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.
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177 See, et NOFORN Chapter 4 area. The plane began spiraling down toward the ground and Powers looked for a way out. Unable to use the ejection seat because centrifu gal force had thrown him against the canopy, he released the canopy and prepared to bail out, waiting to arm the destruction device at the last minute, so that it would not go off while he was still in the plane. When he released his seatbelt, however, he was immediately sucked out of the aircraft and found himself dangling by his oxygen hose, un able to reach the destruction switches. Finally, the hose broke and he tlew away from the falling aircraft. After he fell several thousand feet, his parachute opened automatically, and he drifted to earth where he was quickly surrounded by farmers and then by Soviet officials.29 His aircraft had not been destroyed by the crash, and the Soviets were able to identify much of its equipment when they put it on display 10 days later. Even if Powers had been able to activate the destruction device, however, it would not have destroyed the aircraft. The small explosive charge was only designed to wreck the camera. How had the Soviets succeeded in downing the U-2? Although some CIA project officials initially wondered if Powers had been fly i_ng too low through an error or mechanical malfunction, he main tained that he had been flying at his assigned altitude and had been brought down by a near miss of a Soviet surface-to-air missile. This turned out to be the case, for in March 1963, the US air attache in Moscow learned that the Sverdlovsk SA-2 battery had fired a three-missile salvo that, in addition to disabling Powers' plane, also scored a direct hit on a Soviet fighter aircraft sent aloft to intercept the U-2.'0 Mission planners had not known about this SAM site be fore the mission because they always laid out flight plans to avoid known SAM sites. THE AFTERMATH OF THE U-2 DOWNING The first indication that something was wrong with Powers' m1ss1on came even before he was overdue at Bodo, Norway. The CIA Operations Center learned on l May at 0330 hours Washington time '' Powers, Operation Overjliglzt. pp. 82-84; Beschloss. Mayday, pp. 26-28: Transcript of Debriefing Tapes of Francis Gary Powers, 13 February 1962. Board of Inquiry on the Conduct of Francis Gary Powers, Operations MUDLARK tiles, OSA records. job 74-8-605, box 6 (S). "' Cunningham interview, 4 October 1983 (TS Codeword); OSA History, chap. 14, p. 55 (TS Codeword). &eeret
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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.