Documents / FOIA release
This Central Intelligence Agency memorandum to the Director of Central Intelligence, prepared by the Office of Scientific Intelligence in September 1952, asks whether flying saucer reports have national security implications. It reports that the Air Force's small ATIC group had received about 1500 official reports since 1947 and studies them only case by case. It identifies psychological warfare and air defense false alarm risks, notes silence in the Soviet press, and recommends National Security Council involvement, further research and a public information policy.
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
MERGATION FOR: Director of Central Intelligence THEU Deputy Director (Intelligence) SUBJECT Flying Saucers a. whether there are national security implications in the problem of "unidentified flying objects" i.e. flying aerosols ## 1. PROBLEM To determine b. whether adequate study and research is currently being directed to this problem in its relation to such national security implications and c. What further investigation and research should be instituted, by whom, and under what agile. 2. FACTS LEARING ON THE PROBLEM a. OSI has invented the work currently being performed on flying aircraft and has found that: (1) The only unit of government currently studying the problem is the Directorate of Intelligence, MAF, which has charged the Air Technical Intelligence Center (AILC) with responsibility for investigating the reports of sightings. (2) At ATIC there is a small group consisting of a reserve Captain, two lieutenants and two secretaries to which core all reports of sittings through official channels, and which conducts investigation of the reports either itself or through consultation with other Air Force officers or with civilian technical consultants. (3) A worldwide reporting system has been instituted and major air forces have been ordered to make interceptions of unidentified flying objects. (4) The research being carried on is strictly on a case basis and appears to be designed solely to attempt a notinfactory explanation of each individual sighting as it occurs. (5) ATIE has concluded an arrangement with Intelle Memorial Institute for the latter to establish a machine indexing system for official reports of sightings.
Not linked to a story yet.
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. 5 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.