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. 131 …Report officially logged at airport and relayed to Brazilian Air Force. Obtained for NICAP by J…

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

thorough news coverage. If so, this would tend to give a false picture of total UFO activity.

News coverage and publicity have been spotty and erratic over the years, largely reflecting the degree of official attention to UFOs. In this connection, it is interesting to note that during the past six years the Air Force has constantly debunked UFOs; during that period no real "flap" has occurred in the United States. In the same period, concentrations have occurred.

The following chart probably gives a more accurate picture of real increases and decreases of UFO activity.

FLAPS(Based on U.S. publicity)	CONCENTRATIONS	YEAR	PERIOD	MAIN LOCATIONS
X 1947	June-July	Western United States
	X	1950	First Half	Midwest, West, & SW U.S.
X 1952	July-August	Eastern United States
	X	1952	Sept.-October	Europe
	X	1954	April-December	World-Wide
	X	1954	October	France
	X	1955	August	Midwest United States
X 1957	November	Midwest, Southwest U.S., South America
	X	1959	June-August	Pacific Ocean, Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand
	X	1960	August	Northern California
	X	1962	May, July-August	Argentina
	X	1962	September	New Jersey

## CIA-RDP81R00560R000100010001-0 June-July

## 1947

The first major wave of UFO sightings in the United States began in June 1947. Kenneth Arnold, a private pilot flying near Mt. Ranier, Washington, first reported a sighting to the press. On June 24 he observed 9 flat, shiny objects which fluttered and skipped along as if in a chain. In describing the sighting to newsmen, he said the strange objects flew "like a saucer skipped across water." Newsmen promptly dubbed the objects "flying saucers," and the name stuck.

In the next three weeks, similar objects were spotted all over the country, but reports were concentrated in the northwest. Later research in library files, by a NICAP member traveling around the country, uncovered 125 separate UFO reports for June and July. These covered 25 states, with 30% coming from Washington.

Washington	38
Colorado	16
Idaho	11
Utah	8
Oregon	6
California	5
New Mexico	3
Wyoming	2
Arizona	2
	91

Ninety-one (72% of total) came from states west of the 100 degrees W longitude line. East of that line, Oklahoma had 9 reports, other states had only one or two.

The Air Force Project Blue Book Report, released in 1955, lists for the same period:

June - 13 sightings, 4 unknown

July - 40 sightings, 8 unknown

53 Total

The following chart lists the main sightings of this period.

DATE	LOCATION	TIME	NUMBER	SHAPE	COLOR	OBSERVERS	ACTIONS	SECTION
1947June	Iowa-Cedar Rapids	---	10	Discs	Shiny	Railroad Engineer	Fast, fluttered
”	24Wash.-Mt. Ranier	1400	9	Flat	Bright	Pilot(private)	Fluttered, skipped
”	24Ore.-Cascade Mtns.	---	5-6	Discs	Shiny	Prospector,Contractor	Banked
”	25N.Y.-Glens Falls	---	1	Disc	Red, blue	County DeputyTreasurer	Unspecified
”	26Ariz.-Grand Canyon	---	1	Ball	Silver	M.D.	High speed
”	28Nev.-Lake Meade	1515	5-6	Circular	Unspec.	Pilot(USAF)	Formation off wing	III.
”	28Ala.-Montgomery	2120	1	Light	Bright	4USAF Officers	Zig-zag,90°turn	III.
”	29N.Mex.-Rocket test site	---	1	Disc	Silver	Rocket expert	Flew straight	IV.
July	N.Mex.-Albuquerque	---	1	Disc	Bluish	Chamber of CommerceExecutive	Zig-zag
”	4Ore.-Redmond	1100	4	Discs	Unspec.	Car full	High speed
”	4Ore.-Portland	1305	3-30	Discs	Shiny	Police,Pilots(private)	Oscillated	II.
”	4Wash.-Seattle	1745	1	Circular	White	USCG Yeoman	Across wind	VIII.
”	4Idaho-Hauser Lake	1900	1	Disc	Unspec.	Over200persons	Circled,shot up

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.