Documents / Memo
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.
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
phenomena, instrument errors and windblown objects. There are two types of high altitude balloons, radiosonde and the Navy Skyhook. They may reach altitudes as high as 20 miles. Although both types are tracked and plotted for some distance, there generally is no accurate confirmation of destruction. Consequently, because of the large number released daily by the weather services and research groups in the U.S., it is possible that they might appear over almost any geographic location. The longevity of the gas bags is not known but is believed to be possibly weeks. Night-launched balloons carry a bright light to facilitate tracking. Many others have radar-reflecting panels. The Mantell case, referred to by has been explained as a misinterpretation of a Navy Skyhook balloon. This was in January 1947. There were three interceptor aircraft. One, piloted by Capt. Thomas Mantell radioed in that he was going to climb to 20,000 feet in an attempt to close in. His rather wild report that the object was "tremendous" and his subsequent crash are laid to the effects of anexia since his plane carried no oxygen equipment. Approved For Release 2001/04/02 : CIA-RDP81R00560R000100020012-7
Memo, cited by the archive. 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. 36 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.