Documents / FOIA release
This is a CIA memorandum, prepared in the Office of Scientific Intelligence and dated 13 April 1956, from H. Marshall Chadwell's office, signed by Herbert Scoville Jr., Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence. It answers a query about a flying saucer article in a French magazine. The article gave too little information to identify the object. The memo notes that the office keeps close liaison with the Air Force Technical Intelligence Center on foreign and domestic reports. It adds that Mars will make a close approach on 7 September 1956, which may bring a wave of sighting reports.
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Deputy Director/Involved SURF : Flying Sucers : ED/I Kum, 26 March 1955, como Subject 1. The article in the French magazine Watch does not give sufficient information to permit classification or identification of the U. P. 0. The tone of the article gives the impression that the sighting has been considerably concentrated in order to produce a more conventional story. In most cases of foreign sightings it has not been possible to thoroughly interrogate all the people involved, so in very instances no identification has been possible. In the U. P. during the Blue Book investigation, a concentrated effort was made to track down all information possible on each reported sighting; and, as a result, the percentage of unknown and insufficient information cases dropped from 25 per cent to 10 per cent. If a thorough investigation of the U. F. O. reported in Watch were made it would undoubtedly disclose additional data that would permit it to be classified in one of the Blue Book categories, and most likely an identification could be made just as has happened in a number of very similar cases. 25. We do maintain close liaison with the Air Force Technical Intelligence Center on reports of unidentified flying objects. This includes those reports originating in foreign countries as well on the United States. 3. It is true that on 7 September 1955 Mars will be 35.2 million miles from the earth, its nearest position in a long period. Thus, astronomers will have a rare opportunity to study Mars at close range with new electronic equipment now available. Personnel at the Naval Observatory, Washington, attach no important implications to this proximity other than the opportunity for routine scientific study. However, as you suggest, this unusual
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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. 2 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.