Documents / FOIA release
This Central Intelligence Agency filing is a declaration by Delores M. Nelson, the CIA's Information and Privacy Coordinator, in Bryant v. CIA, Civil Action No. 09-0940 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. It supports the CIA's motion for summary judgment. It traces Larry W. Bryant's 2008 FOIA request for records of a 1987 FAA meeting on the November 17, 1986 Japanese 747 encounter over Alaska and records of similar airborne UFO encounters. It also describes the fee dispute and the searches the CIA ran. No records of the meeting were found, and three documents from other agencies were referred to them.
“Edwards Air Force Base”3 pages
...Q , ow on Approved for Release: 2025/06/11 C07083374 UFOs l - rule out the possibility of extraterres- Early CIA Concerns, 1947-S2, trial phenomena.‘ Amp} mounting UFQ sightings, thc effort, aware ofthe mounting number Air Force continued to collect and evaluate UFO data in the late 19405 under a new project GRUDGE,i distribution of the s' htin CIA oili- CM. closely monitored the Air Force of $lgi1(1I!g$ and increasingly con- cerned that UFOs might pose a potential security threat. ‘° Given the which tried to alleviate public anxiety _ ‘S E" ~ - - ' ' ed ch over UFOs vza a pUlJlIC L'Cl3UOfl$ cam- ml‘ m 1952 °.“¢‘“°“ “’l‘°d‘°" ‘Y paign designed to persuade the public might ‘¢E,lff‘ 'ml¢l$"mm°_Y that UFO: constituted nothing m"dn°$s~ i A€°“CY Qmcla-is a°°°P‘°d M1 di _ Up-Q - h _ the Air Force's conclusions about um” or Gig-mid may Sig I UFO reports, although they con- ings were exp ne as oons, conventional aircraft, planets, mete- ors, optical illusions, solar rcilectio ns, P°$$iblfi‘7 that d"°Y may b‘ lm°'Plm' eluded that ‘since there is a remote or even “large hailstoncs." GRUDGE fwy ‘i‘i'°“‘&' it “°‘§°“a,,‘X t° officials Found no evidence in UFO investigate “ch S'ghtm5' L sightings of advanced Foreign weapons , _ _ , d - d I ’ _ A massive buildup oisrghtrngs over esign or eve oprnent and theycon th U _ cds _ I952 ,3“ eluded that UFO: did not threaten US sccuri . Th recommended that in duly’ flumcd uh: Tmma“ admi“is' Q flit HCCS 111 ,CSPCCi Y W tr ' _ tration. On 19 and 20 july, radar the project he reduced in scope because the very existence of Air scopes at Washington National Air- d And Air Fo Base Force oiiicial interest encouraged pco-_ 9°“ 3'“ riws . la it be“: - UFO d tracked mysterious blips. On 27 Iuly, P to-b K;/C m u Em -as the blips reappeared The Air Force contra ut to a war ten atrn0— . 78 scrambled interceptor aircraft to invcs~ sphere. On 27 December 1949, the Air Force announced the project‘: - ' 1 §€i'H\lfl3.IlOn. ' ' . across the country. The White I-louse With increased Cold War tensions. ii" K“=1“ W1‘? ‘mi c°“‘l"“‘d UFQ explanationithat the radar blips might sightings, USAF Director of Intelli- Sma Mal G¢"- _Cl11'l¢$ 9- Cilxu inversions." Later, a Civil Aeronautics ordered a new UFO project in 1952. Project BLUE BOOK became the rnajor Air Force eFFo rt to study the UFO phenomenon throughout the 1950s and 1960s.“ The task of identi- tigate, but they Found nothing. The incidents, however, caused headlines wanted to know what was happening, and the Air Force quickly offered the he the result of "temperature Administration investigation con- firmed that such radar blips were quite common and were caused by temperature inversions. l’ lying and explaining Ui-‘Os continued Amwugh 1; had mo,-rim-¢¢ UFQ to Fall on the Air Material Command ‘"5 W‘l8hY'P=°‘¢‘5°fl- with 3 5""-ll E reacted to the new rash of sightings by staff, the Air Technical intelligence Center (A'l'lC)_ tried to persuade the public that UFOs were not'extraordi- (OSI) and (he Offiqg of Current intel- nary.9 Projects SIGN, GRUDGE, and BLUE BOOK set the tone For reports for at least three years. CiA forming a special study group within the Oliice oFScientific intelligence ligence (OCI) to review the situation.“ Edward Tauss, acting the oflieial US Govern menr pos'ition,, ,,j__;_.cl:tigE9f“Q_Slls Weapons and Equip- regarding U l?Os For the next 30 years. ment Division, reported For the group“ I ' 1 that most UFO sightings could be eas- ily explained. Nevertheless, he _ recommended that the Agency con- tinue monitoring the problem. in coordination with ATIC. He also urged that CIA conceal its interest From the media and the public, “in view of their probable alarmist tenden- cies” to accept such interest as confirming the existence of UFOs. ll Upon receiving the report, Deputy Director For Intelligence (DDI) Rob- ert Amory, Jr. assigned responsibility For the UFO investigations to O5i'_s Physics and Electronics Division, with A. Ray Gordonias the officer in charge,“ Each branch in the division was to contribute to the investigation, and Gordon was to coordinate closely with ATIC. Arno ry, who asked the group to focus on theenatiooal secu- rity implications of UFOs, was relaying DCI \Waltcr Bedell Srnith’s concerns. l’ Smith wanted to know whether or not the Air Force investiga- tion oF flying saucers was suiiiciently objective and how much more money and manpower would be necessary to determine the cause of the small per- centage of unexplained flying saucers.- Smith believed “there was only one chance in 10,000 that the phenome- non posed a threat to the security of the country, but even that chance could not be taken." According to Smith. it wa‘s_ClA's responsibility by statute to coordinate the intelligence effort required to solve the problem. Smith also wanted to know what use could he made of the UFO phenome- non in connection with US psychological warfare efforts. “ Led by Gordon, the CIA_5tudy Group met with Air Force ofiicials at Wright-Patterson and reviewed their data and findings. The Air Force claimed that 90 percent of the ‘reported sightings were easily -5-‘ :J‘\”4-'|'Y*>; ‘.-r~r'-'.'.' \. l ‘ - ' 1'~ _. . \~ Approved for Release: 2025/06/11 C07083374
FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 58 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.