Documents / FOIA release

Comments and Suggestions of UFO Panel (PUBD Is Unknown)

Central Intelligence Agency · 1953-01-03 · 22 pages · text by GLM-OCR

This Central Intelligence Agency document, dated 3 January 1953, records the comments and suggestions of the Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects, which met 14 to 17 January 1953. The panel reviewed case histories including Tremonton, Great Falls, Washington and Haneda and concluded that it found no evidence of a direct threat to national security or of extraterrestrial origin. It rejected the Navy's analysis of the Tremonton film and recommended an educational program of training and debunking, supported by ATIC.

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required, and this can best be accomplished by an educational program.

Geographic Locations of Unexplained Sightings.

The map prepared by ATIC showing geographic locations of officially reported unexplained sightings (1952 only) was examined by the Panel. This map showed clusters in certain strategic areas such as Los Alamos. This might be explained on the basis of 24-hour watchful guard and awareness of security measures near such locations. On the other hand, there had been no sightings in the vicinity of sensitive related AE establishments while there were occasionally multiple cases of unexplained sightings in non-strategic areas. Furthermore, there appeared to be no logical relationship to population centers. The Panel could find no ready explanation for these clusters. It was noted, however, that if terrestrial artifacts were to be observed, it would be likely that they would be seen first near foreign areas rather than central U.S.

Instrumentation to Obtain Data.

The Panel was of the opinion that the present ATIC program to place 100 inexpensive 35 mm. stereo cameras (Videon Cameras) in the hands of various airport control tower operators would probably produce little valuable

Cases discussed

About this file

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. 22 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.