Documents / FOIA release
This is a Central Intelligence Agency letter dated February 1959 and signed by John S. Harman. It answers a 21 January letter from George Popowitch of the Unidentified Flying Objects Research Committee. The letter says a panel convened by higher authority some years earlier found that reported sightings posed no threat to national security, and that this conclusion was made public. It states that the U.S. Air Force has total government responsibility for UFO matters and that the CIA has no jurisdiction and cannot supply the information requested.
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
Mr. George Fowlett The Unidentified Flying Objects Research Committee P. D. Lee 5442 Arizona, Calo ## Dear Sir. Population: This is in reply to your letter of 21 January 1973 in which you gave an earlier letter to this Agency on the subject of Educational Flying; Objects. We have also reviewed the copy of the Situational Report which you enclosed. In your letters you have asked a number of questions concerning the subject of unidentified flying objects, how these affect national security, and essentially whether information 1: being vulnerable from the public. Even six years ago there was a question as to whether the rush of reported sightings occurring at then time might pose some threat to national security, a penal of crimes was called by higher authority to make an assessment of such possible threat. As you unmistakably know from subsequent public information, this penal reached the conclusion that there was nothing criminal to our security in the matter. This conclusion was made public last year. The total responsibility for the Government in dealing with USO matters is vested in the U. G. Air Force and that is the department competent and responsible for answering the questions posed by organizations such as yours. This agency has no jurisdiction or responsibility in this area and is therefore not in a position to supply the information you have requested. Very truly yours, ## LEB a a 12 VH.23 SIGNED Distribution: Join E. Carson Executive Officer Orig. altreasee 1 - L2cc. Register 1 - DXI 1 - Chief ASD/31 w/ CSI/2Gstrong:nb (b Feb. 1959)
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. 1 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.