Documents / FOIA release
This Central Intelligence Agency memorandum by F. C. Durant reports on the January 1953 meetings of the Office of Scientific Intelligence Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects, chaired by Dr. H. P. Robertson. It covers the history of the sessions and the panel members' comments on individual cases, radar interference, instrumentation and an educational program. The panel concluded unanimously that the sightings showed no direct threat to national security. It recommended training and public education to strip UFOs of their special status.
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
k. Hand "jitter" frequenion (obtainable from early part of Trenonton film) varo not removed from the plots of the "single pass plots" at the end of the film. The Panel believed strongly that the data available on this sighting was sufficient for positive identification if further data is obtained by photographing polyethylene "pillars" balloons released near the site under similar weather conditions, checking bird flight and reflection characteristics with competent orithologist and calculating apparent "G" force acting upon objects from their apparent tracks. It was concluded that the results of such tests would probably lead to creditable explanations of value in an educational or training program. However, the Panel noted that the cost in technical response effort required to follow up and explain every one of the thousand or more reports received through channels each year (1,500 in 1952) could not be justified. It was felt that these will always be sightings, for which complete data is lacking, that can only be explained with disproportionate effort and with a long time delay, if at all. The long delay in explaining a sighting tends to eliminate any intelligence value. The educational or training program should here be a major purpose the clarification of popular belief that every sighting, no matter in a year the data must be explained in detail. Attention should be directed to the requirements of an educational program, to be accepted, must be completely and continuously documented. In other words, the burden of proof is on the authorities. not the explanator, Why?
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. 32 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.