Documents / FOIA release
This Central Intelligence Agency briefing text on flying saucers, released in 2001, gives the Office of Scientific Intelligence's survey of the Air Force study after General Samford's July 29 press conference. It traces reports from Kenneth Arnold's 1947 sighting through Mantell, Gorman and White Sands, and describes ATIC's classes of sightings and figures on unexplained cases. It weighs four theories and finds no evidence for Russian or interplanetary origins. A draft National Security Council directive tasking the DCI with UFO research is attached.
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# Approved For Rel 0R000100020013-6 The second theory is that these are a Russian development. Though we know that the Russians have done work on elliptical and delta wing principles, we have absolutely no intelligence of such a technological advance as would be indicated here in either design or energy source. Further, there seems to be no logical reason for the security risk which would be involved and there has been no indication of a reconnaissance pattern. However, it should be mentioned that there is a totally unsupported thesis that this may be a Russian high altitude development of the World War II Jap balloon effort using preset flares and the resulting US press reports to check flight tracks. The third theory is the man from Mars -- space ships -- interplanetary travellers. Even though we might admit that intelligent life may exist elsewhere and that space travel is possible, there is no shred of evidence to support this theory at present. There have been no astronomical observations in confirmation -- no slightest indication of the orbiting which would probably be necessary -- and no tracking. However, it might be noted that Comdr. Mc Laughlin (of the White Sands report), a number of General Mills balloon people
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. 11 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.