Documents / Official release
This is a Secret History Staff monograph by Gregory W. Pedlow and Donald E. Welzenbach of the Central Intelligence Agency, published in 1992. It gives a history of the CIA's manned overhead reconnaissance program from 1954 to 1974, covering the development and operation of the U-2 and the A-12 OXCART aircraft. It covers overflights of the Soviet Union, the 1960 downing of Francis Gary Powers, and later operations. One section is titled "U-2s, UFOs, and Operation BLUE BOOK."
From the source:Release of 2026-06-12 This CIA History Staff document chronicles the complete history of the U-2 and OXCART (A-12) high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft programs from 1954 to 1974, detailing their development, operations over the Soviet Union and other targets worldwide, the famous downing of Francis Gary Powers in 1960, organizational reforms following that incident, and the eventual transfer of operations from CIA to Air Force control. A more redacted version of this document has been available on CIA's public website.
“RAF”18 pages
138 Set1 et N6F8RN Chapter 3 Semipa/atinsk Nuclear Weapons Proving Ground, 22 August 1957 part of the world." ,s, The Soviet announcement made the intelligence community want even more information on Tyuratam, and a second U-2 piloted by Edwin K. Jones flew over the area on 28 August 1957, just one week after the Soviet ICBM launch. This mission obtained excellent venical photographs of the main launch complex. and photointerpreters soon determined that the Soviets had only one launchpad at Tyuratam. The base was not photographed again until 9 July 1959, at which time it still had only one launch pad, although two more were under construction."5 On 20 and 21 August 1957, U-2s conducted the first overflights of the Soviet nuclear testing grounds al Semipalatinsk, north-north west of L ake Balkhash. The first mission. pi loted by Sammy V. C. Snider, passed over part of the provi ng grounds, flew on to Novokuznetsk, and then proceeded to Tomsk, where it began its re turn leg that included coverage of a very large uranium-processing fa cility at the new city of Berezovskiy. In the second mission, James Cherbonneaux flew directly over the Semipalatinsk proving grounds only four hours before a half-megaton device was detonated. In fact, the U-2 unknowingly photographed the ai rcraft that was to drop the "' .. Is Russia A~ad in Missil.! Raet.'... US News and World Report. 6 September 1957. pp. 30- 3.3. " Mission fokkrs 4058 (28 August 1957) an<l 4125 (9 July 1959). OSA recor<ls. job 67-8-972. boxes 8 and 11 (TS Codeword). 6e&FOt
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Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 406 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.