Documents / FOIA release

U.F.O. Files: The Untold Story

National Security Agency · 6 pages · text from the file's own layer

This file, held in the National Security Agency's UFO releases, is a magazine article titled "U.F.O. Files: The Untold Story" by Patrick Huyghe, a freelance writer in New York. The article argues that declassified CIA, FBI, Air Force and other agency documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show extensive government concern about UFOs despite official denials. It covers the 1975 base overflights, projects Sign and Grudge, the Condon study, CIA interest in NICAP, and the Ground Saucer Watch lawsuit against the CIA.

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-ty dlt~tor. agrees. with :
Gersten. ~· :· :entire exercise,
Man:hettl~ote ..-illy 1n a
magazine article, "has lhe
-e aroma of lhe agency's
previous messy efforts to hide
Its Involvement In dNgS and
mind-control operations, both
prime examples of a Suc:ceA-
ful Intelligence cover-up."
D
seeret weapoM. HI~~~
reassurances were ob· . !"'
that this was not so. ·.....
By the end of the summer,
the F.B.I. had "failed to re-
veal any Indication of 111.bver·
sive lndlvlduaJs being 1nwlWd
in any of the reported sl&ht·
inp." A RESTRICTED Army
letter that fOUlld lts way to
Hoover's desk said that tbe bu-
reau's services actually had
Tiie first sighting to be la- been enlisted to relieve the Air
beled a "Dying saucer" by the Forces "of the task of trac:lllll&
press occurred on June :U, down all the many Instances
1147, when an Idaho busi.-. which turned out to be asbcan
man Dying his plane near covers, toilet seats and what·
Mount Rainier observed~ not." Incensed, Hoover moved
disc-shaped objects ma quickly to discantlnue the bu-
undulatlng motions " a reau•s U.F.o. investipUGas.
saucer sklpptna over -ter." In September of that year,
As early as World War II, the Commanding General of
Allied bomber pilQlS had told the £I e ---'ved
of "balls of light" that fol- Army ... r .,orce ·- a
lowed their nights over Japan :~i: :=t.~J'=:.
and Germany. A U.S. Eighth Twinlng,saylngthat''tbephe-
Army Investigation coru:IUlied nomenon reported Is of -
that they were the product ol thing real and not visionary or
"mass hallucination." fictitious, .. that the objects ap.
T'llele and other Incidents peared to be disc.shaped. "as
were reported In a 1973 book by large as man-made aircraft."
David Michael JACObs, "The and "concrolled either ma1111-
UFO Controversy In Amer- ally, automatically or remoce-
ica," which untll the recent re- Jy." At Twinlng's ~.
i- of Govemmenc docu- project "Sip" wu 8llab-.
ments wu the most compre- lished. ,, ·.
1-lve ,_.IJ'UCtion of the "Slpi"falledtofiDdanyeri-
Government's U.F.O. Involve- dence that the objects were
ment. . ' Sov" and ......
When Scandinavians re- · 1et secret weapons .,....
poned cigar-aha~ Objects in I ~c::. ~~:t~~ :! ':':!:11M6, U.S. Army mtelllaence i t" .. I lf"ed TOP SE-
suspected that the RusslanS I ion, c ass •
bad developed a secret -poll CRET. wblc:h Indicated that
wlththehelpofGermanlcien-1 U.F.O.'s were of interplane-
tistS from Peenemiinde. The tary origin. The ~te
C.1.A., then known as the cen- : nentually reached Air Force
tral lntellia- Grwp se- : Chief of Staff Gell. Hoyt S.
bs l Vandenberg, who rejected It
cretly began keeping &a on J for lack of proof. "Slpi's" In-
the subjeet. .
W1- the unkMwn objects . conclusive final report re-
returned to the sides, this time : malned classified for tbe next
over the United S&ates In the ! 12years.
summer of 1947, the Army Air I After "Slpi," the Air Force
Force set out to determine . continued to collect U.F.O.
what the objec:IS were. Within : da&a under the code name
-1cs. Brig. Gen. George F. i "Grudge... This Six-month
ScbuJpn of Army Air Corps ' project found no evidence of
Intelligence requested the : foreign IClentific development
F.B.L's assistance "In local- ' and therefore DO direct threat
ing and questioning the indl· . to national security. It did,
vlduals who first sighted the · however, stress that the re-
so-called O)'i11& discs.••. " Un- ' ported siptlngs could be dan-
doubtedly swayed by Oaring ; gerous. "lbere are indications
cold-war tensiOns, Schulpn ; that the planned release of re- ·
feared that "the first reported : lated psychological propa.
sightings might have been by : ganda would cause a form of
individuals of Communist · mass hysteria," tbe report
sympathies with the view to 1 stated. "Employment of lhese
causing hysteria and fear of a II methods by or apinst an
secret Russian weapon." J. enemy would yield similar re-
Jidaar Hoover •&reed to coop- 1 suits ••• aovemmental agen-
erate but insisted that the bu- : cies interested In psycholoei-
reau have "full access to discs I cal -rrare should be in-
recovered." formed of the results of this
The Air Force's behind-the- l study."
scenes Interest contrasted ; A press release following the
sharply wilh Its public stance I termination of "Grudge" al.
that the objeccs were products lowed the public to believe that
of misldentlficatlons and an the Air Force was no longer in-
Imaginative populace. A se- terested in U.F.O.'s. But tbe
curity lid was imposed on the Air Force continued to collect
subject in July 1947. hiding a repons throu&h normal intelll-
potentially "embarrassing gence channels until e dra-
situatlon" the following Imatic sighting of a U.F.O. at
month, when both the Air the Army Signal Corps radar
Force and the F.B.1. began 1 center in Fort Monmouth
suspecting they might actu- l N.J., in 1951 led to the rea~
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FOIA release, from the nsa collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 6 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.