aircraft and to maintain the OSI central file on the subject of UFOs.




CIA's U-2 and OXCART as UFOs

In November 1954, CIA had entered into the world of high
technology with its U-2 overhead reconnaissance project. Working
with Lockheed's Advanced Development facility in Burbank,
California, known as the Skunk Works, and Kelly Johnson, an
eminent aeronautical engineer, the Agency by August 1955 was
testing a high-altitude experimental aircraft--the U-2. It could fly at
60,000 feet; in the mid-1950s, most commercial airliners flew
between 10,000 feet and 20,000 feet. Consequently, once the U-2
started test flights, commercial pilots and air traffic controllers
began reporting a large increase in UFO sightings. (44) (U)

The early U-2s were silver (they were later painted black) and
reflected the rays from the sun, especially at sunrise and sunset.
They often appeared as fiery objects to observers below. Air Force
BLUE BOOK investigators aware of the secret U-2 flights tried to
explain away such sightings by linking them to natural phenomena
such as ice crystals and temperature inversions. By checking with
the Agency's U-2 Project Staff in Washington, BLUE BOOK
investigators were able to attribute many UFO sightings to U-2
flights. They were careful, however, not to reveal the true cause of
the sighting to the public.

According to later estimates from CIA officials who worked on the
U-2 project and the OXCART (SR-71, or Blackbird) project, over
half of all UFO reports from the late 1950s through the 1960s were
accounted for by manned reconnaissance flights (namely the U-2)
over the United States. (45) This led the Air Force to make
misleading and deceptive statements to the public in order to allay
public fears and to protect an extraordinarily sensitive national
security project. While perhaps justified, this deception added fuel
to the later conspiracy theories and the coverup controversy of the
1970s. The percentage of what the Air Force considered
unexplained UFO sightings fell to 5.9 percent in 1955 and to 4
percent in 1956. (46)

At the same time, pressure was building for the release of the
Robertson panel report on UFOs. In 1956, Edward Ruppelt, former
head of the Air Force BLUE BOOK project, publicly revealed the
existence of the panel. A best-selling book by UFOlogist Donald
Keyhoe, a retired Marine Corps major, advocated release of all
government information relating to UFOs. Civilian UFO groups
such as the National Investigations Committee on Aerial
Phenomena (NICAP) and the Aerial Phenomena Research
Organization (APRO) immediately pushed for release of the
Robertson panel report. (47) Under pressure, the Air Force
approached CIA for permission to declassify and release the report.
Despite such pressure, Philip Strong, Deputy Assistant Director of
OSI, refused to declassify the report and declined to disclose CIA
sponsorship of the panel. As an alternative, the Agency prepared a
sanitized version of the report which deleted any reference to CIA
and avoided mention of any psychological warfare potential in the
UFO controversy. (48)

The demands, however, for more government information about
UFOs did not let up. On 8 March 1958, Keyhoe, in an interview
with Mike Wallace of CBS, claimed deep CIA involvement with
UFOs and Agency sponsorship of the Robertson panel. This
prompted a series of letters to the Agency from Keyhoe and Dr.
Leon Davidson, a chemical engineer and UFOlogist. They
demanded the release of the full Robertson panel report and
confirmation of CIA involvement in the UFO issue. Davidson had
convinced himself that the Agency, not the Air Force, carried most
of the responsibility for UFO analysis and that "the activities of the
US Government are responsible for the flying saucer sightings of
the last decade." Indeed, because of the undisclosed U-2 and
OXCART flights, Davidson was closer to the truth than he
suspected. CI, nevertheless held firm to its policy of not revealing
its role in UFO investigations and refused to declassify the full
Robertson panel report. (49)

In a meeting with Air Force representatives to discuss how to
handle future inquires such as Keyhoe's and Davidson's, Agency
officials confirmed their opposition to the declassification of the
full report and worried that Keyhoe had the ear of former DCI
VAdm. Roscoe Hillenkoetter, who served on the board of
governors of NICAP. They debated whether to have CIA General
Counsel Lawrence R. Houston show Hillenkoetter the report as a
possible way to defuse the situation. CIA officer Frank Chapin also
hinted that Davidson might have ulterior motives, "some of them
perhaps not in the best interest of this country," and suggested
bringing in the FBI to investigate. (50) Although the record is
unclear whether the FBI ever instituted an investigation of
Davidson or Keyhoe, or whether Houston ever saw Hillenkoetter
about the Robertson report, Hillenkoetter did resign from the
NICAP in 1962. (51)

The Agency was also involved with Davidson and Keyhoe in two
rather famous UFO cases in the 1950s, which helped contribute to
a growing sense of public distrust of CIA with regard to UFOs. One
focused on what was reported to have been a tape recording of a
radio signal from a flying saucer; the other on reported photographs
of a flying saucer. The "radio code" incident began innocently
enough in 1955, when two elderly sisters in Chicago, Mildred and
Marie Maier, reported in the Journal of Space Flight their
experiences with UFOs, including the recording of a radio program
in which an unidentified code was reportedly heard. The sisters
taped the program and other ham radio operators also claimed to
have heard the "space message." OSI became interested and asked
the Scientific Contact Branch to obtain a copy of the recording.
(52)

Field officers from the Contact Division (CD), one of whom was
Dewelt Walker, made contact with the Maier sisters, who were
"thrilled that the government was interested," and set up a time to
meet with them. (53) In trying to secure the tape recording, the
Agency officers reported that they had stumbled upon a scene from
Arsenic and Old Lace. "The only thing lacking was the elderberry
wine," Walker cabled Headquarters. After reviewing the sisters'
scrapbook of clippings from their days on the stage, the officers
secured a copy of the recording. (54) OSI analyzed the tape and
found it was nothing more than Morse code from a US radio
station.

