Documents / Report
This Black Vault compilation gathers records tied to Jimmy Carter and UFOs. It contains NICAP and International UFO Bureau sighting forms, filled out in 1973, on Carter's October 1969 sighting at Leary, Georgia. He described a bright object, bluish then reddish, that about ten Lions Club members watched for 10 to 12 minutes. The file also holds White House, OSTP, NASA and NSC letters and memos from 1977 and 1978. In them, NASA declines to open a new UFO investigation and agrees to handle public inquiries.
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration Washington, D.C 20546 Officer of the Administrator SEP 61977 Honorable Frank Press Director Office of Science and Technology Policy Executive Office of the President Washington, DC 20500 ## Dear Frank: In your letter of July 21 you expressed the view that NASA should be the focal point for UFO matters, and specifically recommended that a panel of inquiry be formed by NASA to see if there are any significant new findings since the Condon report and that NASA become the focal point for general correspondence and inquiries. While we are inclined to agree with your recommendation, there are a number of questions which need to be resolved before any formal program is undertaken. You may know that the Air Force served as the focal point for UFO matters during the 1960's and devoted considerable resources to the program. It, however, concluded, in the absence of significant findings, that the program warranted no more than routine form letter answers to inquiries and has been handling the program in that manner since about 1970. It now handles a small number of inquiries, perhaps 10 to 12 monthly. NASA, likewise, handles routine inquiries by form letter response, 10 to 12 formal inquiries and a somewhat larger number of public inquiries monthly. NASA uses the information sheet attached in its responses. The Air Force uses similar data. From the point of view of the Administration as a whole, this is economical. However, it fails to provide a recognized focal point for technical appraisal of sightings and understandably results in some frustration to individuals making what they consider to be serious inquiries. A panel of inquiry such as you suggest might possibly discover new significant findings. It would certainly generate current
Report, 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. 19 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.