Documents / FOIA release
This Central Intelligence Agency release, dated 2 January 1953, is a letter from Assistant Director H. Marshall Chadwell to MIT Provost Julius Stratton. It says the Intelligence Advisory Committee recommended that CIA convene a panel of scientists on unidentified flying objects, and that CIA concurs with the panel's report, which is enclosed. The file also includes a 27 January 1953 memo on the advisory group's 14 to 17 January meetings. That memo reports the finding that the objects pose no threat to national security and that education programs were recommended.
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
Dr. Julius A. Stratton, Provost Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge 37, Massachusetts Dear Dr. Strotica: Recording your request to be kept informed of any progress in the problem of " unidentified flying objects , " this letter will bring you up to date. Last evening, the section of the Air Technical Intelligence Center charged with investigation of reports of eightings presented a state briefing at the Agency. Based upon the evidence presented, the subject was discussed at a December meeting of the Intelligence Advisory Committee (CIA, Army, Navy, Air Force, Joint Staff, State, AEC, and FDI). At that time it was recommended that CIA should assemble a panel of highly qualified personnel to examine the problems and its implications. Particular competency in the fields of physics, radar and astrology was believed desirable. We were fortunate to obtain the services of especially qualified man, I believe you will agree. Enclosed for your information are copies of the report submitted by the Picel and related material. We concern in the conclusions and recommendations of the Picel, and are forwarding the report to appropriate authorities. Since the problems related to this subject appear to be operational rather than intelligence in nature, we will be concerned only indirectly in the future. However, if there are any developments in which we believe you might be interested, we shall inform you. Incidentally, knowledge of any interest of OLS in the subject of "Flying sensors" has been carefully restricted, in view of probable misunderstanding if it were publicly known. ## with best wishes, --- Contrally yours, Signed: H Marshall Chadwell R. Marshall Coadwell Assistant Director ## Inclosures: 1. Panel Report 2. List of Personnel 3. Dlidence presented
FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 8 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.