Documents / FOIA release
This Central Intelligence Agency memorandum from the Chief of the Contact Division, Office of Operations, is dated 4 January 1959. It covers Major Donald E. Keyhoe's attempt to learn whether a CIA agent told UFO witnesses to keep their sightings secret. The memo describes how five UFO photographs were returned to a witness. It suggests the witness or Keyhoe misunderstood what was said. It recommends asking Keyhoe why he wants the information and attaches a draft reply, noting an earlier finding that no CIA employee ordered any witness to stay silent.
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1. Apparently Major Feyhoe is paralleling in his effort to find out if a CIA agent told witnesses of unidentified flying objects not to make public information about their sightings. As background the following is a quotation from his 13 March 1958 memorandum to the DCI: We also should like to know whether it is true that in no case or more cases agents of the CIA have told UFO witnesses not to make public information in regard to their sightings? "We have one report to the effect that a witness was interrogated recently about a sighting which involved a photograph and that he was perceptually told not to ask this matter public or reveal the fact that he had been interrogated by CIA representatives. If this is not true we should like to know, so that we can access the value of any similar reports. If it is true and the witness has said he can trace the two CIA agents involved - then we should like to know on what authority he was ordered to keep silent. Since the Air Force states there is no security involved and I have personally been assured by Air Force officers and by high-ranking Senior Academy classmates of my own that I was in no way doing a disservio to the country by my own revelations, I am seriously concerned - as is our board - with this apparent censorship. If it does exist, we should like to know under what less, and by what authority, it has been established, and also the reasons for requesting witnesses to keep silent." The 13 kirch merorsius was referred to the AD/O by the AD/SI for current; a copy of our reply is attached.
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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.