Documents / FOIA release
This Central Intelligence Agency letter, dated 27 January 1953, is from Assistant Director H. Marshall Chadwell to Dr. Julius A. Stratton, Provost of MIT. It explains that CIA gathered a panel of scientists to study unidentified flying objects and says the agency agrees with the panel's conclusions. It adds that CIA's interest in the subject was kept restricted. Attached material includes a memo on the Advisory Group chaired by Dr. H. P. Robertson, which found the objects pose no threat to United States security. The panel's charge and a list of possible explanations are also attached.
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
Dr. Julius A. Stratton, Provost Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge 37, Massachusetts Dear Dr. Stratton: Reiterating your request to be kept informed of any progress in the problem of "unidentified flying objects," this letter will bring you up to date. Last November, the section of the Air Technical Intelligence Center charged with Investigation of reports of sightings presented a state briefing at the Agency. Based upon the evidence presented, the subject was discussed at a December meeting of the Intelligence Advisory Committee (CIA, Army, Navy, Air Force, Joint Staff, State, AIC, and FDI). At that time it was recommended that CIA should assemble a panel of highly qualified personnel to examine the problem and its realifications. Particular competency in the fields of physics, radar and astronomy was believed desirable. We were fortunate to obtain the services of especially qualified men, I believe you will agree. Enclosed for your information are copies of the report submitted by the Panel and related material. We concern in the conclusions and recommendations of the Panel, and are forwarding the report to appropriate authorities. Since the problem related to this subject appears to be operational rather than intelligence in nature, we will be concerned only indirectly in the future. However, if there are any developments in which we believe you might be interested, we shall inform you. Incidentally, knowledge of any interest of CIA in the subject of "flying saucers" has been carefully restricted, in view of probable misunderstanding if it were publicly known. will best wishes, Declarations: Corollally yours, Signed H Marshall Coadwell H. Marshall Coadwell Assistant Director 1. Faxel Report 2. List of Personnel 3. Evidence presented Distribution: Boston Office 00/C, OSI:133D/EIV-(37Jan53) Copied From Nearly Illustrated Original
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. 6 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.