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Official reports, hearing transcripts, case files and releases: the paper behind the cases. 2,872 documents, 2,610 mirrored with their text, 53,529 pages indexed, so a search reads inside them and lands on the page.
New in the library The PURSUE files The Department of War's UAP release, mirrored in full: the videos, recordings and images, each beside its case file.Documents1,049 records · page 16
This CIA release contains two 1952 internal memos on flying saucers. The 1 August 1952 memo from the Weapons and Equipment Division reports that most of the 1000 to 2000 reports ATIC received were phoney, explained as U.S. equipment, or natural phenomena. Fewer than 100 credible reports stayed unexplained. It recommends that CIA surveillance continue quietly, with no sign of CIA interest reaching the public. A 29 July memo says a special study group had been formed after recent radar and visual sightings.
This CIA document, approved for release on 2 April 2001, contains a memorandum from Director Walter B. Smith to the Director of the Psychological Strategy Board, along with a staff study by the Office of Scientific Intelligence on flying saucers. The study treats unidentified flying objects as a national security problem that matters for operations, intelligence and psychological warfare. It criticizes the small Air Force project at ATIC under Captain E. J. Ruppelt and recommends a centrally administered research program.
This CIA file, approved for release on April 2, 2001, holds newspaper material on flying saucers. The main piece is an article by Charles Cooke, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who says he helped name Project Blue Book. In it he reviews books by Fuller, Edwards, NICAP and the Air Force, and he collects UFO reports from before 1947 that go back to 1838. A second article, by John Davy of the London Observer, reviews Sagan and Shklovskii's Intelligent Life in the Universe.
This Central Intelligence Agency memorandum, dated 11 October 1952 and approved for release in 2001, records an informal agreement among the DD/I, AD/IC and Acting AD/SI on how to handle the flying saucer problem. They agreed that responsible individuals in the intelligence community should work out a research and intelligence program, which would then go to the DCI and possibly the National Security Council. It also arranges a meeting for 20 or 21 October with Dr. Walter G. Whitman and the USAF Director of Intelligence.
This CIA release, approved in 2001, contains Flying Saucers UFO Reports No. 1, a magazine that Dell Publishing issued in 1967. It argues that UFOs deserve serious study. It gathers reported landings, radar trackings, sightings by astronomers and pilots, and cases involving creatures, drawing on Ruppelt, Keyhoe, Fuller, NICAP and APRO. It also describes Project Blue Book, NICAP, APRO and the new University of Colorado study under Dr. Edward Condon.
This CIA release, approved in 2001, collects 1952 memoranda on unidentified flying objects from the Office of Scientific Intelligence. A July memo says a special study group was formed after recent radar and visual sightings. A later memo from H. Marshall Chadwell says sightings of high-altitude, high-speed objects near major U.S. defense installations could not be attributed to natural phenomena. It proposes a consulting group and attaches a draft memo to the NSC, signed by Walter B. Smith, and a draft NSC directive for a DCI research program.
This is a copy of "The UFO Evidence," a report published in May 1964 by the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) in Washington, D.C. and edited by Richard H. Hall. The CIA released its copy in 2001. The report draws 746 sightings from more than 5,000 signed reports and argues that unexplained UFOs are real, artificial objects under intelligent control. It criticizes Air Force secrecy and calls for a Congressional inquiry into Project Blue Book and a larger scientific investigation.
This CIA release, approved for release on 2 April 2001, reproduces William Markowitz's 1967 Science article "The Physics and Metaphysics of Unidentified Flying Objects." Markowitz was a Marquette University physics professor. He argues that reported UFO landings and lift-offs cannot involve extraterrestrial spacecraft if the laws of physics hold. He criticizes the hard-data claims of Hynek, Powers and Vallee and recommends that the Air Force stop investigating UFOs.
This CIA release, approved for release on 2 April 2001, reproduces a magazine article by astronomer J. Allen Hynek called "The UFO Gap." Hynek warns that the Soviet Union may be quietly studying UFOs while the United States lags behind. He recounts his work as a consultant to Project Blue Book, criticizes the Air Force's handling of cases, and proposes rating reports for strangeness and witness credibility. He also calls for rapid-response camera teams and a 24-hour UFO-1000 reporting center.