The matter rested there until UFOlogist Leon Davidson talked with
the Maier sisters in 1957. The sisters remembered they had talked
with a Mr. Walker who said he was from the US Air Force.
Davidson then wrote to a Mr. Walker, believing him to be a US Air
Force Intelligence Officer from Wright-Patterson, to ask if the tape
had been analyzed at ATIC. Dewelt Walker replied to Davidson
that the tape had been forwarded to proper authorities for
evaluation, and no information was available concerning the
results. Not satisfied, and suspecting that Walker was really a CIA
officer, Davidson next wrote DCI Allen Dulles demanding to learn
what the coded message revealed and who Mr. Walker was. (55)
The Agency, wanting to keep Walker's identity as a CIA employee
secret, replied that another agency of the government had analyzed
the tape in question and that Davidson would be hearing from the
Air Force. (56) On 5 August, the Air Force wrote Davidson saying
that Walker "was and is an Air Force Officer" and that the tape
"was analyzed by another government organization." The Air Force
letter confirmed that the recording contained only identifiable
Morse code which came from a known US-licensed radio station.
(57)

Davidson wrote Dulles again. This time he wanted to know the
identity of the Morse operator and of the agency that had
conducted the analysis. CIA and the Air Force were now in a
quandary. The Agency had previously denied that it had actually
analyzed the tape. The Air Force had also denied analyzing the tape
and claimed that Walker was an Air Force officer. CIA officers,
under cover, contacted Davidson in Chicago and promised to get
the code translation and the identification of the transmitter, if
possible. (58)

In another attempt to pacify Davidson, a CIA officer, again under
cover and wearing his Air Force uniform, contacted Davidson in
New York City. The CIA officer explained that there was no super
agency involved and that Air Force policy was not to disclose who
was doing what. While seeming to accept this argument, Davidson
nevertheless pressed for disclosure of the recording message and
the source. The officer agreed to see what he could do. (59) After
checking with Headquarters, the CIA officer phoned Davidson to
report that a thorough check had been made and, because the signal
was of known US origin, the tape and the notes made at the time
had been destroyed to conserve file space. (60)

Incensed over what he perceived was a runaround, Davidson told
the CIA officer that "he and his agency, whichever it was, were
acting like Jimmy Hoffa and the Teamster Union in destroying
records which might indict them." (61) Believing that any more
contact with Davidson would only encourage more speculation, the
Contact Division washed its hands of the issue by reporting to the
DCI and to ATIC that it would not respond to or try to contact
Davidson again. (62) Thus, a minor, rather bizarre incident,
handled poorly by both CIA and the Air Force, turned into a major
flap that added fuel to the growing mystery surrounding UFOs and
CIA's role in their investigation.

Another minor flap a few months later added to the growing
questions surrounding the Agency's true role with regard to flying
saucers. CIA's concern over secrecy again made matters worse. In
1958, Major Keyhoe charged that the Agency was deliberately
asking eyewitnesses of UFOs not to make their sightings public.
(63)

The incident stemmed from a November 1957 request from OSI to
the CD to obtain from Ralph C. Mayher, a photographer for KYW-
TV in Cleveland, Ohio, certain photographs he took in 1952 of an
unidentified flying object. Harry Real, a CD officer, contacted
Mayher and obtained copies of the photographs for analysis. On 12
December 1957, John Hazen, another CD officer, returned the five
photographs of the alleged UFO to Mayher without comment.
Mayher asked Hazen for the Agency's evaluation of the photos,
explaining that he was trying to organize a TV program to brief the
public on UFOs. He wanted to mention on the show that a US
intelligence organization had viewed the photographs and thought
them of interest. Although he advised Mayher not to take this
approach, Hazen stated that Mayher was a US citizen and would
have to make his own decision as to what to do. (64)

Keyhoe later contacted Mayher, who told him his story of CIA and
the photographs. Keyhoe then asked the Agency to confirm Hazen's
employment in writing, in an effort to expose CIA's role in UFO
investigations. The Agency refused, despite the fact that CD field
representatives were normally overt and carried credentials
identifying their Agency association. DCI Dulles's aide, John S.
Earman, merely sent Keyhoe a noncommittal letter noting that,
because UFOs were of primary concern to the Department of the
Air Force, the Agency had referred his letter to the Air Force for an
appropriate response. Like the response to Davidson, the Agency
reply to Keyhoe only fueled the speculation that the Agency was
deeply involved in UFO sightings. Pressure for release of CIA
information on UFOs continued to grow. (65)

Although CIA had a declining interest in UFO cases, it continued
to monitor UFO sightings. Agency officials felt the need to keep
informed on UFOs if only to alert the DCI to the more sensational
UFO reports and flaps. (66)




The 1960s: Declining CIA Involvement and Mounting Controversy

In the early 1960s, Keyhoe, Davidson, and other UFOlogists
maintained their assault on the Agency for release of UFO
information. Davidson now claimed that CIA "was solely
responsible for creating the Flying Saucer furor as a tool for cold
war psychological warfare since 1951." Despite calls for
Congressional hearings and the release of all materials relating to
UFOs, little changed. (67)

In 1964, however, following high-level White House discussions
on what to do if an alien intelligence was discovered in space and a
new outbreak of UFO reports and sightings, DCI John McCone
asked for an updated CIA evaluation of UFOs. Responding to
McCone's request, OSI asked the CD to obtain various recent
samples and reports of UFO sightings from NICAP. With Keyhoe,
one of the founders, no longer active in the organization, CIA
officers met with Richard H. Hall, the acting director. Hall gave the
officers samples from the NICAP database on the most recent
sightings. (68)

After OSI officers had reviewed the material, Donald F.
Chamberlain, OSI Assistant Director, assured McCone that little
had changed since the early 1950s. There was still no evidence that
UFOs were a threat to the security of the United States or that they
were of "foreign origin." Chamberlain told McCone that OSI still
monitored UFO reports, including the official Air Force
investigation, Project BLUE BOOK. (69)

At the same time that CIA was conducting this latest internal
review of UFOs, public pressure forced the Air Force to establish a
special ad hoc committee to review BLUE BOOK. Chaired by Dr.
Brian O'Brien, a member of the Air Force Scientific Advisory
Board, the panel included Carl Sagan, the famous astronomer from
Cornell University. Its report offered nothing new. It declared that
UFOs did not threaten the national security and that it could find
"no UFO case which represented technological or scientific
advances outside of a terrestrial framework." The committee did
recommend that UFOs be studied intensively, with a leading
university acting as a coordinator for the project, to settle the issue
conclusively. (70)

