Documents / FOIA release

The National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (Nicap)

Central Intelligence Agency · 2001-03-12 · 186 pages · text by GLM-OCR

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.

  • p. 34 …Los Angeles Times; November 6, 1957. 55. Japan Times; July 20, 1958. 56. Col. Headrick is…
  • p. 36 …Summer 1944 Normandy, France George Todt, now Los Angeles columnist, other officers Pulsating red object approached…
  • p. 37 …shaped object about 100 miles northeast of Los Angeles, Calif. The pilot of the Navy plane…
  • p. 47 …NICAP member, was reported in the Los Angeles Times, November 26, 1955. ## Commercial Plane Follows UFO…
  • p. 55 …Los Angeles, which attained national prominence in 1952 after being publicized in Life and Time. Dr…
  • p. 57 …Felix Gelber and Grover Kihorny, both of Los Angeles, were also passengers. The night sky appeared…
  • p. 63 …In a letter to the President of CSI of Los Angeles, Dick Beemer, aviation photographer for…
  • p. 72 …Hahn, a jewelry designer, was flying from Minneapolis to Los Angeles aboard Western Airlines flight #61…
  • p. 77 …Washington Times-Herald and Washington Daily News; September 22,1952 12. Los Angeles Daily News; September…
  • p. 82 …23,000 ft. 16 G June 1, 1952 Los Angeles, Cal. Hughes Aircraft radar tracked UFO…
  • p. 90 …Between that time and midnight, police switchboards throughout the Los Angeles area were flooded with hundreds…
  • p. 95 …Ralph Benn, Los Angeles, Calif., was alerted to some UFOs by his eight year old son…
  • p. 96 …Miller subsequently viewed the films, which were processed in Los Angeles, several days before they were…
  • p. 97 …which, as stated above, were processed in Los Angeles and examined by Max Miller before they…
  • p. 100 …Miller in Los Angeles for analysis. (NICAP paid for the printing of one copy of the…
  • p. 106 …Ridgley Drive, Los Angeles, Calif.). E-7. Report to NICAP E-8. Aerial Phenomena Research Organization…
  • p. 113 …Ralph Benn of Los Angeles, using a 3x telephoto lens, took about six and a half…
  • p. 123 …Los Angeles News, March 14 & 15, 1950, Mexico City (UP)--Hundreds of persons said they saw…
  • p. 127 …Germany, directed the Civilian Saucer Investigation of Los Angeles. CSI was the first prominent UFO investigation…
  • p. 131 …Los Angeles Times; February 19, 1956 47. Report on file at NICAP, available to Congressional investigators…
  • p. 132 …Los Angeles columnist George Todt, in a party of four Army officers including a Lt. Col…
  • p. 135 …rapidly, circle area. I June 1, 1952--Los Angeles, Calif. Crew of Hughes Aircraft Co., radar…
  • p. 139 …Los Angeles, California. Airline passenger saw elliptical UFO flying low over ground below plane. VII November…
  • p. 141 …each night) saw a distinct round UFO hover and maneuver slowly. Los Angeles NICAP Subcommittee investigation…
  • p. 157 …of violent maneuvers." A 4-8-49 Los Angeles, Calif. day (1) silvery disc high speed…
  • p. 169 …11 Nr Los Angeles, California Day Elliptical, silvery UFO observed moving low above desert, from airliner…
  • p. 181 …Later he was convicted in Los Angeles of selling Doctor of Divinity degrees, mainly to other…

Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.

# Approved For Release 2001/04/02 : CIA-RDP81R00560R000100010001-0

was grey, and I think perhaps a little darker on the rim or edge; not much but enough to make the edge sharply defined.

'Suddenly it stopped and seemed to be going in a direction more or less at right angles to its first motion, but still in an upright direction. . . This sudden stop interested me as an engineer, because any sudden retardation or acceleration requires in so large an object the application of a very considerable force, and seemed a much shorter turn and a more rapid turn than any airplane I had ever seen could be capable of.

"It then began to ascend in a direction of perhaps at right angles to its first direction and at an upward angle of perhaps 30 or 35 degrees from the horizontal. . . . There were some fleecy clouds above it, and it entered them and was lost to sight for perhaps a second or so, to emerge into vision again above this first layer of clouds. Its direction had not changed, and shortly after it entered some more layers of cloud, which were thicker, and was lost to view."

## ARE UFOs INTELLIGENTLY CONTROLLED?

The definitive answer to this question must await a full-fledged investigation by scientists using appropriate instrumentation, as NICAP advocates [Section XIV]. However, the accumulation of reports by good observers and some of the special evidence such as radar trackings [Section VIII] strongly suggest this hypothesis. How else can one explain the maneuvers of the disc which pilot Waldo Harris attempted to investigate? The "curiosity" evidenced by the two discs which circled the Skyhook balloon? The powered flight indicated by the reports of Dr. Hess, Engineer Cox, and others? Section II discusses this question in detail.

