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.
“Headquarters”22 pages
73 1 Seeret PJOFORN Chapter 2 Not only did the airline pilots report their sightings to air-traffic controllers, but they and ground-based observers also wrote letters to the Air Force unit at Wright Air Development Command in Dayton charged with investigating such phenomena. This, in turn, led to the Air Force's Operation BLUE BOOK. Based at Wright-Patterson, the operation collected all reports of UFO sightings. Air Force investiga tors then attempted to explain such sightings by linking them to natu ral phenomena. BLUE BOOK investigators regularly called on the Agency's Project Staff in Washington to check reported UFO sight ings against U-2 flight logs. This enabled the investigators to elimi nate the majority of the UFO reports, although they could not reveal to the letter writers the true cause of the UFO sightings. U-2 and later OXCART flights accounted for more than one-half of all UFO reports during the late 1950s and most of the I960s!" HIRING U-2 PILOTS In authorizing the U-2 project, President Eisenhower told DC! Dulles that he wanted the pilots of these planes to be non-US citizens. It was his belief that, should a U-2 come down in hostile territory. it would be much easier for the United States to deny any responsibility for the activity if the pilot was not an American. The initial effort to find U-2 pilots was assigned to the Directorate of Plans Air/Maritime Division (AMO). The DDP had ex- AMO op ~e_ra_t~iv-e~---------------~-a~sk~e-d~th,---,at discreet ~~-~---~---,--------r=._ _J inquiries be made to see if an fliers were interested in a high-paying covert project ~---~ brought to the United States---.t_o_r...,.tr_a_t_m_n_g_.~r,.;~i-e-an-w~h~1,~e-,~A~N~l~D~h-,r~e~a~a-n- lflier residing in England, and he also came to the United States for training. In theory the use of foreign pilots seemed quite logical: in prac tice it did not work out. Th ~------~---~~~and could only tly light aircraft. Language was also a barrier for the although several were good fliers. Because Lieutenant ~C_o_l_o_n_e_l Geary \ad taken a class~ ofl ~hrough tlyincr school at Randolph AFB in 1950, he got the job of training the= " Information suppli.:d by James Cunningham to Donald E. Welzcnbach (U).
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Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 406 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.