Documents / FOIA release
This 1953 letter from Richard D. Drain, Secretary of the CIA's Intelligence Advisory Committee, sends the Secretary of Defense a report by a panel of scientists on unidentified flying objects. The panel met 14 to 17 January 1953 and found no evidence that the phenomena posed a direct physical threat or were foreign artifacts. It warned that the reports themselves could clog communications and recommended stripping UFOs of their special status. It also recommended public education. Attachments list the panel members, the interviewees and the evidence reviewed.
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
indications of hostile action, and the cultivation of a morbid national psychology in which skillful hostile propaganda could induce hysterical behavior and harmful distrust of duly constituted authority. 4. In order most effectively to strengthen the national facilities for the timely recognition and the appropriate handling of true indications of hostile action, and to minimize the concomitant dangers alluded to above, the Panel recommends: a. That the national security agencies take immediate steps to strip the Unidentified Flying Objects of the special status they have been given and the aura of mystery they have unfortunately acquired; b. That the national security agencies institute policies on intelligence, training, and public education designed to prepare the material defenses and the morale of the country to recognize most promptly and to react most effectively to true indications of hostile intent or action. We suggest that these aims may be achieved by an integrated program designed to reassure the public of the total lack of evidence of inimical forces behind the phenomena, to train personnel to recognize and reject false indications quickly and effectively, and to strengthen regular channels for the evaluation of and prompt reaction to true indications of hostile measures. / s/ Lloyd V. Berkner Associated Universities, Inc. / s/ S. A. Goudsmit Brookhaven National Laboratories / s/ Thornton Page Johns Hopkins University /s Luis W. Alvarez University of California
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. 7 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.