Documents / FOIA release
This CIA file contains a letter dated 20 December 1957 from Deputy Assistant Director Philip G. Strong to Dr. Lloyd V. Berkner of Associated Universities. Strong encloses a memorandum to Air Force intelligence and the declassified version of the Scientific Panel report on Unidentified Flying Objects. The memorandum explains which parts of the report could be declassified and states that no connection with CIA may be disclosed. The revised report finds no direct physical threat to national security and recommends stripping UFOs of their special status.
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
# REPORT OF THE SCIENTIFIC PANEL ON UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS
1. The undersigned Panel of Scientific Consultants has met the request of the Government to evaluate any possible threat to national security posed by Unidentified Flying Objects ("Flying Saucers"), and to make recommendation. The Panel has received the evidence as presented by cognizant Governmental agencies, primarily the United States Air Force, and has received a selection of the best documented incidents.
2. As a result of its considerations, the Panel concludes:
That the evidence presented on Unidentified Flying Objects shows no indication that these phenomena constitute a direct
physical threat to national security.
We firmly believe that there is no residuum of cases which indicates phenomena which are attributable to foreign artifacts capable of hostile acts, and that there is no evidence that the phenomena indicate a need for the revision of current scientific concepts.
3. In the light of this conclusion, the Panel recommends;
That the national security agencies take immediate steps to strip the Unidentified Flying Objects of the special status they have been given and the cure of mystery they have unfortunately acquired. 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. 5 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.