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.
Approved For Re are many scientific frontiers which have as yet been little explored or charted. In these areas occur phenomena which may account for optical or electronic aberrations as well as for things actually seen. They listed three categories: atmospherics, ionization, and extre-terrestrial phenomena. They suggested also that products of nuclear fission might have some effect upon these. In the field of atmospherics would be the temperature inversions stressed by General Samford. This phenomenon exists but the exact mechanics of its cause, its nature and manner of dissipation are not well understood. Neither is its effect upon electromagnetic and light beams causing their refraction or reflection. Little is known of clouds of ice crystals which exist at altitudes to 60,000 feet. Studies of the winds and the physical and chemical properties of air at very high altitudes have only recently commenced with the availability of such agents at high altitude balloons and research rockets. The second category was ionization. The Heaviside (or "E") layer of ionization, the "F" layer above it, and their relation to radio transmission
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.