This CIA release, approved in 2001, reprints two 1967 and 1968 publications. The first is a set of Science letters from December 1967 answering Markowitz's article on UFO physics. The writers argue that his case against extraterrestrial control of UFOs is weak, and one criticizes his use of the Chiles-Whitted and Tombaugh sightings. The second is John G. Fuller's LOOK article "Flying Saucer Fiasco" on the University of Colorado UFO study. It covers Robert Low's "trick" memo, the firing of Saunders and Levine, and NICAP's break with the project.
This CIA release, approved for release on 2001/04/02, is a copy of an AIAA article by G. D. Thayer of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a former member of the Condon Committee. The AIAA UFO Subcommittee chose it as a sample case. It reviews the Lakenheath-Bentwaters radar-visual incident of August 13 and 14, 1956, drawing on Project Bluebook files and the Condon Report. It rejects meteors, mirage, anomalous propagation and radar malfunction as explanations and calls the case one of the most significant and disturbing on record.
This CIA memorandum from H. Marshall Chadwell, Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence, to the Director of Central Intelligence, dated December 1952 and released in 2001, reviews the USAF investigation of unidentified flying objects after a visit to the Air Technical Intelligence Center. It finds no reasonable evidence that the objects are of foreign origin but notes potential dangers to early warning, communications and public calm. It proposes a small consultant panel and appends case notes on the Tremonton film, a Maine sighting attributed to Jupiter, and a Florida scoutmaster report.
This Central Intelligence Agency memorandum, dated 18 December 1952 and released in 2001, was sent by H. Marshall Chadwell, Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence, to the Director of Central Intelligence. It reports a visit to the Air Technical Intelligence Center and finds no reasonable evidence that the objects are of foreign origin, though it notes potential dangers. The CIA's Office of Scientific Intelligence planned to convene top-level scientific consultants. An attached tab reviews the Tremonton film, a Maine sighting attributed to Jupiter, and a possible hoax by a Florida scoutmaster.
This Central Intelligence Agency release, approved in 2001, contains a December 1952 memorandum from H. Marshall Chadwell, Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence, to the Director of Central Intelligence. It also includes a draft memo from Walter B. Smith to the National Security Council and a draft NSC directive. Chadwell reports that sightings near major U.S. defense installations are not attributable to natural phenomena or known aircraft. He proposes a consulting group. The draft directive would have the DCI run a research program on identifying unidentified flying objects.
This declassified CIA memorandum, dated 18 December 1952 and released in 2001, was sent to the Director of Central Intelligence by H. Marshall Chadwell, Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence. It reports a briefing at the Air Technical Intelligence Center and finds no reasonable evidence that the objects are of foreign origin. It also plans a small panel of scientific consultants. An attached tab reviews the Tremonton film, a Maine light identified as Jupiter, and a Florida scoutmaster report.
This Central Intelligence Agency release, approved for release in April 2001, holds only an official routing slip dated November 25, 1957. It was sent from the Assistant to the Director to the DD/I and OSI and marked for concurrence. The remarks mention a chronological file and a flying objects reference. The extracted text does not include the article on Russia and flying saucers that the title names, so no findings or conclusions appear.
This Central Intelligence Agency office memorandum, approved for release on 2001-04-02, sends photographs of an unidentified flying object filmed on 16 mm movie film in 1952. It explains how the enclosed prints and enlargements were made and gives background from the source. The object was a bright orange, saucer-shaped rotating oblate spheroid, estimated at 2,000 feet and in view for about three minutes. The memo notes that the original negatives are held by the Air Force.
This is a CIA memorandum to the Director of Central Intelligence from the Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence, with a routing slip dated 11/1/55. It was approved for release on 2001/04/02. The memo comments on a sanitized report of an unconventional aircraft sighting. It says the few details given do not allow the object to be identified but suggest it was not a flying saucer, and that it may have been a vertical take-off aircraft or a rail-launched missile. It also describes a 1954 Air Force advisory committee that recommended against supporting a flying saucer project.
This Central Intelligence Agency memorandum from the Deputy Assistant Director for Collection, Scientific Intelligence, to the Deputy Director for Coordination follows up a July 8 telephone call about Dr. M. K. Jessup. Agency scientists talked with Jessup about a meteor study in Mexico and about flying saucers, and then met with a contact he referred them to. The memo concludes that the Agency has nothing to gain from any further follow-up. The document was approved for release in 2001.
