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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.Documents1,073 records · page 9
This Central Intelligence Agency letter, dated 10 January 1961, is from retired Brigadier General Philip G. Strong to Lt. Colonel Lawrence J. Tacker of the U.S. Air Force Office of Information. Strong thanks Tacker for an inscribed copy of Tacker's new book on flying saucers. He says he read about half of it and found it interesting and well presented. He also says a 'lunatic fringe' will never accept Air Force objectiveness on UFOs, and he hopes the book succeeds.
This is a Central Intelligence Agency letter dated 3 March 1961 from Philip G. Strong, Deputy Assistant Director, to Robert J. Palmer, Research Editor of The Americana Institute in New York. It replies to Palmer's 21 February query and says that all governmental responsibility for Unidentified Flying Objects has been assigned to the Air Force. The letter adds that the agency regrets it cannot give specific help. The release holds two copies of the letter with distribution lists.
This is a letter dated 5 April 1961 from Philip G. Strong, Deputy Assistant Director at the Central Intelligence Agency, to Robert J. Palmer, Research Editor of The Americana Institute in New York. It answers Palmer's query of 21 February. The letter says that all government responsibility for Unidentified Flying Objects has been assigned to the Air Force. It also says the agency cannot give him any specific help on the subject.
This is a Central Intelligence Agency letter from General Counsel Lawrence Houston to Congressman Joseph Karth. It answers Karth's inquiry about claims made by Leon Davidson, who had written to the CIA and the Air Force since early 1958. Davidson alleged that the CIA created the flying saucer furor and was holding back parts of the 1953 Scientific Advisory Panel report. The letter calls both claims entirely unfounded and says that since its 1953 review with the Air Force, the CIA has referred all UFO correspondence to the Air Force.
This 1961 Central Intelligence Agency file holds an internal memo and a proposed reply from General Counsel Lawrence R. Houston to Representative Joseph E. Karth. It concerns a constituent, Mr. Davidson, who had written to the CIA about flying saucers since the 1950s. He claimed the Agency created the flying saucer phenomenon and was withholding parts of the Scientific Advisory Panel report of January 1953. The reply calls his claims entirely unfounded. It says CIA took part in the 1953 study with the Air Force and has since referred all saucer correspondence to the Air Force.
This Central Intelligence Agency routing and record sheet is dated 3 June 1961. It lists counsel names and carries a stamp dated 5 July 61 marked IG. Its one substantive remark says there is "No previous record of Davidson in Exec Registry." The sheet also carries a handling instruction to return it, but no attached correspondence or conclusions appear in the extracted text.
This Central Intelligence Agency routing form, dated 4 June 1961, came from the Legislative Counsel's office. It forwards congressional correspondence to another officer, who is to prepare an appropriate reply and send the correspondence and draft back to the Legislative Counsel by a deadline. The page is mostly the blank routing table. A handwritten comment, garbled in extraction, appears to name Davidson, but the page does not state what the correspondence is about.
This is a 30 June 1961 letter from the CIA's General Counsel to Congressman Joseph Karth, sent in reply to his inquiry about claims Leon Davidson made in a letter to him. It says Davidson has written to the CIA and the Air Force since 1958 seeking the classified Scientific Advisory Panel report on UFOs, and it calls unfounded his view that the CIA created the flying saucer furor as psychological warfare. The letter comes with a correspondence log and says the CIA has referred all UFO matters to the Air Force since its 1953 panel work.
This is the President's Intelligence Checklist for 11 September 1961, a Central Intelligence Agency daily briefing sent as a White House outgoing message. It reports on Berlin developments and Warsaw Pact military preparedness, and on Soviet missile tests from Tyura Tam that the CIA judges to be part of ICBM development. It also covers Adenauer's electoral decline, the easing Bizerte crisis, Indonesian disappointment with the Belgrade conference, and short notes on Iran, Afghanistan, Ghana, Katanga, Iraq, Tibet and Cuba. It contains no UFO material.
