The CIAs Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90 UNCLASSIFIED
CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs, The New York Times, for example, claimed that the declassified documents confirmed intensive. This article is a reprint from a declassified issue of the CIA's in‐house journal. It testifies to the enormous impact of UFOs in North America and the involvement of .
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. CIA officers, under cover, contacted Davidson in Chicago and promised to get the code translation and the identification of the transmitter, if possible. 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. 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. 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 , Major Keyhoe charged that the Agency was deliberately asking eyewitnesses of UFOs not to make their sightings public. Harry Real, a CD officer, contacted Mayher and obtained copies of the photographs for analysis. 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.
Unidentified flying object
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. Keyhoe later contacted Mayher, who told him his story of CIA and the photographs. The Agency refused, despite the fact that CD field representatives were normally overt and carried credentials identifying their Agency association.
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.
Davidson now claimed that CIA "was solely responsible for creating the Flying Saucer furor as a tool for cold war psychological warfare since Hall, the acting director. There was still no evidence that UFOs were a threat to the security of the United States or that they were of "foreign origin. 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.
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. The Agency again refused to budge. 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 Robertson panel report and called for release of the entire document.
Unknown to CIA officials, Dr. 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 He demanded the release of the full Robertson panel report and the Durant report. Bowing to public pressure and the recommendation of its own O'Brien Committee, the Air Force announced in August 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. 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.
In February , Giller contacted Arthur C. Lundahl and DDI R. Jack Smith approved the arrangement as a way of "preserving a window" on the new effort. No work done for the committee by NPIC was to be formally acknowledged. 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. 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. 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. In addition, CIA officials agreed that the Condon Committee could release the full Durant report with only minor deletions.
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 did not mention CIA participation in the Condon committee's investigation. Additional sightings in the early s fueled beliefs that the CIA was somehow involved in a vast conspiracy. Agency officials provided Spaulding with a copy of the Robertson panel report and of the Durant report. Wilson was ill informed. 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 documents totaling approximately pages. It withheld these 57 documents on national security grounds and to protect sources and methods. 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 , 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. 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. In May , the courts dismissed the lawsuit, finding that the Agency had conducted a thorough and adequate search in good faith.
While most scientists now dismissed flying saucers reports as a quaint part of the s and s, 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.
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 s, and Agency officials purposely kept files on UFOs to a minimum to avoid creating records that might mislead the public if released. The s also produced renewed charges that the Agency was still withholding documents relating to the 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 s and early s.
UFOlogists had long argued that, following a flying saucer crash in New Mexico in , 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.
Circa , a series of documents surfaced which some UFOlogists said proved that President Truman created a top secret committee in , Majestic, 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.
- Green Abyss.
- The Work Of A Nation. The Center of Intelligence.;
- My Magic Book of Poetry.
- Chemotherapeutical Nightmares.
- CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs, — Central Intelligence Agency.
Yet the controversy persists. 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. The Public Deceived New York: Prometheus Books, , p. William Morrow, ; and Whitley Strieber, Communion: The True Story New York: Peterson and Friedman wanted to know the reasons for the redactions.
Woolsey agreed to look into the matter. Except where noted, all citations to CIA records in this article are to the records collected for the Agency-wide search that are held by the Executive Assistant to the DCI. See also Good, Above Top Secret, p. 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. Stone, OSI, memorandum to Dr.
Established in , OSI served as the CIA's focal point for the analysis of foreign scientific and technological developments. See also Klass, UFOs, pp. See also Philip G. Smithsonian Institution Press, 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.
See also Good, Above Top Secret, pp. Odarenko , "Unidentified Flying Objects," 27 May Russell," 27 October ; and Wilton E. See also Frank C. Bolser, memorandum for George C.
Navigation menu
Pedlow and Donald E. CIA History Staff, , pp. This also was confirmed in a telephone interview between the author and John Parongosky, 26 July The panel members were also reluctant to have their association with the Agency released. Earman, letter to Major Lawrence J. See also La Rae L. Walker, 25 April Hazen, memorandum to Chief, Contact Division, 12 December Mayher," 20 December According to this memorandum, the photographs were viewed at "a high level and returned to us without comment.