This is a CIA memorandum from Herbert Scoville Jr., Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence, to the Deputy Director for Intelligence, dated 13 April 1956 and released in 2001. It answers questions about a UFO sighting reported in the French magazine Match and says the article lacked enough detail to identify the object and seemed exaggerated. The memo notes the CIA's liaison with the Air Force Technical Intelligence Center and says Mars's close approach on 7 September 1956 may prompt many saucer reports.
This Central Intelligence Agency file, released in 2001, includes a 26 March 1956 memorandum from Deputy Director/Intelligence Robert Amory, Jr. to the Assistant Director/Scientific Intelligence. Amory points to a MATCH magazine article describing a radar photograph of an object that an airline pilot also saw, and asks whether CIA keeps in touch with the Air Force center on sightings, including foreign ones. The file also holds a clipping reporting that the Transport Department was closing its Shirley Bay saucer station because nothing had come of it.
This CIA document, approved for release on 2 April 2001, is the report of a Scientific Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects, dated 17 January 1953. The panel, chaired by H. P. Robertson, reviewed evidence presented mainly by the United States Air Force. It found no sign that UFOs pose a direct physical threat to national security or are foreign artifacts capable of hostile acts. It recommended stripping UFOs of their special status and running a program to reassure the public.
This Central Intelligence Agency memorandum for the record, dated 2001-03-20 in the archive, describes how a division within the Office of Scientific Intelligence assumed responsibility for "Non-Conventional Types of Air Vehicles" and how it would handle UFO reports. Reports bearing on foreign weapons or fundamental science were to be kept or forwarded, and all others destroyed. Citing experience and Project Blue Book Special Report 14, it says such reports cannot be usefully analyzed and recommends destroying old UFO files held by the Electronics Division.
This undated CIA memorandum for the record, approved for release in 2001, sets out how an Office of Scientific Intelligence division would handle its new responsibility for non-conventional air vehicles, or UFOs. ASD would keep raw reports that bear on foreign weapons research, and the Fundamental Sciences Area would review those touching foreign science. All other reports would be destroyed. Citing Blue Book Special Report 14, the memo recommends destroying the raw and obsolete UFO reports held by Electronics Division.
This Central Intelligence Agency office memorandum, dated 8 August 1955 and released in 2001, went from the Chief of the Physics and Electronics Division to the Acting Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence. It notes that the division had kept track of UFO sighting reports since 1953, spending 10 to 25 analyst hours a month on the work. Because no intelligence of concern to national security had come out of the project, the memo recommends ending it and putting its files in dead storage. A routing slip signed by Herbert Scoville approves the proposal.
This Central Intelligence Agency file, approved for release in 2001, collects 1956 correspondence about who handles reports of unidentified flying objects. It includes a proposal for dividing up raw UFO reports and destroying some of them. Deputy Director Robert Amory Jr. asked about a Paris Match article, and the Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence replied that the Office keeps close liaison with the Air Force Technical Intelligence Center. The file also holds a clipping about the closure of the Shirley Bay saucer station.
This is a short Central Intelligence Agency memorandum from the Chief of the Liaison Division, Central Reference, to the Air Force Director of Intelligence, attention Colonel Charles E. Taylor. It forwards attached correspondence about a reported sighting of an unidentified flying object for whatever action the Air Force deems appropriate. The CIA asks for a copy of the resulting report if an investigation is conducted. The sighting details are not included in the text, and the release is dated 2001.
This is the Central Intelligence Agency's Information Review and Release (IRR) weekly executive summary for 19 to 23 March 2001. It lists upcoming meetings, including an ISCAP meeting and the Historical Review Panel, along with automatic declassification deadlines under Executive Order 12958. It reports a FRUS conference with State Department counterparts, FOIA requests about the 1953 Iranian coup, U-2 pilot Rudolph Anderson and Soviet nuclear monitoring, and a joint effort with NIMA to index U-2 imagery. It does not mention UFOs.
This is the Central Intelligence Agency's Information Review and Release (IRR) weekly executive summary for 2 to 6 April 2001, released in 2019. It lists upcoming declassification panel meetings and deadlines under Executive Order 12958, and describes a quality assurance effort with Raytheon at the OIM Declassification Center. It also covers a 1949 advisory committee meeting chaired by the Director of Central Intelligence and summarizes recent FOIA requests. It notes that UFOs are among the popular topics on CIA's FOIA website.
