Documents / FOIA release
This December 17, 1953 Central Intelligence Agency memorandum was written by the Chief of the Physics and Electronics Division, Office of Scientific Intelligence, for the Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence. It reviews the status of the agency's UFOB project, which was limited to tracking other agencies and keeping files. It describes the Air Force's shrinking Project Bluebook, its planned move to Air Defense Command, a camera program and the Project STORK statistical study. It also notes minimal Navy and Army interest and the results of the January 1953 panel recommendations.
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MEMORANDUM TO: Assistant Director, Scientific Intelligence FROM : Chief, Physics and Electronics Division, SI SUBJECT . Current Status of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOB) Project. 1. In accordance with the verbal request of Mr. Erant, Exec/SI, on 30 November, the following resume of the current status of unidentified flying objects activities has been prepared. 2. P&E Division assumed responsibility for the OSI project on unidentified flying objects as a result of your memorandum of 27 May 1953. The project has been confined to maintaining awareness of the activities of other agencies (notably the USAF) in the unidentified flying objects business and to maintenance of files. 3. Status of Department of Defense Activities. a. Air Force. The Air Force continues to maintain, but with apparently decreasing emphasis, its interest in UFOB's. The present interest of the Directorate of Intelligence, Hq., USAF, is confined to a cursory cognizance of ATIC's project (Bluebook No. 10073). At ATIC the project is carried by one officer (Capt. Charles A. Eardin), one airman (A/1C Max G. Futch), and a secretary operating as the Aerial Phenomena Section of the Electronics Branch, Technical Analysis Division. In spite of this limited staff, as well as several changes of project officer, the project records appear to be up-to-date. ATIC personnel no longer conduct field investigations of UFOB sightings (these are requested from USAF intelligence officers [primarily Air Defense Command and Airways and Air Communications Service] nearer to the sightings), but confine their activities to receiving and checking reports as received, requesting additional field investigation where necessary, performing necessary checking against meteorological, astronomical, aircraft and balloon data, and recording their findings and conclusions in a cross-referenced system by date, location, source, type of observation and conclusion drawn. The Aerial Phenomena Section also deals directly with the Public Information Office of Hq., USAF, regarding information for public release. For about the past year, approximately ten percent of the reported sightings have been tagged as unsolved. Of particular interest is the fact that ATIC is in the process of transferring project Bluebook to Hq., Air Defense Command. According to Lt. Col. Harry Johnston, Chief, Electronics Branch, the reason for the transfer was that AEC had been doing most of the
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. 3 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.