Documents / FOIA release
This CIA file, dated 1999-02-02, holds a newspaper article by Bob Thomas of the Southern Arizona Bureau. In it, University of Arizona physicist Dr. James E. McDonald says UFOs may be extraterrestrial craft on peaceful reconnaissance missions. McDonald charges that a classified CIA order attached to the Robertson Report told the Air Force to debunk UFO reports. He also says the order called for surveillance of groups such as APRO. He criticizes Project Blue Book for failing to investigate credible sightings.
“UFO Research Society”1 page
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By BOB THOMAS Southern Arizona Bureau CPYRGHT flying objects seen over the United States for the past 18 years may be visitors from outer space here on reconnaissance missions, an eminent University of Arizona physicist said yesterday. Dr. James E. McDonald, senior physicist in the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the university, said he reluctantly has accepted the extraterrestrial theory after intensive research into UFOs. In addition, Dr. McDonald charged that the Central Intelligence Agency has ordered all reports of UFOs to be officially "debunked" by the Air Force. In the process of his research at Project Blue Book headquarters at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, where the Air Force compiles reports of saucer sightings, McDonald was inadvertently permitted to see the classified CIA order. It was attached to the Robertson Report, a government-sponsored investigation of the UFO problem by a group of respected scientists. The Robertson Report, named after its chairman, Cal Tech physicist H. P. Robertson, is also classified and has been so at CIA request since the report was completed in 1957. CIA agent P. G. Strong, who signed the secrecy order, said the UFOs must be debunked because widespread reports of their sightings "were clogging up intelligence channels," according to McDonald. One of the world's leading atmospheric physicists, McDonald said he casually asked Project Blue Book personnel at Wright-Patterson if he could see the Robertson Report. The report was decla ssi ed on the spot and I was per mitted to read it and make notes. When I returned three months later I asked to make Xerox copies of the report. The request bounced up to the base conmander, and he passed it on to the CIA, which classified the report again," McDonald said. The CIA's stated reason for debunking flying saucer reports, according to McDonald, was that with less official recognition of UFOs there would be a corresponding drop in public interest and there would be fewer reported sightings. The CIA also said in the deunking order that civilian UFO organizations such as the Tucson-based Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) should be kept under surveillance because they might be subversive. Speaking before a group of physic students and members of the faculty yesterday, McDonald said there is quite strong evidence the UFOs are from outer space. "I haven't the slightest idea here the UFOs come from," he said. "They don't fit any arm that we know here on earth. The only thing that can the known evidence is that the UFOs are extraterrestrial." He said the patterns of sightings suggest that the saucers, they are from some other ## CPYRGHT planet, are here on peaceful reconnaissance missions. That would explain the "buzing incidents, the hovering of KOs over cars and trucks and the flybys of aircraft," McDonald theorized. ## FOIAb3b He said the outer space idea "the least unacceptable exnation." He listed as other hypotheses that he has rejected be traveling, extra-sensory reception, hoaxes, hallucination hysteria, misinterpreted rural phenomena, secret adoce aircraft, secret societies, messengers of salvation. McDonald said the percentage actually closer to 50 per cent. Air Force investigators try rd to suggest all reports are ther balloons, birds, inversion McDonald said the Air Forces failed in the job of colling and correctly investigatg UFO reports. Blue Book acnts say that 95 per cent of TOS can be explained, while per cent of the sightings defy local explanation. "But too many of the reports are from credible, trained observors who do not seek publicity or gain, and these reports are not being thoroughly investigated," he said. layers, clouds, reflected lights or aircraft. He scored the Air Force for enforcing a regulation that makes it a crime for airmen to report UFO sightings to civilian organizations. He said this has resulted in a vast official silence about radar observations, visual sightings by pilots and detection by space apparatus.
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.