Documents / Memo

FLYING SAUCERS memo

CIA Reading Room · 36 pages · text by OCR

This CIA file, released in 2001, gathers 1952 memoranda from H. Marshall Chadwell, Assistant Director of the Office of Scientific Intelligence, to the Director of Central Intelligence, along with draft letters to the Secretary of Defense and the NSC and a briefing on the Air Force position. It concludes that flying saucers carry national security implications, namely mass panic and air defense vulnerability. It recommends expanded scientific research, a public information policy and study of Soviet interest, noting that about 20 percent of roughly 1500 Air Force reports remained unexplained.

Open the PDF at page 18 Original source ↗

“United Press”5 pages

  • p. 6 …It was found that the only unit of Government currently studying the problem is the Directorate…
  • p. 8 …which is reflected both in the United States press and in the pressure of inquiry upon…
  • p. 13 …The public concern with the phenomena, which is reflected in the United States press and in…
  • p. 14 …could be made of these phenomena by United States psychological warfare planners, and what, if any…
  • p. 20 …General Samford gave their interim conclusions in his recent press conference. These were that analysis of…
# SECRET

defense could not operate effectively if the Air Force were constantly called upon to intercept mirages which persons had mistaken for enemy aircraft.

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Memo, cited by the archive. 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. 36 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.