Documents / FOIA release
This file, released by the Central Intelligence Agency with a date of 2014-06-12, holds a newspaper editorial titled "Flying Saucer Alert." It reports that the Air Force told its commands to treat unidentified flying objects as "serious business." It quotes retired Vice Adm. R. H. Hillenkoetter, a former CIA director and spokesman for a private saucer research group, who called for congressional hearings and accused the Air Force of hiding facts. It notes the Air Force had investigated 6,312 UFO reports since 1947.
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
Circ.: m. 42,976 Front Edit Other Date: FLTING SAUCER ALERT The "flying saucer" is back to plague us. Whether the Air Force is actually apprehensive or merely precautious isn't clear. But it has sent its commands a fresh warning to treat all unidentified flying objects (UFO's) as "serious business." There's a private "flying saucer" research group, privately financed, that has long accused the Air Force in public of falsely describing UFO reports as delusions and hoaxes while sending secret instruction to its commands to be on the alert. Whether the new UFO warning by the Air Force is just to appease and quiet the flying saucer research group, or is genuine isn't too clear. But the group's spokesman, Vice Adm. R. H. Hillenkoetter (ret) and former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, says "it's time for the truth to be brought out in congressional hearings" and that behind the scenes high-ranking Air Force officers are soberly concerned about the UFO's. The retired admiral charges that through official secrecy and ridicule many citizens are led to believe flying objects are nonsense. He says the Air Force has operated to hide the facts. If the Air Force considers the unidentified objects as "serious business" it is not in the public interest to keep that concern a secret. We suspect the Air Force simply doesn't know the answer and hesitates unduly to alarm the public. But apparently the Air Force is ever on the alert. It has investigated 6312 UFO reports since 1947 with 183 of them in the last six months of 1959.
Not linked to a story yet.
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. 1 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.