The House Armed Services Committee also held brief hearings on
UFOs in 1966 that produced similar results. Secretary of the Air
Force Harold Brown assured the committee that most sightings
were easily explained and that there was no evidence that "strangers
from outer space" had been visiting Earth. He told the committee
members, however, that the Air Force would keep an open mind
and continue to investigate all UFO reports. (71)

Following the report of its O'Brien Committee, the House hearings
on UFOs, and Dr. Robertson's disclosure on a CBS Reports
program that CIA indeed had been involved in UFO analysis, the
Air Force in July 1966 again approached the Agency for
declassification of the entire Robertson panel report of 1953 and
the full Durant report on the Robertson panel deliberations and
findings. The Agency again refused to budge. Karl H. Weber,
Deputy Director of OSI, wrote the Air Force that "We are most
anxious that further publicity not be given to the information that
the panel was sponsored by the CIA." Weber noted that there was
already a sanitized version available to the public. (72) Weber's
response was rather shortsighted and ill considered. It only drew
more attention to the 13-year-old Robertson panel report and CIA's
role in the investigation of UFOs. The science editor of The
Saturday Review drew nationwide attention to the CIA's role in
investigating UFOs when he published an article criticizing the
"sanitized version" of the 1953 Robertson panel report and called
for release of the entire document. (73)

Unknown to CIA officials, Dr. James E. McDonald, a noted
atmospheric physicist from the University of Arizona, had already
seen the Durant report on the Robertson panel proceedings at
Wright-Patterson on 6 June 1966. When McDonald returned to
Wright-Patterson on 30 June to copy the report, however, the Air
Force refused to let him see it again, stating that it was a CIA
classified document. Emerging as a UFO authority, McDonald
publicly claimed that the CIA was behind the Air Force secrecy
policies and coverup. He demanded the release of the full
Robertson panel report and the Durant report. (74)

Bowing to public pressure and the recommendation of its own
O'Brien Committee, the Air Force announced in August 1966 that
it was seeking a contract with a leading university to undertake a
program of intensive investigations of UFO sightings. The new
program was designed to blunt continuing charges that the US
Government had concealed what it knew about UFOs. On 7
October, the University of Colorado accepted a $325,000 contract
with the Air Force for an 18-month study of flying saucers. Dr.
Edward U. Condon, a physicist at Colorado and a former Director
of the National Bureau of Standards, agreed to head the program.
Pronouncing himself an "agnostic" on the subject of UFOs,
Condon observed that he had an open mind on the question and
thought that possible extraterritorial origins were "improbable but
not impossible." (75) Brig. Gen. Edward Giller, USAF, and Dr.
Thomas Ratchford from the Air Force Research and Development
Office became the Air Force coordinators for the project.

In February 1967, Giller contacted Arthur C. Lundahl, Director of
CIA's National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC), and
proposed an informal liaison through which NPIC could provide
the Condon Committee with technical advice and services in
examining photographs of alleged UFOs. Lundahl and DDI R. Jack
Smith approved the arrangement as a way of "preserving a window"
on the new effort. They wanted the CIA and NPIC to maintain a
low profile, however, and to take no part in writing any conclusions
for the committee. No work done for the committee by NPIC was to
be formally acknowledged. (76)

Ratchford next requested that Condon and his committee be
allowed to visit NPIC to discuss the technical aspects of the
problem and to view the special equipment NPIC had for
photoanalysis. On 20 February 1967, Condon and four members of
his committee visited NPIC. Lundahl emphasized to the group that
any NPIC work to assist the committee must not be identified as
CIA work. Moreover, work performed by NPIC would be strictly of
a technical nature. After receiving these guidelines, the group heard
a series of briefings on the services and equipment not available
elsewhere that CIA had used in its analysis of some UFO
photography furnished by Ratchford. Condon and his committee
were impressed. (77)

Condon and the same group met again in May 1967 at NPIC to
hear an analysis of UFO photographs taken at Zanesville, Ohio.
The analysis debunked that sighting. The committee was again
impressed with the technical work performed, and Condon
remarked that for the first time a scientific analysis of a UFO would
stand up to investigation. (78) The group also discussed the
committee's plans to call on US citizens for additional photographs
and to issue guidelines for taking useful UFO photographs. In
addition, CIA officials agreed that the Condon Committee could
release the full Durant report with only minor deletions.

In April 1969, Condon and his committee released their report on
UFOs. The report concluded that little, if anything, had come from
the study of UFOs in the past 21 years and that further extensive
study of UFO sightings was unwarranted. It also recommended that
the Air Force special unit, Project BLUE BOOK, be discontinued.
It did not mention CIA participation in the Condon committee's
investigation. (79) A special panel established by the National
Academy of Sciences reviewed the Condon report and concurred
with its conclusion that "no high priority in UFO investigations is
warranted by data of the past two decades." It concluded its review
by declaring, "On the basis of present knowledge, the least likely
explanation of UFOs is the hypothesis of extraterrestrial visitations
by intelligent beings." Following the recommendations of the
Condon Committee and the National Academy of Sciences, the
Secretary of the Air Force, Robert C. Seamans, Jr., announced on
17 December 1969 the termination of BLUE BOOK. (80)




The 1970s and 1980s: The UFO Issue Refuses To Die

The Condon report did not satisfy many UFOlogists, who
considered it a coverup for CIA activities in UFO research.
Additional sightings in the early 1970s fueled beliefs that the CIA
was somehow involved in a vast conspiracy. On 7 June 1975,
William Spaulding, head of a small UFO group, Ground Saucer
Watch (GSW), wrote to CIA requesting a copy of the Robertson
panel report and all records relating to UFOs. (81) Spaulding was
convinced that the Agency was withholding major files on UFOs.
Agency officials provided Spaulding with a copy of the Robertson
panel report and of the Durant report. (82)

On 14 July 1975, Spaulding again wrote the Agency questioning
the authenticity of the reports he had received and alleging a CIA
coverup of its UFO activities. Gene Wilson, CIA's Information and
Privacy Coordinator, replied in an attempt to satisfy Spaulding, "At
no time prior to the formation of the Robertson Panel and
subsequent to the issuance of the panel's report has CIA engaged in
the study of the UFO phenomena." The Robertson panel report,
according to Wilson, was "the summation of Agency interest and
involvement in UFOs." Wilson also inferred that there were no
additional documents in CIA's possession that related to UFOs.
Wilson was ill informed. (83)

