Documents / FOIA release
This Central Intelligence Agency memorandum to the Director of Central Intelligence, from H. Marshall Chadwell, Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence, was prepared in September 1952. It reviews the Air Force study of flying saucer reports at the Air Technical Intelligence Center, which had received about 1,500 official reports since 1947. It finds that the sightings carry national security implications, both psychological and for air defense. It recommends action by the National Security Council, new research and a public information policy that would minimize the risk of panic.
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
4. CONCUSSION a. The flying saucer situation contains two elements of danger which, in a situation of international tension, have national security implications. These are: (1) Psychological - With world-wide sightings reported, it was found that, up to the time of our investigation, there had been in the Russian press no report or comment, even satirical, on flying seasons, though Andro Groyko had made one suspicious mention of the subject. With a state-controlled press, this could result only from an official policy decision. The question, therefore, arises as to whether or not these sightings (a) Could be controlled, (b) Could be predicted, and (c) Could be used from a psychological warfare point of view either aggressively or defensively. The public concern with the phenomena, which is reflected in the United States press and in pressure of inquiry upon the Air Force, indicates that there is a fair proportion of our population which is naturally conditioned to the acceptance of the incredible. In this fact lies the potential for the touching-off of mass hysteria and panic. (2) Air vulnerability - the United States Air Warning System will unquestionably always depend upon a continuation of radar screening and visual observation. We give Russia the present capability of delivering an air attack against us, yet at any given moment now, there may be current a dozen official unidentified sightings plus many unofficial. At any moment of attack, we are now in a position where we cannot, on an instant basis, distinguish hardware from phantom, and as tension mounts we will run the increasing risk of false alerts and the even greater danger of falsely identifying the real as phantom. b. Both of these problems are primarily operational in nature but each contains readily apparent intelligence factors. From an operational point of view, three actions are required: (1) Immediate stops should be taken to improve identification of both visual and electronic phantoms so that in the event of an attack, instant and positive identification of every plane or missile can be made.
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. 6 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.