Documents / FOIA release
This Central Intelligence Agency release, approved in 2004, collects 1966 memoranda on Air Force requests to declassify the 1953 report of the scientific panel on unidentified flying objects that the Office of Scientific Intelligence convened. The memos trace the USAF requests of July 1966, the press interest behind them, and the 15 August forwarding of a sanitized version with CIA references removed. The attached panel comments found no threat to national security, judged the Tremonton film to probably show birds, and recommended a training and debunking program.
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MEMORANDUM FOR: Chief, Defensive Systems Division/OSI Air Force Request to Declassify an OSI Paper on UFO's REFERENCE: CIA/OSI "Report of the Scientific Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects" dated February 1953 ## 25X1A 1. Mrs. Sara B. Hunt, of the Office of Information, Office of the Secretary of the Air Force, visited on 19 July 1966 to discuss an Air Force request to declassify the referenced report. ## 25X1A 2. Mrs. Hunt indicated that this request was triggered by the 12 May "CES Reports" program. Chairman of the panel, was on the show and reportedly made sufficient references to CIA involvement in UFO analysis to cause a press reaction. ## 25X1A 3. A review of the documents supplied by Mrs. Hunt showed that had approved a similar Air Force request in December 1957. This resulted in a sanitized version of the original consultants' report. This report presented most of the conclusions but it did not refer to the original meeting minutes, case histories, or indicate CIA involvement. has OSI copies of the reports and correspondence). 4. Although the Air Force request now in OSI does not request additional declassification, Mrs. Hunt expressed the view that this was intended. Mrs. Hunt said that the Air Force is not trying to declassify all U.S. Government work on UFO's. 5. Inasmuch as my review of the original material showed that significant deletions would be required for further declassification, I suggested that Mrs. Hunt ask the Air Force originator to submit a second request, if they wanted declassification of additional material from the minutes and case histories. CONFIDENTIAL
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. 53 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.