In September 1977, Spaulding and GSW, unconvinced by Wilson's
response, filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit
against the Agency that specifically requested all UFO documents
in CIA's possession. Deluged by similar FOIA requests for Agency
information on UFOs, CIA officials agreed, after much legal
maneuvering, to conduct a "reasonable search" of CIA files for
UFO materials. (84) Despite an Agency-wide unsympathetic
attitude toward the suit, Agency officials, led by Launie Ziebell
from the Office of General Counsel, conducted a thorough search
for records pertaining to UFOs. Persistent, demanding, and even
threatening at times, Ziebell and his group scoured the Agency.
They even turned up an old UFO file under a secretary's desk. The
search finally produced 355 documents totaling approximately 900
pages. On 14 December 1978, the Agency released all but 57
documents of about 100 pages to GSW. It withheld these 57
documents on national security grounds and to protect sources and
methods. (85)

Although the released documents produced no smoking gun and
revealed only a low-level Agency interest in the UFO phenomena
after the Robertson panel report of 1953, the press treated the
release in a sensational manner. The New York Times, for example,
claimed that the declassified documents confirmed intensive
government concern over UFOs and that the Agency was secretly
involved in the surveillance of UFOs. (86) GSW then sued for the
release of the withheld documents, claiming that the Agency was
still holding out key information. (87) It was much like the John F.
Kennedy assassination issue. No matter how much material the
Agency released and no matter how dull and prosaic the
information, people continued to believe in a Agency coverup and
conspiracy.

DCI Stansfield Turner was so upset when he read The New York
Times article that he asked his senior officers, "Are we in UFOs?"
After reviewing the records, Don Wortman, Deputy Director for
Administration, reported to Turner that there was "no organized
Agency effort to do research in connection with UFO phenomena
nor has there been an organized effort to collect intelligence on
UFOs since the 1950s." Wortman assured Turner that the Agency
records held only "sporadic instances of correspondence dealing
with the subject," including various kinds of reports of UFO
sightings. There was no Agency program to collect actively
information on UFOs, and the material released to GSW had few
deletions. (88) Thus assured, Turner had the General Counsel press
for a summary judgment against the new lawsuit by GSW. In May
1980, the courts dismissed the lawsuit, finding that the Agency had
conducted a thorough and adequate search in good faith. (89)

During the late 1970s and 1980s, the Agency continued its low-key
interest in UFOs and UFO sightings. While most scientists now
dismissed flying saucers reports as a quaint part of the 1950s and
1960s, some in the Agency and in the Intelligence Community
shifted their interest to studying parapsychology and psychic
phenomena associated with UFO sightings. CIA officials also
looked at the UFO problem to determine what UFO sightings might
tell them about Soviet progress in rockets and missiles and
reviewed its counterintelligence aspects. Agency analysts from the
Life Science Division of OSI and OSWR officially devoted a small
amount of their time to issues relating to UFOs. These included
counterintelligence concerns that the Soviets and the KGB were
using US citizens and UFO groups to obtain information on
sensitive US weapons development programs (such as the Stealth
aircraft), the vulnerability of the US air-defense network to
penetration by foreign missiles mimicking UFOs, and evidence of
Soviet advanced technology associated with UFO sightings.

CIA also maintained Intelligence Community coordination with
other agencies regarding their work in parapsychology, psychic
phenomena, and "remote viewing" experiments. In general, the
Agency took a conservative scientific view of these unconventional
scientific issues. There was no formal or official UFO project
within the Agency in the 1980s, and Agency officials purposely
kept files on UFOs to a minimum to avoid creating records that
might mislead the public if released. (90)

The 1980s also produced renewed charges that the Agency was still
withholding documents relating to the 1947 Roswell incident, in
which a flying saucer supposedly crashed in New Mexico, and the
surfacing of documents which purportedly revealed the existence of
a top secret US research and development intelligence operation
responsible only to the President on UFOs in the late 1940s and
early 1950s. UFOlogists had long argued that, following a flying
saucer crash in New Mexico in 1947, the government not only
recovered debris from the crashed saucer but also four or five alien
bodies. According to some UFOlogists, the government clamped
tight security around the project and has refused to divulge its
investigation results and research ever since. (91) In September
1994, the US Air Force released a new report on the Roswell
incident that concluded that the debris found in New Mexico in
1947 probably came from a once top secret balloon operation,
Project MOGUL, designed to monitor the atmosphere for evidence
of Soviet nuclear tests. (92)

Circa 1984, a series of documents surfaced which some UFOlogists
said proved that President Truman created a top secret committee in
1947, Majestic-12, to secure the recovery of UFO wreckage from
Roswell and any other UFO crash sight for scientific study and to
examine any alien bodies recovered from such sites. Most if not all
of these documents have proved to be fabrications. Yet the
controversy persists. (93)

Like the JFK assassination conspiracy theories, the UFO issue
probably will not go away soon, no matter what the Agency does or
says. The belief that we are not alone in the universe is too
emotionally appealing and the distrust of our government is too
pervasive to make the issue amenable to traditional scientific
studies of rational explanation and evidence.




Notes

(1) See the 1973 Gallup Poll results printed in The New York
Times, 29 November 1973, p. 45 and Philip J. Klass, UFOs: The
Public Deceived (New York: Prometheus Books, 1983), p. 3.

(2) See Klass, UFOs, p. 3; James S. Gordon, "The UFO
Experience," Atlantic Monthly (August 1991), pp. 82-92; David
Michael Jacobs, The UFO Controversy in America (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1975); Howard Blum, Out There: The
Government's Secret Quest for Extraterrestrials (New York: Simon
and Schuster, 1990); Timothy Good, Above Top Secret: The
Worldwide UFO Cover-Up (New York: William Morrow, 1987);
and Whitley Strieber, Communion: The True Story (New York:
Morrow, 1987).

