Documents / FOIA release
This CIA-held clipping is a Reuters article from the Philadelphia Inquirer of July 9, 1967, datelined Sydney. Physicist James McDonald said flying saucers were visiting Earth and that governments, backed by the CIA, ran a program to debunk them. He added that he did not see a CIA cover-up, only an effort to sweep the problem under the carpet. McDonald had recorded 70 Australian witnesses and cited cases he considered authentic, including a New Guinea sighting by a clergyman and 30 others.
“The Advance”1 page
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
PHILADELPHIA, PA. INQUIRER H - 522.941 R - 956.206 JUL 9 1967 # Scientist Accuses CIA of World Plot to 'Debunk' UFOs SYDNEY, Australia, July 8 scientific proof of flying saucers (Reuters).—An American scientist contended Saturday that flying saucers were visiting the earth from another world and accused governments of a deliberate program to debunk their existence. and acceptance of their existence had been delayed by a deliberate debunking program arranged by many governments and backed by the U. S. Central Intelligence Agency. McDonald who was in Sydney Prof. James McDonald, 47, senior physicist of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics and professor in the department of meteorology at the University of Minnesota, said he had no scientific explanation for the visits. But he told newsmen here that McDonald, who was in Sydney to investigate sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) seen over Australia, said he did not believe there was a CIA conspiracy to cover up the truth but rather that they were trying to sweep the problem under the carpet. This, he said, was a device to solve the problem of the large number of operatives tied up on UFO sightings. Over the last two weeks, McDonald made tape records of the experiences of 70 Australians who claimed to have seen flying saucers. Some of hte reports he believed authentic were: A flying saucer that followed a car at up to 115 M.P.H. until the car almost crashed. Another saucer that gave some Gippsland, Eastern Victoria, people a hair-raising experience when it swept in at them at tree-top height. A UFO that caused the lights of an automobile to end in a manner scientifically impossible to explain. A sighting in New Guinea by a clergyman and 30 others of a saucer that hovered above the sea. Asked to explain the UFO phenomenon, McDonald said a possible explanation was that the saucers were an "anthropological probe" from another and much more advanced civilization. "But this is mere unscientific speculation and I would not like it to be treated as anything but that," he added.
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.