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.
In the next few minutes, I intend to touch briefly upon the official explanations of the great majority of sightings of unidentified flying objects (or UFO's) and mention possible phenomena which may account for some of the open cases. Before we elaborate upon the current explanations I would like you to keep in mind certain facts which are generally common to all reports. First, is the earnestness of those making reports. Those people are certain that they have seen something. Secondly, objects sighted almost always are reported to be against the sky thereby providing no point of reference. Thirdly, without a reference point, a valid estimation of size, speed, distance of relative motion is virtually impossible. Finally, no debris or material evidence has ever been recovered following an unexplained sighting. In each case of reported sightings exists the personal element. This is the combined effect of psychological and physiological factors which
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.