What the Government Knows About UFOs (copy)

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by PETER GERSTEN
New York attorney PETER A. GERSTEN has been
pressing the legal effort on behalfof UFO groups-
such as CA US (Citizens Against UFO Secrecy) - for
nearly three years. Gersten currently awaits a U.S.
Appeals Court decision on release ofovernvo hun-
dred additional CIA documents relating to
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The evidence:
The Government's position:
"No UFO reported, investigated
and evaluated by the A ir Force has
ever given any indication ofa
threat to our national security. "
-Air Force. 1980
USAF Security intercepted a Cuban pilot's report of the encounter
between his MIG·21 and a UFO.
has possible implications for our na- reveal that during October,
tionalsecurity which transcend the in- November, and December of 1975,
terests of a single service. reliable military personnel repeatedly
"I therefore recommend that this sighted unconventional aerial objects
Agency and the agencies of the in the vicinity of nuclear-weapons
Department of Defense be directed to storage areas, aircraft alert areas and
formulate and carry out a program of nuclear-missile control facilities at
intelligence and research activities re- Loring Air Force Base, Maine; Wurt-
quired to solve the problem of instant smith AFB Michigan; Malstrom AFB,
positive identification of unidentified Montana; Minot AFB, North Dakota;
flying objects: . and Canadian Air Forces Station, On-
A draft of a proposed National tario.' Many of the sightings were con-
Security Council directive was at- firmed by radar. AtLoringAFB,thein-
tached to the memorandum. terloper "demonstrated a clear intent
Unfortunately, it appears that the on the weapons storage areas."
NSC directive fell by the wayside. The incidents drew the attention of
Now, twenty-nine years later, the the CIA,the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and
"current situation," contrary to official the Secretary of Defense. Though the
denials, still poses serious implica- Air Force informed the public and the
tions for our national security. press that individual sightings were
UFOs as a Threat isolated incidents, an Air Force docu-
ment says that "Security Option III"
was implemented and that security
measures were coordinated with 15
A t last! New evidence for theexistence of unconventional
aerial objects relies no longer on the
credibility of civilian reports but on
the records of scientists, military per-
sonnel, intelligence analysts, lawen-
forcement officers and other reliable
and responsible people. Their
testimony can be found in three
thousand pages 'of previously
classified documents on UFOs re-
leased (mostly through Freedom of In-
formation Act suits) over the past few
years by the Departments of State/
Army/Navy/Air Force/Defense, the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, the
National Security Agency, the'
Detense Intelligence Agency and the
Central Intelligence Agency.
This overwhelming evidence in-
dicates that Unidentified Flying Ob-
jects do exist, and that some of them
are unconventional craft that (I Jpose a
threat to national security and (2) per-
form beyond the"range of present-day
technological development.
Furthermore, there is evidence that
our government has continually
misinformed the public concerning
the true significance of the "UFO prob-
lem."
National Security and UFOs
"It is my view that this situation
has possible' implications for our
national security. "
-Central Intelligence Agency, 1952
In late 1952, a memorandum was
drafted for CIA Director Walter B.
Smith's signature, to be sent to the Ex-
ecutive: Secretary of the National
Security Council. The memo's subject:
"Unidentified Flying Objects." The
document shows that the CIA had
"reviewed the current situation con-
cerning unidentified flying objects
which have caused extensive specula-
tion in the press and has been the sub-
ject of concern to. government
organizations:
It was the Director's opinion. based