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.
“United Press”5 pages
material tossed aloft could appreciably affect atmospheric phenomena. For instance, the cosmic and gamma natural radiation which pours in daily from outer space is many thousands of times greater than the radiation produced by atomic bomb blasts. This list could be extended at length. Suffice to say, our ignorance of the nature and controlling factors of all of the above is immense. Effects of interaction between these natural phenomena and radioactive material in the air can only be conjectured. The appearance of unusual optical or radar sightings caused by these phenomena is possible. Their occurrence cannot be predicted. There is some strength to the hypothesis that many of the unexplained sightings of UFO's may be electromagnetic or electrostatic in character. Factors supporting this hypothesis are: Absence of sound, although apparently moving rapidly in the atmosphere. Phenomena are apparently affected by shock waves or electromagnetic radiation of aircraft. Reports of erratic operation of various kinds of instruments in Approved For Release 2001/04/02 : CTA-RDP81R00560R000100020012-7
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.