This CIA FOIA release, dated 2001-04-09, collects 1978 internal records from the case Ground Saucer Watch, Inc. v. CIA (Civil Action 78-859). It includes an Office of General Counsel memo, a stipulation from plaintiff's attorney Peter Gersten that restates the group's requests for all CIA documents relating to UFOs, a list of the original requesters, and routing slips. Office of Data Processing components searched their files and reported that they found no material related to UFOs.
This Central Intelligence Agency newsletter covers Information Review and Release activities for 16 to 20 April 2001. It lists upcoming declassification panel meetings, reports on an External Referral Working Group meeting, and quotes a 1953 letter from General Counsel Lawrence Houston. It also summarizes FOIA requests, including several nearly identical requests from Woodland, California about Area 51, Majestic 12 and Roswell. The CIA says it holds no information on the alleged Roswell event and has not located Majestic 12 records.
This is a Central Intelligence Agency executive summary of Information Review and Release news for 23 to 27 April 2001, approved for release in 2019. It covers upcoming declassification meetings and deadlines, FOIA requests about the April 2001 missionary plane shootdown in Peru and about Rwanda, and the dismissal of a FOIA lawsuit about Princess Diana. It also notes that 74.5 cubic feet of declassified records went to NARA, including a motion picture film on Unidentified Flying Objects.
This CIA release, approved in 2001, gathers Air Force and Research and Development Board correspondence from late 1952 about how flying saucer reports affect air defense. In it, Air Defense Command says many fast radar tracks came from mutual interference between radar sets. It warns that unexplained tracks could waste guided missiles and interceptors, so their causes must be found. Also included are a CIA memo planning a research program and an RDB memo on radar phantoms.
This Central Intelligence Agency release, approved in 2004, collects 1966 memoranda on Air Force requests to declassify the 1953 report of the scientific panel on unidentified flying objects that the Office of Scientific Intelligence convened. The memos trace the USAF requests of July 1966, the press interest behind them, and the 15 August forwarding of a sanitized version with CIA references removed. The attached panel comments found no threat to national security, judged the Tremonton film to probably show birds, and recommended a training and debunking program.
This is a US Air Force news release fact sheet on UFO reports, filed in CIA records and approved for release in 2004. It reports 173 sightings between 1 January and 30 June 1960, with 139 analyzed and only 3 left unidentified. It also gives yearly totals from 1947 onward, explains how cases are categorized, and cites Project Blue Book Special Report #14. The Air Force concludes that there is no evidence of hostile intent, interplanetary spacecraft, advanced technology or physical debris.
This is Air Force Regulation 200-2 on unidentified flying objects, released through the Central Intelligence Agency, with a CIA release stamp dated 2004. It supersedes the 12 August 1954 version and sets out how the Air Force reports and investigates UFO sightings and how it releases information about them to the public. The regulation defines what counts as a UFO. It assigns analysis to the Air Technical Intelligence Center, puts the Office of Information Services in charge of public releases and gives a standard report format, including rules for handling photographs and physical evidence.
This is a short US government memorandum dated 18 July 1967, released by the Central Intelligence Agency in 2001. It confirms that a meeting is planned for Wednesday, 19 July, at 1000 to discuss the UFO problem. The writer says they asked OSI for the 1953 Panel Report and related data, and that OSI promised to have it ready by meeting time. The memo also notes that the file is held at the Records Center.
This Central Intelligence Agency executive summary covers Information Review and Release activities for the week of 28 May to 1 June 2001. It lists incoming FOIA requests, including one on the USS Pueblo captain, one on brain fingerprinting research, one on Peruvian massacres, and one seeking records of a 9 July 1959 CIA meeting about unidentified flying objects that involved a South Berwick, Maine case. It also covers pending STAR GATE remote viewing releases, planning for the Bay of Pigs declassification, and Publications Review Board workload.
This Central Intelligence Agency memorandum for record, dated 30 January 1953 and approved for release in 2001, records a briefing on unidentified flying objects given to the ONE Board on 29 January. The briefing covered the history of O/SI interest and action on the subject and showed motion picture films of sightings at Tremonton, Utah, and Great Falls, Montana. Board members had already received the Report of the Scientific Advisory Panel, and the session served as background before an ATIC briefing.