The CIA records were probably destroyed. See also Wallace R. Garth," 12 July ; and Houston, letter to Garth, 13 July Everett, 2 September The Durant report was a detailed summary of the Robertson panel proceedings. 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 also James E. 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.
The Zaneville photographs turned out to be a hoax. The report contained the Durant report with only minor deletions. Some names have been withheld from the documents. See Klass, UFOs, p. Stembridge, Office of Security; and Rutledge P. CIA Civil Action This author found almost no documentation on Agency involvement with UFOs in the s. 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.
This team has never met. The lack of solid CIA documentation on Agency UFO-related activities in the s leaves the entire issue somewhat murky for this period. Much of the UFO literature presently focuses on contactees and abductees. Simon and Schuster, In 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.
Of This Earth and U. Weaver and 1st Lt. Friedman, "Philip Klass and MJ What are the Facts," Burbank California: Shandera, The MJ Documents: An Analytical Report Burbank, California: Fair-Witness Project, , Publication Number All members listed were deceased when the MJ "documents" surfaced in See Peebles, Watch the Skies, pp. Top MD on major health cover-up War: Media reports on serious problems Energy: Key little-known facts on energy crisis Mind Control: Key news articles Big Brother: Revealing news articles Income Inequality: Revealing news articles Mass Animal Deaths: Revealing news articles Mind-Altering Drugs: Revealing news articles Nature of Reality: Excerpts from key articles Prof.
Key article excerpts Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds: Key excerpts Whistleblower Susan Lindauer: Key excerpts Key excerpts: Banking bailout news articles Key excerpts: Excerpts of key articles Food Corruption: Key article excerpts Nuclear Power Corruption: Key article excerpts Pharmaceutical Corruption: Key article excerpts Rothschild Family Dynasty: Excerpts of key articles New Energy Inventions: Key article excerpts Assassinations: Excerpts from key articles Civil Liberties: Excerpts from key articles Courts and Judiciary: Key article excerpts Hurricane Katrina Corruption: Key excerpts Intelligence Agency Corruption: Key excerpts Major Military Corruption: Key article excerpts Police Corruption: Key article excerpts Prison Corruption: Key article excerpts Privacy: Excerpts from all key health articles Pharmaceutical Corruption: Key article excerpts Cancer Cures?
Key articles give hope Cell Phone, Wireless Dangers: Why all the fear? Key article excerpts Global Warming: Excerpts from key articles Vaccines: Media reports reveal risks Inspiration GO General: Key inspirational article excerpts Microcredit Movement: Key article excerpts Near-death Experiences: Excerpts of key mind control articles Microchip Implants: Excerpts from key articles Non-lethal Weapons of Control: Key articles Military Corruption: Excerpts from key articles Non-lethal Weapons: Key article excerpts Sea Mammal Use and Abuse: FBI translator breaks gag order David Griffin: Hidden banking facts summary 10 pages: Banking elite manipulates history 40 pages: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man Sandberg: A Brief History of Banking Prof.
Top MD exposes corruption Ten pages: GMO risks to health Cancer Cure? Award-winning journalists Ten pages: Every person has a heart Web of Love: We are all interconnected End poverty: Major media on elections problems Ten pages: In-depth exploration of elections Who counts your vote? Serious flaws in counting CNN: Voting machines risk to democracy LA Times: Electronic voting security condemned Newsweek: New energy sources suppressed Ten pages: Released CIA documents Ten pages: Mind control facts with footnotes Cult involvement in mind control 3 pg Mind Controllers: Secret projects 10 pg Nation Betrayed: A survivor's story 10 pg Bluebird: Government mind control London Times: Brainwash victims win lawsuit New York Times: Electromagnetic beam weapons Washington Post: History of mind control Washington Times: Mind Control National Geographic: Spies, Lords, and Predators Discovery Chan.: Pentagon plans for terrorism exposed BBC News: Military plans to control Internet CBS: Excerpts from news Sea Mammal Use and Abuse: News article excerpts Sea mammal use and abuse: Insider describes global manipulation 20 pages: Blueprint for Total Control 10 pages: History of Money and Banking pages: Deep insider reveals all 20 pages: The rich get richer CBS News: Sex crimes covered up by Vatican NY Times: CIA worked with Nazi criminals Government report: Confessions of an Economic Hitman Government involvement in drug trafficking Erosion of civil liberties: