Documents / FOIA release
This CIA memorandum by David B. Stevenson of OSI, dated 20 July 1966, records a visit from Sara B. Hunt of the Air Force Office of Information about an Air Force request to declassify the February 1953 Report of the Scientific Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects. The request followed a 12 May television program on which panel chairman Dr. H. P. Robertson referred to CIA involvement. Stevenson noted that a sanitized version had already been released, and he said further declassification would require significant deletions.
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MEMORANDUM FOR: Chief, Defensive Systems Division/OS1 SUBJECT: Air Force Request to Declassify an OSX Paper on UFO's REFERENCE: CIA/031 "Report of the Scientific Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects" dated February 1953 1. Mrs. Sara B. Hunt, of the Office of Information, Office of the Secretary of the Air Force, visited Mr. D. B. Stevenson on 19 July 1966 to discuss an Air Force request to declassify the referenced report. 2. Mrs. Hunt indicated that this request was triggered by the 12 May "CES Reports" program. Dr. H. P. Robertson, Chairman of the panel, was on the show and reportedly made sufficient references to CIA involvement in UFO analysis to cause a press reaction. 3. A review of the documents supplied by Mrs. Hunt showed that Mr. Phil Strong had approved a similar air Force request in December 1937. This resulted in a sanitized version of the original consultants' report. This report presented most of the conclusions but it did not refer to the original meeting minutes, case histories, or indicate CIA involvement. (Mrs. Baldwin has CSI copies of the reports and correspondence). 4. Although the Air. Force request now in OSI does not request additional declassification, Mrs. Hunt expressed the view that this was intended. Mrs. Hunt said that the Air Force is now trying to declassify all U.S. Government work on UFO's. 5. Inasmuch as my review of the original material showed that significant doletions would be required for further declassification, I suggested that Mrs. Hunt ask the Air Force originator to submit a second request, if they wanted declassification of additional material from the minutes and case histories.
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.