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. 27 …Virgil Cappuro Fiery object made several passes at the control tower. 14. 12-50near Cheyenne, Wyoming…
  • p. 28 …Assuming various altitudes, it is possible to compute the speed of the UFO for those altitudes…
  • p. 36 …These were submitted to NICAP by members in the armed services. ## OTHER MILITARY SIGHTINGS ARMY Date…
  • p. 37 …The co-pilot of the Navy plane was the first to see it, and pointed it…
  • p. 39 …The reason? "The nation's 8,500 commercial airline pilots have been seeing a lot of…
  • p. 41 …Beers, a veteran pilot, said the UFOs "swooped around in formation, peeled-off, and shot directly…
  • p. 69 …He described the sighting to Olean, N.Y., newsman Bob Barry who relayed the report to…
  • p. 83 …18,000 ft. 31 A, V December 10, 1952 Nr Hanford, Wash. F-94 obtained radar…
  • p. 91 …We have seen dams break and towns washed away by the flood waters. We have seen…
  • p. 92 …Wash. At 5:45 p.m. Mr. Ryman photographed a circular white object moving across the…
  • p. 96 …CIA-RDP81R00560R000100010001-0 Photographic Cases (Continued) Jack Brotzman, NICAP scientific adviser in the Wash area, projected…
  • p. 107 …Michel, Aime, Flying Saucers and the Straight Line Mystery. (Criterion, 1958), p. 143. E-26. North…
  • p. 132 # SECTION XI # THE UFO CHRONOLOGY ## 19th Century Roman numerals in brackets indicate numbers of other Sections…
  • p. 133 …The few members of the press who did inquire about what the Air Force was doing…
  • p. 134 …Nick Mariana took motion pictures of 2 UFOs (The "Montana film," later shown in the documentary…
  • p. 136 …Perdy, stated there was "remarkable corroboration as to description of the cluster of lights by people…
  • p. 156 …The object would stop, "fall like a leaf," speed up again, and repeat the sequence, gaining…
  • p. 158 …C ## Zigzagging UFOs Another pattern is of UFOs zigzagging across the sky, usually in constant motion…
  • p. 160 …Carpenter estimated the speed at 3000 mph. If they were farther away, he pointed out, the…
  • p. 162 …The object passed over the area at about 50,000 feet traveling about 1200 mph. 9…
  • p. 177 …Jackson, D-Wash., the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, may call some witnesses before…
# Approved For Release 2001/04/02 : CIA-RDP81R00560R000100010001-0

divergent interpretations of some of the cases in this report, we suggest two books which present the skeptical position:

Flying Saucers and the U.S. Air Force, Lt. Col. Lawrence J. Tacker, (Van Nostrand, 1960).

The World of Flying Saucers, Dr. Donald H. Menzel, (Doubleday, 1963).

Both books argue that UFOs have been adequately investigated, and that there is no evidence indicating they are anything other than misidentified conventional objects or phenomena.

This report contains a total of 746 UFO sightings. The main chronology [Section XI] lists 575 cases, with cross-references. (Statistics based on the main chronology are reported in Section XII) The witnesses in $50\%$ of these cases were trained or experienced observers. An additional 171 cases are included in separate chronologies [Section XII] which show the major concentrations of UFO sightings.

The reports come from 46 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Canada, Mexico and Central America, 6 South American countries, 10 European countries, 4 African countries, 5

Asian countries, Australia and New Zealand, major oceans and numerous islands.

States with the highest frequency of sightings, as indicated by the selective process used, were: (1) California; (2) Ohio; (3) New Mexico; (4) Florida; (5) Illinois.

Other countries: (1) England; (2) France; (3) Canada; (4) Japan; (5) Brazil.

Of the 575 cases, two UFOs were observed in 41 cases, three UFOs in 30 cases, more than three UFOs in 81 cases. The remainder were observations of single objects.

Richard Hall

Washington, D. C.

May 1964

Cases discussed

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.