(3) In September 1993 John Peterson, an acquaintance of
Woolsey's, first approached the DCI with a package of heavily
sanitized CIA material on UFOs released to UFOlogist Stanton T.
Friedman. Peterson and Friedman wanted to know the reasons for
the redactions. Woolsey agreed to look into the matter. See Richard
J. Warshaw, Executive Assistant, note to author, 1 November 1994;
Warshaw, note to John H. Wright, Information and Privacy
Coordinator, 31 January 1994; and Wright, memorandum to
Executive Secretariat, 2 March 1994. (Except where noted, all
citations to CIA records in this article are to the records collected
for the 1994 Agency-wide search that are held by the Executive
Assistant to the DCI).

(4) See Hector Quintanilla, Jr., "The Investigation of UFOs," Vol.
10, No. 4, Studies in Intelligence (fall 1966): pp.95-110 and CIA,
unsigned memorandum, "Flying Saucers," 14 August 1952. See
also Good, Above Top Secret, p. 253. During World War II, US
pilots reported "foo fighters" (bright lights trailing US aircraft).
Fearing they might be Japanese or German secret weapons, OSS
investigated but could find no concrete evidence of enemy weapons
and often filed such reports in the "crackpot" category. The OSS
also investigated possible sightings of German V-1 and V-2 rockets
before their operational use during the war. See Jacobs, UFO
Controversy, p. 33. The Central Intelligence Group, the predecessor
of the CIA, also monitored reports of "ghost rockets" in Sweden in
1946. See CIG, Intelligence Report, 9 April 1947.

(5) Jacobs, The UFO Controversy, p. 156 and Quintanilla, "The
Investigation of UFOs," p. 97.

(6) See US Air Force, Air Material Command, "Unidentified Aerial
Objects: Project SIGN, no. F-TR 2274, IA, February 1949, Records
of the US Air Force Commands, Activities and Organizations,
Record Group 341, National Archives, Washington, DC.

(7) See US Air Force, Projects GRUDGE and BLUEBOOK
Reports 1- 12 (Washington, DC; National Investigations
Committee on Aerial Phenomena, 1968) and Jacobs, The UFO
Controversy, pp. 50-54.

(8) See Cabell, memorandum to Commanding Generals Major Air
Commands, "Reporting of Information on Unconventional
Aircraft," 8 September 1950 and Jacobs, The UFO Controversy, p.
65.

(9) See Air Force, Projects GRUDGE and BLUE BOOK and
Jacobs, The UFO Controversy, p. 67.

(10) See Edward Tauss, memorandum for Deputy Assistant
Director, SI, "Flying Saucers," 1 August 1952. See also United
Kingdom, Report by the "Flying Saucer" Working Party,
"Unidentified Flying Objects," no date (approximately 1950).

(11) See Dr. Stone, OSI, memorandum to Dr. Willard Machle, OSI,
15 March 1949 and Ralph L. Clark, Acting Assistant Director,
OSI, memorandum for DDI, "Recent Sightings of Unexplained
Objects," 29 July 1952.

(12) Stone, memorandum to Machle. See also Clark, memorandum
for DDI, 29 July 1952.

(13) See Klass, UFOs, p. 15. For a brief review of the Washington
sightings see Good, Above Top Secret, pp. 269-271.

(14) See Ralph L. Clark, Acting Assistant Director, OSI,
memorandum to DDI Robert Amory, Jr., 29 July 1952. OSI and
OCI were in the Directorate of Intelligence. Established in 1948,
OSI served as the CIA's focal point for the analysis of foreign
scientific and technological developments. In 1980, OSI was
merged into the Office of Science and Weapons Research. The
Office of Current Intelligence (OCI), established on 15 January
1951 was to provide all-source current intelligence to the President
and the National Security Council.

(15) Tauss, memorandum for Deputy Assistant Director, SI (Philip
Strong), 1 August 1952.

(16) On 2 January 1952, DCI Walter Bedell Smith created a
Deputy Directorate for Intelligence (DDI) composed of six overt
CIA organizations--OSI, OCI, Office of Collection and
Dissemination, Office National Estimates, Office of Research and
Reports, and the Office of Intelligence Coordination--to produce
intelligence analysis for US policymakers.

(17) See Minutes of Branch Chief's Meeting, 11 August 1952.

(18) Smith expressed his opinions at a meeting in the DCI
Conference Room attended by his top officers. See Deputy Chief,
Requirements Staff, FI, memorandum for Deputy Director, Plans,
"Flying Saucers," 20 August 1952, Directorate of Operations
Records, Information Management Staff, Job 86-00538R, Box 1.

(19) See CIA memorandum, unsigned, "Flying Saucers," 11 August
1952.

(20) See CIA, memorandum, unsigned, "Flying Saucers," 14 August
1952.

(21) See CIA, memorandum, unsigned, "Flying Saucers," 19 August
1952.

(22) See Chadwell, memorandum for Smith, 17 September 1952
and 24 September 1952, "Flying Saucers." See also Chadwell,
memorandum for DCI Smith, 2 October 1952 and Klass, UFOs, pp.
23-26.

(23) Chadwell, memorandum for DCI with attachments, 2
December 1952. See also Klass, UFOs, pp. 26-27 and Chadwell,
memorandum, 25 November 1952.

(24) See Chadwell, memorandum, 25 November 1952 and
Chadwell, memorandum, "Approval in Principle - External
Research Project Concerned with Unidentified Flying Objects," no
date. See also Philip G. Strong, OSI, memorandum for the record,
"Meeting with Dr. Julius A. Stratton, Executive Vice President and
Provost, MIT and Dr. Max Millikan, Director of CENIS." Strong
believed that in order to undertake such a review they would need
the full backing and support of DCI Smith.

(25) See Chadwell, memorandum for DCI, ""Unidentified Flying
Objects," 2 December 1952. See also Chadwell, memorandum for
Amory, DDI, "Approval in Principle - External Research Project
Concerned with Unidentified Flying Objects," no date.

(26) The IAC was created in 1947 to serve as a coordinating body
in establishing intelligence requirements. Chaired by the DCI, the
IAC included representatives from the Department of State, the
Army, the Air Force, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the FBI, and the
AEC.

(27) See Klass, UFOs, p. 27.

(28) See Richard D. Drain, Acting Secretary, IAC, "Minutes of
Meeting held in Director's Conference Room, Administration
Building, CIA," 4 December 1952.