This CIA memorandum from H. Marshall Chadwell, Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence, to the Director of Central Intelligence requests permission to hire Dr. Luis W. Alvarez and Dr. Thornton W. Page as ad hoc consultants. They would serve on the O/SI Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects, scheduled to convene on 14 January 1953, at $50 per day. The request was approved on 20 January 1953, subject to security clearance. The document was approved for release in 2001.
This is a Central Intelligence Agency memorandum dated 16 December 1953, approved for release in 2001, sent to the Chief, Operations Staff, O/SI. It says overall substantive responsibility for flying saucers has been given to the Physics and Electronics Division, with action responsibility inside that division assigned to the Operations Staff. It directs that any matter concerning flying saucers be coordinated with a named officer or, in that officer's absence, an alternate. Both names are redacted. The memo is a short administrative routing notice.
This is a Central Intelligence Agency memorandum from H. Marshall Chadwell, Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence, released in 2001. It asks for unvouchered funds to pay fees, per diem and travel for a small panel of scientists advising on the unidentified flying objects problem. The panel was to meet in Washington, D.C. in January and February 1953. The memo estimates the cost at about $5,400 and attaches a cost breakdown for three consultants.
This Central Intelligence Agency release, approved in 2001, gathers records of the OSI Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects, which met 14 to 17 January 1953 under H. P. Robertson. It includes an internal memo on the meetings, the panel's charge, the list of members and the evidence presented, and the final report. The panel concluded that UFOs posed no direct physical threat to national security. It recommended stripping the subject of its special status and educating the public.
This is a CIA office memorandum dated 3 July 1953 from the Chief of the Physics and Electronics Division, Office of Scientific Intelligence, to the Assistant Director, SI, released in 2001. It responds to a May 1953 assignment to keep current on UFO sighting reports. The Division cites the Scientific Review Board's finding of no serious, direct threat to national security and treats the project as inactive. It will review incoming material periodically, using a part-time analyst and a file clerk.
This Central Intelligence Agency document, dated 2001-06-05 and titled Unidentified Flying Objects, is a fragment of a routing and comment sheet on Form No. 75-3 from March 1951. The surviving comment describes the matter as a holding job for now and says the writer foresees no action in the immediate future. It recommends assigning a custodian to the subject, possibly from the Physics Branch. The rest of the text is standard form instructions.
This Central Intelligence Agency office memorandum, dated May 27, 1953, went from H. Marshall Chadwell, Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence, to the Chief of the Physics and Electronics Division of OSI. It was approved for release in 2001. It puts that division in charge of keeping current knowledge of reported unidentified flying object sightings, and it asks the Applied Science Division to support it on weapons and hardware. It also says where the existing UFO files are held and suggests the division take custody of the files it needs.
This Central Intelligence Agency memorandum, dated February 10, 1953 and released in 2001, went from the Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence to the Deputy Director (Intelligence). It passes on the findings of the Scientific Advisory Panel on unidentified flying objects, which met from 14 to 17 January. The office agrees with the panel's conclusions and plans to send its report to the Secretary of Defense and other officials. It concludes that no National Security Council Intelligence Directive on the subject is warranted.
This is a Central Intelligence Agency office memorandum dated 31 March 1953, approved for release in 2001, on unidentified flying objects. It reports that the Office of Current Intelligence is no longer following U.F.O. reports and suggests that the Office of Scientific Intelligence keep watch in case activity increases that summer. It proposes naming the Chief of the Applied Science Division as coordinator, rerouting future messages to that division, and destroying most of the old files except for samples of unusual reports.
The Central Intelligence Agency's Information Review and Release office issued this weekly executive summary covering 9 to 13 July 2001. It lists upcoming declassification deadlines under Executive Order 12958 and recent FOIA requests. In one of these, an Australian requester received Gerald Haines's article on CIA's role in the study of UFOs, 1947 to 1990, and a 1991 FBIS report on UFO sightings by Soviet officials. It also covers document scanning at the Jimmy Carter Library and 1953 remarks by DCI Allen Dulles.
This is a weekly executive summary from the Central Intelligence Agency's Information Review and Release office, covering 18 to 22 February 2002. It lists upcoming meetings of the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel and the Historical Review Panel, as well as the April 2003 automatic declassification date. It also summarizes several requests. A former official asked for review of memoranda about Cuba. A German requester who often files on UFO topics received a 1956 report. The summary closes with a 1953 report on Soviet repression in Latvia and Lithuania.