This is the President's Intelligence Checklist for 19 September 1961, a Central Intelligence Agency daily briefing released in 2016 with redactions. Its main item covers the Congo crisis after Hammarskjold's death: Irish troops at Jadotville had surrendered, fighting had spread in Katanga, and UN forces were only holding positions. It also covers Algerian rebel leaders meeting Ambassador Walmsley and notes a Soviet fighter incident in the Berlin air corridors. It does not discuss UFOs.
This CIA Office of Scientific Intelligence memorandum, signed by Deputy Assistant Director Philip G. Strong, sends a letter to Major Carl R. Hart at Headquarters United States Air Force. The letter came from Thomas B. Scott, Jr. of Lake View, South Carolina, who reported an object he saw in the sky on 2 April 1962. The enclosed reply to Scott, dated 20 April 1962, says the Agency is interested in such events. It explains that the Air Force is responsible for identifying these objects and that his letter has been forwarded to it.
This is the Central Intelligence Agency's Current Intelligence Weekly Summary of 23 March 1962, a secret digest from the Office of Current Intelligence covering world events. It reviews Soviet foreign policy on Berlin, the Berlin air corridors, disarmament and a nuclear test ban. It also covers Algeria, Argentina's elections, the Congo, Laos, South Vietnam, Guatemala, food rationing in Cuba and Middle East tensions. Special articles assess Brazil under Goulart and Turkey's economic prospects. It contains no UFO material.
This Central Intelligence Agency foreign broadcast release reproduces Latin American news items dated 24 and 25 May 1962. One reports an Argentine Communist Party appeal for a popular front. The UFO item describes a luminous body seen hovering for several minutes over Bahia Blanca on 21 May, photographed by a local photographer and a NUEVA PROVINCIA reporter. It notes that the Cordoba Astronomical Observatory was collecting public reports to determine whether the object was meteorites, satellite debris or something else.
This is the Central Intelligence Agency Office of Current Intelligence's Current Intelligence Weekly Summary for 9 November 1962, a secret periodical of intelligence appraisals. Much of it covers the Cuban missile crisis: Soviet missile equipment being loaded onto ships in Cuban ports, IL-28 bombers still in Cuba, and Khrushchev's moves to hold together Soviet bloc support. Other sections cover the Sino-Indian border conflict, Laos, Yemen, the Congo, European elections and Ne Win's Burma. It contains no UFO material.
This Central Intelligence Agency record carries an estimated publication date of 1963. It abstracts an article by F. Zigel of the Moscow Aviation Institute, who argues that UFOs deserve serious scientific study and that the hypothesis of craft from other planets merits examination. The article describes the UFO Section of the All-Union Cosmonautics Committee, formed in October 1967 and chaired by Major General Stolyarov. It also argues that the Tungusky body may have been an artificial craft that maneuvered before exploding.
This Central Intelligence Agency file, dated April 1963, contains financial and travel records for Project MOSES, run by CIA General Counsel Lawrence R. Houston. It includes requests for advances of funds for a Project MOSES agent, along with domestic travel vouchers for trips from Washington, D.C. to New York City, West Palm Beach and Miami in March and April 1963. The records cover airfare for Houston and two agents, per diem and operational expenses. Receipts for the operational expenses were not obtained, for security reasons.
This Central Intelligence Agency personality file on Soviet official Nikolay Sergeyevich Leonov (201-132139), with material dated 1953 to 1963, compiles cables, FBI documents, surveillance reports, press photos and passport copies. It records his Soviet Embassy service in Mexico City, the finding of his calling card in Fidel Castro's address book in 1956, and his role as Castro's interpreter in the USSR in 1963. A source identified him as a KGB officer, and a DIA item alleged he was planning Latin American insurgency.
This is an undated, untitled Central Intelligence Agency note, approved for release on 16 June 1978. It reports that a Chief Petty Officer at Patuxent Naval Air Station picked up three consecutive UFO radar trackings on December 19 between 3:15 and 3:30 P.M. One object was tracked moving toward the base at an estimated 6,000 miles per hour, and another made a 160 degree turn. An FAA station at Salisbury, Maryland had also received Coast Guard reports of UFOs.