(29) See Chadwell, memorandum for the record, "British Activity
in the Field of UFOs," 18 December 1952.

(30) See Chadwell, memorandum for DCI, "Consultants for
Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects," 9 January 1953;
Curtis Peebles, Watch the Skies! A Chronicle of the Flying Saucer
Myth (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994). pp.
73-90; and Jacobs, The UFO Controversy, pp. 91-92.

(31) See Fred C. Durant III, Report on the Robertson Panel
Meeting, January 1953. Durant, on contract with OSI and a past
president of the American Rocket Society, attended the Robertson
panel meetings and wrote a summary of the proceedings.

(32) See Report of the Scientific Panel on Unidentified Flying
Objects (the Robertson Report), 17 January 1953 and the Durant
report on the panel discussions.

(33) See Robertson Report and Durant Report. See also Good,
Above Top Secret, pp. 337-38, Jacobs, The UFO Controversy, p.
95, and Klass, UFO's, pp. 28-29.

(34) See Reber, memorandum to IAC, 18 February 1953.

(35) See Chadwell, memorandum for DDI, "Unidentified Flying
Objects," 10 February 1953; Chadwell, letter to Robertson, 28
January 1953; and Reber, memorandum for IAC, "Unidentified
Flying Objects," 18 February 1953. On briefing the ONE, see
Durant, memorandum for the record, "Briefing of ONE Board on
Unidentified Flying Objects," 30 January 1953 and CIA Summary
disseminated to the field, "Unidentified Flying Objects," 6
February 1953.

(36) See Chadwell, letter to Julius A. Stratton, Provost MIT, 27
January 1953.

(37) See Chadwell, memorandum for Chief, Physics and
Electronics Division/OSI (Todos M. Odarenko), "Unidentified
Flying Objects," 27 May 1953.

(38) See Odarenko, memorandum to Chadwell, "Unidentified
Flying Objects," 3 July 1953. See also Odarenko, memorandum to
Chadwell, "Current Status of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOB)
Project," 17 December 1953.

(39) See Odarenko, memorandum, "Unidentified Flying Objects," 8
August 1955.

(40) See FBIS, report, "Military Unconventional Aircraft," 18
August 1953 and various reports, "Military-Air, Unconventional
Aircraft," 1953, 1954, 1955.

(41) Developed by the Canadian affiliate of Britain's A. V. Roe,
Ltd., Project Y did produce a small-scale model that hovered a few
feet off the ground. See Odarenko, memorandum to Chadwell,
"Flying Saucer Type of Planes" 25 May 1954; Frederic C. E. Oder,
memorandum to Odarenko, "USAF Project Y," 21 May 1954; and
Odarenko, T. M. Nordbeck, Ops/SI, and Sidney Graybeal, ASD/SI,
memorandum for the record, "Intelligence Responsibilities for Non-
Conventional Types of Air Vehicles," 14 June 1954.

(42) See Reuben Efron, memorandum, "Observation of Flying
Object Near Baku," 13 October 1955; Scoville, memorandum for
the record, "Interview with Senator Richard B. Russell," 27
October 1955; and Wilton E. Lexow, memorandum for
information, "Reported Sighting of Unconventional Aircraft," 19
October 1955.

(43) See Lexow, memorandum for information, "Reported Sighting
of Unconventional Aircraft," 19 October 1955. See also Frank C.
Bolser, memorandum for George C. Miller, Deputy Chief, SAD/SI,
"Possible Soviet Flying Saucers, Check On;" Lexow, memorandum,
"Possible Soviet Flying Saucers, Follow Up On," 17 December
1954; Lexow, memorandum, "Possible Soviet Flying Saucers," 1
December 1954; and A. H. Sullivan, Jr., memorandum, "Possible
Soviet Flying Saucers," 24 November 1954.

(44) See Gregory W. Pedlow and Donald E. Welzenbach, The
Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance: The U-
2 and OXCART Programs, 1954-1974 (Washington, DC: CIA
History Staff, 1992), pp. 72-73.

(45) See Pedlow and Welzenbach, Overhead Reconnaissance, pp.
72-73. This also was confirmed in a telephone interview between
the author and John Parongosky, 26 July 1994. Parongosky
oversaw the day-to-day affairs of the OXCART program.

(46) See Jacobs, The UFO Controversy, p.135.

(47) See Peebles, Watch the Skies, pp. 128-146; Ruppelt, The
Report on Unidentified Flying Objects (New York: Doubleday,
1956); Keyhoe, The Flying Saucer Conspiracy (New York: Holt,
1955); and Jacobs, The UFO Controversy, pp. 347-49.

(48) See Strong, letter to Lloyd W. Berkner; Strong, letter to
Thorton Page; Strong, letter to Robertson; Strong, letter to Samuel
Goudsmit; Strong, letter to Luis Alvarez, 20 December 1957; and
Strong, memorandum for Major James F. Byrne, Assistant Chief of
Staff, Intelligence Department of the Air Force, "Declassification of
the `Report of the Scientific Panel on Unidentified Flying
Objects,'" 20 December 1957. See also Berkner, letter to Strong, 20
November 1957 and Page, letter to Strong, 4 December 1957. The
panel members were also reluctant to have their association with
the Agency released.

(49) See Wilton E. Lexow, memorandum for the record,
"Comments on Letters Dealing with Unidentified Flying Objects,"
4 April 1958; J. S. Earman, letter to Major Lawrence J. Tacker,
Office of the Secretary of the Air Force, Information Service, 4
April 1958; Davidson, letter to Berkner, 8 April 1958; Berkner,
letter to Davidson, 18 April 1958; Berkner, letter to Strong, 21
April 1958; Davidson, letter to Tacker, 27 April 1958; Davidson,
letter to Allen Dulles, 27 April 1958; Ruppelt, letter to Davidson, 7
May 1958; Strong, letter to Berkner, 8 May 1958; Davidson, letter
to Berkner, 8 May 1958; Davidson, letter to Earman, 16 May 1958;
Davidson, letter to Goudsmit, 18 May 1958; Davidson, letter to
Page, 18 May 1958; and Tacker, letter to Davidson, 20 May 1958.

(50) See Lexow, memorandum for Chapin, 28 July 1958.

