Documents / FOIA release
This CIA memorandum from the Chief of the Physics and Electronics Division to the Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence reviews the status of the agency's UFO project in late 1953. It says Air Force interest in the subject is declining, and that ATIC is transferring Project Bluebook to Air Defense Command. It also covers a flawed camera program for recording sightings, the minimal attention given by the Navy and Army, and the drop in 1953 sightings, which it attributes to the January 1953 panel recommendations.
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investigative work of the project and "if it turns out that these things (UFO3's) are space ships or long range aircraft from another country, ADC is the (Air Force) Command that would have to take action." Col. Johnston followed this concept with the socewhat contradictory statement that the project transfer did not reflect any change in Air Force policy. It is undoubtedly true that ADC is the Air Force Command primarily concerned with UFO3's at the present time in that their interceptors are occasionally dispatched "against" reported UFO3's and that their reporting stations and communications systems are involved in a considerable portion of the UFO3 activity. ATIC will maintain liaison with the project. Approximately a year and one half ago ATIC initiated a program to purchase cameras for selected AEC radar sites and AACS control towers in locations where consistent UFOB reports were received in the hopes of photographing UFOB's. One lens of the camera (a stereoscopic type) was to be covered with a single grating to record the spectrographic nature of the UFOB photographed. One hundred "Video" 35 mm. cameras with "stercon" anastigmat f 3.5 lenses were purchased along with 100 gratings (15,000 line) from CECCO, Chicago. Seventy-four (74) cameras were distributed. Ninety percent of the gratings have "gone bad"--the actual grating separating from the plastic mounting plates. New gratings are expected shortly and ATIC expects to recall all of the 74 distributed cameras and re-equip them with the new gratings. Several months ago we were advised that ATIC planned to set up a concentrated instrumentation observational effort in the Albuquerque area. This has now been dropped. Project STORK (SECRET) has been preparing, at ATIC request, a comprehensive statistical report on UFGB sightings during the period 1947 through 1952. This study is now expected to be completed by 15 December 1953. ATIC issues status reports on Project Bluebook on a trl-monthly basis the cost recent being Report No. 12 30 September 1953. b. Navy. The Navy in spite of press reports to the contrary, is presently devoting only part of one CNT analyst's time to maintaining cognizance of UFCB's. c. Army. The Army has evidenced little or no interest in UFO's other than cooperating with the Air Force in reporting sightings and pertinent data using the Air Force format. 4. Investigations or Interests of Foreign Governments.
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. 4 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.