Documents / FOIA release
This is a copy of "The UFO Evidence," a report published in May 1964 by the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) in Washington, D.C. and edited by Richard H. Hall. The CIA released its copy in 2001. The report draws 746 sightings from more than 5,000 signed reports and argues that unexplained UFOs are real, artificial objects under intelligent control. It criticizes Air Force secrecy and calls for a Congressional inquiry into Project Blue Book and a larger scientific investigation.
“Los Angeles Times”27 pages
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
# Approved For Release 2001/04/02 : CIA-RDP81R00560R000100010001-0 SECTION I.
A Cross-section of significant cases and guide to additional examples in other sections.
Most people are unaware that UFO sightings, many by exceptionally good witnesses, have been reported regularly in recent years. Contrary to popular belief, the reports have continued into the 1960's. The last fully publicized series of sightings was in November 1957 [Section XII; November 1957 Chronology]. At that time the cases involving electromagnetic effects on automobile motors and lights made headlines all over the country for two weeks.
Before that, UFO sightings were reported and discussed widely through 1952; in that year, the Air Force (officially charged with investigation of UFO reports) investigated a record number of cases-1,501. UFOs violated the restricted air spaces over Washington, D.C., on two consecutive weekends in July, were tracked on radar, and pursued by jet interceptors [Section XII; July 1952 Chronology].
Since 1957, the newswire services and national radio and television have rarely mentioned UFO sightings. As a result, few people outside the immediate area of occurrence ever learn about a report. Local newspapers and stations continue to report UFO activity, but it has been considered "local" rather than "national" news, in general.
The misconception that UFOs are no longer being sighted, and other erroneous beliefs, are challenged in this Section. Sample reports are given, representing a cross-section of the entire report, and providing a digest of the type of evidence which constitutes the UFO problem. The cases also were chosen to furnish examples of features of UFO sightings, such as maneuver patterns [Section XII] and UFOs tracked by instruments [Section VIII].
## ARE UFOs STILL BEING SEEN?
This is probably the most common question asked by casually interested persons. The answer is "yes." But the sighting reports do not receive the publicity they once did. [See Section XI for chronology of recent sightings].
A grayish disc-shaped object which hovered, wobbling on its axis, then evaded pursuit, was sighted October 2, 1961 at Salt
Lake City, Utah, airport. Private pilot Waldo J. Harris, a real estate broker, investigated the object in his light aircraft as 8-10 ground personnel at the airport watched. Mr. Harris signed a NICAP report form on October 10, and later answered additional questions by a NICAP Subcommittee member. His report: "I was preparing to take off in a Mooney Mark 20A from the North-South runway at Utah Central Airport when I noticed a bright spot in the sky over the southern end of the Salt Lake Valley. I began my take-off run without paying much attention to the bright spot as I assumed that it was some aircraft reflecting the sun as it turned. After I was airbourne and trimmed for my climb-out, I noticed that the bright spot was still about in the same position as before. I still thought it must be the sun reflecting from an airplane, so I made my turn onto my cross-wind leg of the traffic pattern, and was about to turn downwind when I noticed that the spot was in the same spot still.
"I turned out of the pattern and proceeded toward the spot to get a better look. As I drew nearer I could see that the object had no wings nor tail nor any other exterior control surfaces protruding from what appeared to be the fuselage. It seemed to be hovering with a little rocking motion. As it rocked up away from me, I could see that it was a disc shaped object. I would guess the diameter at about 50 to 55 feet, the thickness in the middle at about 8 to 10 feet. It had the appearance of sandblasted aluminum. I could see no windows or doors or any other openings, nor could I see any landing gear doors, etc., protruding, nor showing.
"I believe at the closest point I was about 2 miles from the object, at the same altitude or a little above the object. It rose abruptly about 1000 feet above me as I closed in, giving me an excellent view of the underneath side, which was exactly like the upper side as far as I could tell. Then it went off on a course of about 170 degrees for about 10 miles where it again hovered with that little rocking motion.
"I again approached the object, but not so closely this time, when it departed on a course of about 245 degrees climbing at about 18 to 20 degrees above the horizon. It went completely out of sight in 2 or 3 seconds. As you know I can keep our fastest jets in sight for several minutes, so you can see that this object was moving rather rapidly.
(1) UFO hovered with rocking motion at about 6000 ft. south of the airport.
(2) UFO rose abruptly estimated 1000 ft. as Harris closed in.
(2) UFO rose abruptly estimated 1000 ft. as harris closed in.
(3) UFO quickly moved away an estimated 10 miles, stopped and hovered, rocking motion. (SSE)
(4) As Harris closed in second time, UFO took off at high speed on 243 course (now) climbing at an angle of about $ 2 0^{\circ} $ , completely out of sight in 2-3 seconds. (Copy of observer's sketch). 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. 186 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.