(51) See Good, Above Top Secret, pp. 346-47; Lexow,
memorandum for the record, "Meeting with the Air Force Personnel
Concerning Scientific Advisory Panel Report on Unidentified
Flying Objects, dated 17 January 1953 (S)," 16 May 1958. See also
La Rae L. Teel, Deputy Division Chief, ASD, memorandum for the
record, "Meeting with Mr. Chapin on Replying to Leon Davidson's
UFO Letter and Subsequent Telephone Conversation with Major
Thacker, [sic]" 22 May 1958.

(52) See Edwin M. Ashcraft, Chief, Contact Division (Scientific),
memorandum to Chief, Chicago Office, "Radio Code Recording," 4
March 1955 and Ashcraft, memorandum to Chief, Support Branch,
OSI, 17 March 1955.

(53) The Contact Division was created to collect foreign
intelligence information from sources within the United States. See
the Directorate of Intelligence Historical Series, The Origin and
Development of Contact Division, 11 July 1946,1 July 1965
(Washington, DC; CIA Historical Staff, June 1969).

(54) See George O. Forrest, Chief, Chicago Office, memorandum to
Chief, Contact Division for Science, 11 March 1955.

(55) See Support Division (Connell), memorandum to Dewelt E.
Walker, 25 April 1957.

(56) See J. Arnold Shaw, Assistant to the Director, letter to
Davidson, 10 May 1957.

(57) See Support (Connell) memorandum to Lt. Col. V. Skakich,
27 August 1957 and Lamountain, memorandum to Support
(Connell), 20 December 1957.

(58) See Lamountain, cable to Support (Connell), 31 July 1958.

(59) See Support (Connell) cable to Skakich, 3 October 1957 and
Skakich, cable to Connell, 9 October 1957.

(60) See Skakich, cable to Connell, 9 October 1957.

(61) See R. P. B. Lohmann, memorandum for Chief, Contact
Division, DO, 9 January 1958.

(62) See Support, cable to Skakich, 20 February 1958 and Connell
(Support) cable to Lamountain, 19 December 1957.

(63) See Edwin M. Ashcraft, Chief, Contact Division, Office of
Operations, memorandum for Austin Bricker, Jr., Assistant to the
Director, "Inquiry by Major Donald E. Keyhoe on John Hazen's
Association with the Agency," 22 January 1959.

(64) See John T. Hazen, memorandum to Chief, Contact Division,
12 December 1957. See also Ashcraft, memorandum to Cleveland
Resident Agent, "Ralph E. Mayher," 20 December 1957. According
to this memorandum, the photographs were viewed at "a high level
and returned to us without comment." The Air Force held the
original negatives. The CIA records were probably destroyed.

(65) The issue would resurface in the 1970s with the GSW FOIA
court case.

(66) See Robert Amory, Jr., DDI, memorandum for Assistant
Director/Scientific Intelligence, "Flying Saucers," 26 March 1956.
See also Wallace R. Lamphire, Office of the Director, Planning and
Coordination Staff, memorandum for Richard M. Bissell, Jr.,
"Unidentified Flying Saucers (UFO)," 11 June 1957; Philip Strong,
memorandum for the Director, NPIC, "Reported Photography of
Unidentified Flying Objects," 27 October 1958; Scoville,
memorandum to Lawrence Houston, Legislative Counsel, "Reply to
Honorable Joseph E. Garth," 12 July 1961; and Houston, letter to
Garth, 13 July 1961.

(67) See, for example, Davidson, letter to Congressman Joseph
Garth, 26 June 1961 and Carl Vinson, Chairman, House Committee
on Armed Services, letter to Rep. Robert A. Everett, 2 September
1964.

(68) See Maxwell W. Hunter, staff member, National Aeronautics
and Space Council, Executive Office of the President,
memorandum for Robert F. Parkard, Office of International
Scientific Affairs, Department of State, "Thoughts on the Space
Alien Race Question," 18 July 1963, File SP 16, Records of the
Department of State, Record Group 59, National Archives. See also
F. J. Sheridan, Chief, Washington Office, memorandum to Chief,
Contact Division, "National Investigation Committee on Aerial
Phenomena (NICAP)," 25 January 1965.

(69) Chamberlain, memorandum for DCI, "Evaluation of UFOs," 26
January 1965.

(70) See Jacobs, The UFO Controversy, p. 199 and US Air Force,
Scientific Advisory Board, Ad Hoc Committee (O'Brien
Committee) to Review Project BLUE BOOK, Special Report
(Washington, DC: 1966). See also The New York Times, 14
August 1966, p. 70.

(71) See "Congress Reassured on Space Visits," The New York
Times, 6 April 1966.

(72) Weber, letter to Col. Gerald E. Jorgensen, Chief, Community
Relations Division, Office of Information, US Air Force, 15 August
1966. The Durant report was a detailed summary of the Robertson
panel proceedings.

(73) See John Lear, "The Disputed CIA Document on UFOs,"
Saturday Review (September 3, 1966), p. 45. The Lear article was
otherwise unsympathetic to UFO sightings and the possibility that
extraterritorials were involved. The Air Force had been eager to
provide Lear with the full report. See Walter L. Mackey, Executive
Officer, memorandum for DCI, "Air Force Request to Declassify
CIA Material on Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO)," 1 September
1966.

(74) See Klass, UFOs, p. 40, Jacobs, The UFO Controversy, p. 214
and Everet Clark, "Physicist Scores `Saucer Status,'" The New
York Times, 21 October 1966. See also James E. McDonald,
"Statement on Unidentified Flying Objects," submitted to the
House Committee on Science and Astronautics, 29 July 1968.

(75) Condon is quoted in Walter Sullivan, "3 Aides Selected in
Saucer Inquiry," The New York Times, 8 October 1966. See also
"An Outspoken Scientist, Edward Uhler Condon," The New York
Times, 8 October 1966. Condon, an outgoing, gruff scientist, had
earlier become embroiled in a controversy with the House
Unamerican Activities Committee that claimed Condon was "one of
the weakest links in our atomic security." See also Peebles, Watch
the Skies, pp. 169-195.

(76) See Lundahl, memorandum for DDI, 7 February 1967.

