Documents / FOIA release

The National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (Nicap)

Central Intelligence Agency · 2001-03-12 · 186 pages · text by 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. 11 …Should you need additional room, please use another sheet of paper. Please print or typewrite. Your…
  • p. 13 …await a full-fledged investigation by scientists using appropriate instrumentation, as NICAP advocates Section XIV. However…
  • p. 35 # SECTION IV # Army, Navy & Marine Corps The other armed services, required by law to channel UFO…
  • p. 37 …The crews of two commercial airliners and a Navy transport sighted a cigar-shaped object about…
  • p. 38 …Shortly after 8 p.m., he "noticed a brilliant white flashing light pass directly below us…
  • p. 40 …Moore, USN Domed circular UFO passed in front of two Navy planes confirmed by radar. Section…
  • p. 44 …Shenkel (both former Air Force pilots) and Steven Summers confirmed Baldwin's report. "All of us…
  • p. 50 …Matthews, CAA Tower Operator (over four years experience in aircraft observation with Navy and as a…
  • p. 55 …Often this argument is used by skeptics to imply that UFO reports result only from careless…
  • p. 76 …Arnold, a former Navy air identification and anti-aircraft gunnery control officer, said the UFOs changed…
  • p. 93 …Orrego, Chilean Navy. Reported sighting and photographing UFOs over an Antarctic base. Objects described as "one…
  • p. 95 …He obtained about 6-1/2 feet of Kodachrome film, using a Keystone Capri camera. The…
  • p. 99 …There were no Weather Bureau, Navy or Air Force balloons in the area at the time…
  • p. 100 …Huge "Moby Dick" plastic balloons (named after Melville's legendary whale) used for high altitude research…
  • p. 116 …When none can be found, the "shotgun" approach is used. Clearly, this is not a scientific…
  • p. 123 …Luis Sanchez Moreno, investigating for the Navy, told the press the Navy had been constantly concerned…
  • p. 129 …Lorenzen commented that "the rate of closure with us was much greater than any I had…
  • p. 130 …has twenty counselor members, among them Army, Navy and Naval Air Force officers on active duty…
  • p. 141 …The military had us just about convinced that no such objects existed. The only trouble was…
  • p. 145 …The following list, including one 1884 sighting, shows that many independent witnesses have used very similar…
## Approved For Release 2001/04/02 : CIA-RDP81R00560R000100010001-0

realized that it could not be a blimp - they are only about 200 feet long. And this thing was gigantic. It was about 800 feet long. I could estimate that because it was so close to the mountain ridge where trees and clumps of trees were visible for comparison.

While we were watching the cigar-shaped thing, for four or five minutes as it paced the train, we noticed that another object had joined it. This second object appeared very suddenly in back of the first one. It was a disc-shaped thing. Both of them were very shiny, we noticed. . If my estimate of size on the cigar-shaped thing was correct then the disc-shaped object would have been about 100 feet in diameter, flat on the bottom with a shallow dome on top.

My wife and I watched them for another two or three minutes. They were moving at about the same speed as the train and they were very close to the top of the ridge, not more than 500 feet above it, I should say. Then they began to rise, slowly at first and then much faster. In a matter of seconds they had risen so high that we couldn't see them any more from the train window.

All over the world credible witnesses are reporting experiences similar to mine. Holding these people up to ridicule does not alter the existing facts. The time is long overdue for accepting the presence of these things, whatever they are and dealing with them and the public on a basis of realism."

# NEW MEXICO COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE AND MECHANIC ARTS

ADJACENT TO AND COOPERATING WITH WHITE SANDS PROVING GROUND

10 September 1957

Mr. Richard Hall SATELLITE 721 Burdette Street New Orleans 18, La.

Dear Mr. Hall:

Regarding the solidity of the phenomenon I saw: My wife thought she saw a faint connecting glow across the structure. The illuminated rectangles I saw did maintain an exact fixed position with respect to each other, which would tend to support the impression of solidity. I doubt that the phenomenon was any terrestrial reflection, because some similarity to it should have appeared many times. I do a great deal of observing (both telescopic and unaided eye) in the backyard and nothing of the kind has ever appeared before or since.

As I have said before, I was so unprepared for such a strange sight that I was really petrified with astonishment. Consequently, some of the details I might have noted were missed.

Sincerely yours,

CWT:ds

Clyde W. Tombrough

CLYDE W. TOMBAUGH Astronomer

## Antarctic Sighting

March 16, 1961; Antarctica. A Brazilian Meteorologist, recently employed at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center near Washington, D. C., observed a strange phenomenon while aboard an ice-breaker in Admiralty Bay, Antarctica on a scientific expedition. He noted the observation in his diary, and later filled out a NICAP report form. Though in some respects the phenomenon resembles a meteor, in other respects it does not. At

any rate, it is worth recording as an unexplained aerial phenomenon, possibly related to UFO activity.

Rubens J. Villela, who also has experience as a glider pilot and Moonwatch observer, was on the deck of the U.S.S. Glacier about 6:15 p.m. The temperature was about 33 degrees, dew point 28, wind calm, sky overcast, visibility about 5 miles. Weak, yellowish sunset light was visible to the NW. About 50 degrees above the horizon he noticed a strange tear-shaped "luminous body" crossing the sky from NW to SE. It was "multi-

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About this file

FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. The text was read from the page images by an OCR model; expect the odd misread word. 186 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.