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.
knowledge in advance of the cause back of the sightings — the little understood phenomena Mr. Collnor has described — we will run the in- crossing risk of false alerts and the even greater danger of tabling the real as false. This is primarily an operational research problem but as long as it exists it will have intelligence implications because of its bearing on air vulnerability. One purpose in this survey has been to examine what is being done and make some agreement of its validity. The Air Force study is valid. On a case by case basis, the great bulk of the sightings have been and will continue to be explained — but the limited case approach will never solve this second real problem — positive identification. As to that should be done, we propose to discuss the research problem with the Research and Development Board and to pass on to Air Force an offer from H.I.T. to assist in a study of some of the fundamentals. We suggest that the psychological possibilities both for and against us should be investigated. From an intelligence point of view, CCI has been and will continue watching Russian research and development in the scientific fields involved. ---
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.