Documents / FOIA release
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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a program of watching could be an adjunct of planned astronomical programs, little cost would be involved and that the trained astronomical personnel might photograph a sighting of an unidentified object. It was agreed by the Panel that no government-sponsored program of optical nation-wide sky patrol is worthwhile at the present time, and that the encouragement of amateur astronomers to undertake such a program might have the adverse effect of over-emphasizing "flying saucer" stories in the public mind. However, the issue of radar-scope cameras for recording peculiar radar echoes would serve several purposes, including the better understanding of radar interference as well as identification of UFO's. ## Radar Problem of Mutual Interference. This characteristic problem of radar operation wherein the pulse signal (of approximately the same frequency) from station A may be picked up on the screen of station B and show as a high-speed track or series of dots was recognized to have probably caused a number of UFO reports. This problem was underlined by information received indicating ADC concern in solving this problem of signal identification before service use of very high-speed aircraft or guided missiles (1955-1956). One
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.