Air Force Project Blue Book Special Report 14 (Hynek's annotated copy)

Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.

The material in the Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14 (see Part D) was first prepared in 1952 at the request of the CIA by Air Force contractors and the Project Blue Book staff, for presentation to a panel of scientists early in 1953. (See E.J.Ruppelt's book "The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects", Doubleday, first edition, esp. pp. 293-294, for the background of this Panel.) In June, 1966, one of the Panel members, appearing on a CBS TV Special Report, publicly named the CIA as the "agency" (unnamed by Ruppelt) which had paid for the Panel!s activities.

The sighting report quoted by Maj. Keyhoe in his book "Flying Saucers--Top Secret", pp. 18-20, has all the earmarks of a CIA "field evaluation" of such a psychological warfare gimmick. See my comments on this in my article (on p. 50) "An Open Letter to Saucer Researchers", in the magazine "Flying Saucers", March, 1962 (issue FS-24) published by Ray Palmer, Amherst, Wisconsin, 54406.

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Although the Blue Book Report No. 14 was made public in October 1955 (see page D5), the Panel's report (page B2) was kept secret until given to Maj. D.E. Keyhoe in early 1958, for use in a radio interview. I then wrote to the CIA to get the material, and (see letter on p. B2) the Panel report was given to me on April 9, 1958, for distribution. I then wrote to each Panel member, and to others, to try to clarify the purpose and meaning of their report. Selections from the replies which I received are reproduced on pages B3 to B6.

Note that the main purpose of this Panel study, insofar as the CIA was concerned, apparently was to prepare for a test program to see why people reacted strongly to "flying saucer" sightings. (Several points in the letters touching on this are indicated by marginal notes "See Page Bl.") From this, the CIA might have wished to derive some useful psychological warfare techniques.

The letter reproduced below shows that the normal channel for scientific study of government problems, the National Academy of Sciences, (which would not have accepted such CIA "guidance" in shaping its results), had not been invited to study the "saucer" sightings, at the same time that the CIA's panel of scientists was set up. Thus one may be justified in doubting that the U.S.Government sincerely wanted an impartial scientific investigation of the "flying saucers" in 1953. This is further shown by the Government's failure to adopt or to publish the recommendations given by the Panel in Paragraph 3 of their report(p. B2),

May 12, 1953

Mr. Leon Davidson

804 South Irving Street

Arlington 4, Virginia

In reply to your letter of April 5, 1953, the National Academy of Sciences has not been requested by any Government agency to study collected reports on "flying saucers".

## Dear Mr. Davidson:

As to the question of how the National Academy might be requested to take such a study, the usual procedure is by the negotiation of a contract with the Academy. The Congressional charter which established the Academy in 1863 provided that the Academy should advise the Government on scientific questions without charge except for actual expenses of any investigation that had to be made. In addition, the Academy and its agency, the National Research Council, have acted in an advisory capacity to many private agencies through the machinery of a contract negotiated with the Academy.

## Sincerely yours,

A. D. Cummell

S. D. Cornell

Executive Officer