Documents / FOIA release
This Central Intelligence Agency memorandum, dated 3 July 1953, went from the Chief of the Physics and Electronics Division, SI, to the Assistant Director, SI. It reviews the division's new responsibility for keeping current on unidentified flying object reports. The memo cites the Scientific Review Board's finding that the material posed no serious, direct threat to national security. It declares the project inactive, directs that reports be filed for future reference, and assigns a part-time analyst and file clerk to review them periodically.
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10 ; Assistant Director, SI DATE: 3 July 1953 FROM : Chief, Physics & Electronics Division, SI subject: Unidentified Flying Objects 1. Reference is made to your memorandum of 27 May 1953, subject as above, which assigned to this Division the responsibility "for maintaining current knowledge of reports of sightings of unidentified flying objects." 2. Since the referenced memorandum did not stipulate the priority of this project versus the normal responsibilities of this Division, nor indicated the depth or scope of required knowledge, the Division has reviewed the status of the project, its present method of handling and its possible timeliness or relationship to the current productive intelligence activities of the Division. The review involved informal discussions with ASD personnel, with Mr. Heckert, OCI, with USAF personnel and with members of the Scientific Review Board called by CIA last year. 3. The review indicated that a close follow-up of the project including a careful analysis of all incoming information and the corresponding liaison with the sources would require continuous efforts of two analysts, a file clerk and a considerable typing load. 4. In view of the findings of the Board that a close inspection of the available material does not postulate a serious, direct threat to national security, and that no information has been obtained since the Board's conclusion to necessitate their modification, it was concluded that: a. the project will be considered as inactive c. all material on unidentified objects will be deposited in the files for future reference unless it raises an immediately recognizable problem of concern to national security. b. the incoming material will be reviewed periodically to aggregate references to recognizable and explainable phenomena from those which come under the definition of "unidentified flying objects" 5. With the above premise it is planned to handle the project with a part-time use of an analyst and a file clerk. To provide filing facilities, one additional filing cabinet will be requested.
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.