Documents / FOIA release
This informal CIA memo, dated 5 July 1952 and signed by Edward Tauss, Acting Chief of the Weapons and Equipment Division, gives an overall evaluation of "flying saucer" reports. It says that of 1,000 to 2,000 reports received by ATIC, most were phony, known U.S. equipment or natural phenomena, and fewer than 100 credible reports remained unexplained. The memo recommends that CIA surveillance of the subject continue while CIA interest is kept from the press and public. It also notes a briefing at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base arranged for 8 August 1952.
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
"Flying Saucers" 1. Pursuant to your request for overall evaluation of "flying saucers" and associated reports, the following is pertinent: a. Of 1000 to 2000 such reports received by ATIC, a large percentage are clearly "phoney". An equally large percentage can be satisfactorily explained as known flights of currently operational U.S. equipment (aircraft, weather balloons, etc.) and many others are undoubtedly of natural phenomena (meteorites, clouds, aberration of light caused by thermal inversion or reflections, etc.). b. Less than 100 reasonably credible reports remain "unexplainable" at this time; regarding these reports, there is no pattern of specific sizes, configurations, characteristics, performance, or location. The sources of these reports are generally no more or less credible than the sources of the other categories. It is probable that if complete information were available for presently "unexplainable" reports, they, too, could be evaluated into categories as indicated in "a" above. 2. Notwithstanding the foregoing tentative facts, so long as a series of reports remains "unexplainable" (interplanetary aspects and alien origin not being thoroughly excluded from consideration) caution requires that intelligence continue coverage of the subject. 3. It is recommended that CIA surveillance of subject matter, in coordination with proper authorities of primary operational concern at ATIC, be continued. It is strongly urged, however, that no indication of CIA interest or concern reach the press or public, in view of their probable alarmist tendencies to accept such interest as "confirmatory" of the soundness of "unpublished facts" in the hands of the U.S. Government. 4. The undersigned has arranged with the Commanding Officer of the Air Technical Intelligence Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Chio, for a thorough and comprehensive briefing related to this subject on 8 August 1952. Subsequent to obtaining full details, a detailed analysis will be prepared and forwarded. EDWARD TAUSS
Not linked to a story yet.
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. 3 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.