Documents / FOIA release
This Central Intelligence Agency briefing from 22 August 1952 presents the Office of Scientific Intelligence review of the Air Force flying saucer investigation, with attachments dated 14 and 19 August. It traces sightings from 1947 and explains most as balloons, aircraft, astronomical bodies or atmospheric effects. About 20% remain unexplained. The briefing rules out US or Soviet weapons and space ships. Its main concerns are psychological warfare, false alerts to air defense, and civilian saucer groups.
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
material tossed aloft could appreciably affect atmospheric phenomena. For instance, the cosmic and gamma natural radiation which pours in daily from outer space is many thousands of times greater than the radiation produced by atomic bomb blasts. This list could be extended at length. Suffice to say, our ignorance of the nature and controlling factors of all of the above is immense. Effects of interaction between these natural phenomena and radioactive material in the air can only be conjectured. The appearance of unusual optical or radar sightings caused by these phenomena is possible. Their occurrence cannot be predicted. There is some strength to the hypothesis that many of the unexplained sightings of WJ's may be electromagnetic or electrostatic in character. Factors supporting this hypothesis are: Absence of sound, although apparently moving rapidly in the atmosphere. Phenomena are apparently affected by shock waves or electromagnetic radiation of aircraft. Reports of ornatic operation of various kinds of instruments in
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. 29 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.