(77) See memorandum for the record, "Visit of Dr. Condon to
NPIC, 20 February 1967," 23 February 1967. See also the analysis
of the photographs in memorandum for Lundahl, "Photo Analysis
of UFO Photography," 17 February 1967.

(78) See memorandum for the record, "UFO Briefing for Dr.
Edward Condon, 5 May 1967," 8 May 1967 and attached
"Guidelines to UFO Photographers and UFO Photographic
Information Sheet." See also Condon Committee, Press Release, 1
May 1967 and Klass, UFOs, p. 41. The Zaneville photographs
turned out to be a hoax.

(79) See Edward U. Condon, Scientific Study of Unidentified
Flying Objects (New York: Bantam Books, 1969) and Klass,
UFOs, p. 41. The report contained the Durant report with only
minor deletions.

(80) See Office of Assistant Secretary of Defense, News Release,
"Air Force to Terminate Project BLUEBOOK," 17 December 1969.
The Air Force retired BLUEBOOK records to the USAF Archives
at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. In 1976 the Air Force
turned over all BLUEBOOK files to the National Archives and
Records Administration, which made them available to the public
without major restrictions. Some names have been withheld from
the documents. See Klass, UFOs, p. 6.

(81) GSW was a small group of UFO buffs based in Phoenix,
Arizona, and headed by William H. Spaulding.

(82) See Klass, UFOs, p. 8.

(83) See Wilson, letter to Spaulding, 26 March 1976 and GSW v.
CIA Civil Action Case 78-859.

(84) GSW v. CIA Civil Action Case 78-859, p. 2.

(85) Author interview with Launie Ziebell, 23 June 1994 and
author interview with OSI analyst, 21 July 1994. See also affidavits
of George Owens, CIA Information and Privacy Act Coordinator;
Karl H. Weber, OSI; Sidney D. Stembridge, Office of Security; and
Rutledge P. Hazzard, DS&T GSW v. CIA Civil Action Case 78-
859 and Sayre Stevens, Deputy Director for National Foreign
Assessment, memorandum for Thomas H. White, Assistant for
Information, Information Review Committee, "FOIA Litigation
Ground Saucer Watch," no date.

(86) See "CIA Papers Detail UFO Surveillance," The New York
Times, 13 January 1979; Patrick Huyghe, "UFO Files: The Untold
Story," The New York Times Magazine, 14 October 1979, p. 106;
and Jerome Clark, "UFO Update," UFO Report, August 1979.

(87) Jerome Clark, "Latest UFO News Briefs From Around the
World," UFO Update, August 1979 and GSW v. CIA Civil Action
No. 78-859.

(88) See Wortman, memorandum for DCI Turner, "Your Question,
'Are we in UFOs?' Annotated to The New York Times News
Release Article," 18 January 1979.

(89) See GSW v. CIA Civil Action 78-859. See also Klass, UFOs,
pp. 10-12.

(90) See John Brennan, memorandum for Richard Warshaw,
Executive Assistant, DCI, "Requested Information on UFOs," 30
September 1993; Author interviews with OSWR analyst, 14 June
1994 and OSI analyst, 21 July 1994. This author found almost no
documentation on Agency involvement with UFOs in the 1980s.

There is a DIA Psychic Center and the NSA studies
parapsychology, that branch of psychology that deals with the
investigation of such psychic phenomena as clairvoyance,
extrasensory perception, and telepathy. The CIA reportedly is also
a member of an Incident Response Team to investigate UFO
landings, if one should occur. This team has never met. The lack of
solid CIA documentation on Agency UFO-related activities in the
1980s leaves the entire issue somewhat murky for this period.

Much of the UFO literature presently focuses on contactees and
abductees. See John E. Mack, Abduction, Human Encounters with
Aliens (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1994) and Howard
Blum, Out There (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990).

(91) See Charles Berlitz and William L. Moore, The Roswell
Incident (New York: Berkeley Books, 1988); Moore, "The Roswell
Incident: New Evidence in the Search for a Crashed UFO,"
(Burbank, California: Fair Witness Project, 1982), Publication
Number 1201; and Klass, UFOs, pp. 280-281. In 1994
Congressman Steven H. Schiff (R-NM) called for an official study
of the Roswell incident. The GAO is conducting a separate
investigation of the incident. The CIA is not involved in the
investigation. See Klass, UFOs, pp. 279-281; John H. Wright,
Information and Privacy Coordinator, letter to Derek Skreen, 20
September 1993; and OSWR analyst interview. See also the made-
for-TV film, Roswell, which appeared on cable TV on 31 July 1994
and Peebles, Watch the Skies, pp. 245-251.

(92) See John Diamond, "Air Force Probes 1947 UFO Claim
Findings Are Down to Earth," 9 September 1994, Associated Press
release; William J. Broad, "Wreckage of a `Spaceship': Of This
Earth (and U.S.)," The New York Times, 18 September 1994, p. 1;
and USAF Col. Richard L. Weaver and 1st Lt. James McAndrew,
The Roswell Report, Fact Versus Fiction in New Mexico Desert
(Washington, DC: GPO, 1995).

(93) See Good, Above Top Secret; Moore and S. T. Friedman,
"Philip Klass and MJ-12: What are the Facts," (Burbank
California: Fair-Witness Project, 1988), Publication Number 1290;
Klass, "New Evidence of MJ-12 Hoax," Skeptical Inquirer, vol. 14
(Winter 1990); and Moore and Jaime H. Shandera, The MJ-12
Documents: An Analytical Report (Burbank, California: Fair-
Witness Project, 1990), Publication Number 1500. Walter Bedell
Smith supposedly replaced Forrestal on 1 August 1950 following
Forrestal's death. All members listed were deceased when the MJ-
12 "documents" surfaced in 1984. See Peebles, Watch the Skies,
pp. 258-268.

Dr. Larry Bland, editor of The George C. Marshall Papers,
discovered that one of the so-called Majestic-12 documents was a
complete fraud. It contained the exact same language as a letter
from Marshall to Presidential candidate Thomas Dewey regarding
the "Magic" intercepts in 1944. The dates and names had been
altered and "Magic" changed to "Majic." Moreover, it was a
photocopy, not an original. No original MJ-12 documents have ever
surfaced. Telephone conversation between the author and Bland, 29
August 1994.
 
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