Documents / FOIA release
This Central Intelligence Agency memorandum, from Frederick C. Durant to the Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence and dated 16 February 1953, is the report on the Office of Scientific Intelligence Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects, which met January 14 to 18, 1953, under Dr. H. P. Robertson. It gives a history of the meetings and the panel members' comments on cases such as Tremonton and Great Falls. The panel found no direct threat to national security and recommended an educational program to strip UFOs of their special status.
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
It was agreed by the Panel that no government-sponsored program of optical nation-wide sky patrol in worthwhile at the present time, and that the encouragement of astronaut astronomers to undertake such a program might have the adverse effect of over-emphasizing "flying cancer" stories in the public mind. However, the focus of radar'scope cameras for recording popular radar echoes would serve several purposes, including the better understanding of radar interference as well as identification of U.T.O.°C. RADAR PROBLEM OF ACTUAL INTERFERENCE This characteristic problem of radar operation wherein the pulse signal (of approximately the same frequency) from station A may be picked up on the screen of station B and chow on a high-speed track or series of data was recognized to have probably caused a number of V.F.O. reports. This problem was underlined by information received indicating ADC concerns in solving this problem of signal identification before service use of very high-speed aircraft or guided microlaser (1955-1956). Dr. Perinar believed that one answer to this problem was the use of a "coppler filter" in the receiving circuit. Dr. Alvarez suggested that the problem might be better solved by the use of a "controlled filter" wherein the operator receiving "very fast tracks" (in the order of 1000-10,000 n.p.h.) would operate a circuit which would alter slightly his station's pulse frequency rate. If the signal received on the screen had been caused by mutual interference with another station, the track would now then itself at a different distance.
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. 32 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.