How else can one explain reports such as the following of objects approaching at meteorlike speed, then hovering or maneuvering? When these reports come from pilots, scientists, engineers, and police officers they deserve far more serious, scientific attention than they have yet received.

Date: May 13, 1952

Location: National City, California

Time: Approximately 8:55 p.m. PDT

Witnesses: Donald R. Carr, aeronautical engineer, and at least six others in separate locations, including a teacher who is a former Navy pilot.

Excerpts from Mr. Carr's report. [5.]

"I saw what I thought was the trail of a large meteor appear, approximately 5 degrees of arc East of a line between the two pointers and almost exactly in the center of the bowl of the Big Dipper. [See diagram.] The trail was of a red color and appeared to be coming down at about an angle of 20 degrees to my line of sight and in a southwesterly direction. Only the red trail was visible for about two seconds and then a small white dot became visible, from which the trail was emanating. The speed appeared to be meteoric and so I still thought the object was what is commonly called a 'shooting star.' [After 2 or 3 seconds] the white object had an apparent diameter of 1/64 to 1/32 inch. The trail faded and the object still continued coming down. The speed appeared to be decreasing and I noted a certain erratic quality to the flight of the object, which now appeared to have a self-luminous or fluorescent quality. [for about 10 more seconds] the object was following a gradual curved path in process of levelling off. [then] the object was flying level on a course almost due West. I estimated the altitude of the object at this point of its trajectory to be from 10,000 to 15,000 feet. Its speed at this time appeared to be within the range of known aircraft speeds. To the naked eye the object appeared as a sphere of about 1/16 inch diameter. Through the [6 power] telescope the object presented a larger disc but the brightness did not appreciably increase. In level flight the object seemed to dart from side to side in an oscillating motion without diminishing of forward speed. After travelling a course almost due West for approximately one mile, the object turned toward the Northwest and appeared to circle over San Diego Bay and Point Loma and disappeared travelling North at a constant altitude and speed. During the entire time the object was visible there was absolutely no apparent sound created by it. Despite its terrific speed in its dive there was no shock wave or noise from its power source."

Approved For Release 2001/04/02 :

About 9:25 p.m., Mr. Carr observed what appeared to be the same object returning from the North, and circling West. It passed over downtown San Diego, where bright ground lights seemed to reflect off a metal hull.

"It is my conviction," Mr. Carr stated, "that since this object followed an apparently controlled course it was not moving under the influence of gravity, and must have been guided by an intelligence unknown to us. Its dive from an extreme altitude at possibly meteoric speed, its deceleration, levelling off, and circle of the city twice indicate that it arrived from interplanetary space and was under intelligent control."

The former Navy Pilot, Harold Strawn, with a group of students in La Mesa also witnessed the meteoric appearance, the levelling off and circling.

A multiple visual and multiple radar sighting, similarly suggesting controlled flight, occurred August 12, 1953; near Rapid City, South Dakota. The UFO was first spotted hovering in the eastern sky by the Ground Observer Corps. It moved in over the city, then back to its original position. Then ground radar began tracking the UFO, and an F-84 was scrambled and vectored in on the object, chasing it for 120 miles. Both the UFO and the jet showed plainly on the GCI radar screen. Each time the jet began to close in, the UFO would move ahead with a burst of speed. When the pilot gave up and turned back to base, the UFO turned and followed.

A second F-84 scrambled and chased the UFO 160 miles, obtaining a radar lock-on. The UFO again stayed just out of reach. When the pilot switched on his radar-ranging gunsight, and the red light blinked on showing something real and solid was ahead of him, the pilot was scared. ("When I talked to him, he readily admitted that he'd been scared. .he asked the controller if he could break off the intercept." [6., p. 305].) This time the UFO continued on course to the north. The Ground Observer Corps on the path ahead was notified, and reported seeing a light speeding north.

At the climax of the sighting, when the pilot became frightened, ground radar showed the jet and the UFO; the pilot's gunsight radar showed the UFO, and the pilot could see with his own eyes a speeding unidentified light in front of him.

A NICAP member later queried the Air Force about the case, and received a written reply on September 17, 1958 stating: "Photos of the radar scope and gun camera photos were made but were not sufficiently clear for evaluation. The Ellsworth Air Force Base case is still listed as unknown or unsolved." [7.]

NICAP Note: The fact that the gun camera photos showed an image at all is further proof that something real and solid was outspeeding jet interceptors. In conjunction with the multiple radar and multiple visual observations, an image on the film is close to complete proof of the reality of UFOs.

Capt. W. J. Hull, veteran Capital Airlines pilot, was a UFO skeptic. He had written an article entitled "The Obituary of the Flying Saucers" for The Airline Pilot magazine. At 10:10 p.m., November 14, 1956, Captain Hull was a pilot of Capital Flight No. 77, approaching Mobile, Alabama, enroute from New York City [8.] Suddenly, he and his co-pilot, Peter MacIntosh, noticed a bright light through the upper part of the windshield. The CIA-RDP81R00560R000100010001-0

Cases discussed

About this file

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.