This Central Intelligence Agency memorandum to the Chief, Contact Division, dated 25 January 1965, confirms a 19 January 1965 meeting with Richard Harris Hall, Acting Director of NICAP. At that meeting NICAP lent UFO sighting samples and reports, which were passed to OSI to help it prepare a paper on UFOs. The memo describes how NICAP investigates sightings and records NICAP's view that the Air Force downplays UFOs. It also recounts Hall's report of three separate radar sightings at Patuxent Naval Air Station on 19 December 1964.
This Central Intelligence Agency memorandum to the Director of Central Intelligence, from the Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence, evaluates recent publicized UFO reports. It cites a California incident traced to an aircraft, reports linked to a Gemini launch attributed to fragments causing radar reflections, and a Patuxent, Maryland radar case blamed on malfunctioning circuitry. It finds no evidence that UFOs are of foreign origin or threaten United States security, says the Office of Scientific Intelligence concurs with Air Force conclusions, and attaches Air Force sighting statistics.
This undated CIA memo, released later, describes radar reports from a Chief Petty Officer at Patuxent Naval Air Station. On December 19, 1967, between 3:15 and 3:30 P.M., the station made three consecutive radar trackings. One object was estimated to be moving toward the base at 6,000 miles per hour, and another made a 160 degree turn. An FAA station at Salisbury, Maryland had received Coast Guard UFO reports, and the objects' altitudes were estimated at 3,000 to 25,000 feet.
This Central Intelligence Agency file, dated January 1965, holds handwritten notes on a radar sighting at Patuxent Naval Air Station. Radar tracked unidentified objects three times on December 19 between 3:15 and 3:30 P.M., including two objects moving toward the base at an estimated 6,000 miles per hour. The notes also record a request to evaluate recent UFO activity by 21 January 1965, and they mention NICAP and a magazine article claiming the Air Force was downplaying the subject.
This is a Central Intelligence Agency memorandum dated 4 January 1965 from Donald F. Chamberlain of the Office of Scientific Intelligence to the Assistant Director for Special Activities. It reviews an incident on 19 November 1964 in which a US Navy F-8C pilot reported a delta-shaped object faster than Mach 3. The memo concludes that there was no ultra-high-speed UFO. The object was probably a high-performance fighter, possibly a MiG-21 on reconnaissance. The file also includes a 1958 memo that refers reported UFO photography to the Air Force.
This CIA handwritten note, dated 19 January 1965, records a radar report from a Naval Air Station officer. It describes three trackings of UFOs on 19 December, with an estimated speed of 6,000 miles per hour and altitudes between 8,000 and 20,000 feet. It adds that an FAA station at Salisbury, Maryland had picked up Coast Guard messages about the sightings. The notes also cover NICAP and a magazine article by Keyhoe, and a request that OSI evaluate recent flying object reports.
This Central Intelligence Agency file from January 1965 pairs a memorandum on UFOs from the Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence with a Contact Division memo about the National Investigation Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP). The first memo concludes that there is no evidence UFOs are of foreign origin or a threat to US security, and it attaches Air Force statistics. The second records a 19 January 1965 meeting with NICAP's Richard Hall, who described the December 1964 radar sightings at Patuxent Naval Air Station.
This Central Intelligence Agency file, dated 1 February 1965, holds a memorandum from the Assistant Director (Special Activities) to the Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence. It concerns a UFO reported near Puerto Rico during 18 to 24 November 1964. A Navy command had identified the object as a YF-12A, but the memo says ONI was persuaded it was not one. It asks OSI to analyze the Navy's radar film. A February 1965 reply concludes the object was probably a delta-wing fighter with speeds reported above Mach 3.
This CIA memorandum from the Office of Scientific Intelligence, dated February 1965, analyzes reported UFO incidents from November 1964. It concludes there was no high altitude, ultra-high-speed UFO. It finds that the object a US Navy F-8C pilot saw on 19 November was probably a delta-wing fighter, possibly on MiG-21 reconnaissance during missile test firings. Also attached is a 1958 memo from Herbert Scoville, Jr. that refers a Photographic Intelligence Center report on a Mr. Fine's UFO photographs to the Air Force.
This single CIA page, dated 1965-04-02, is a transcript of Latin American press reports from May 1962. It opens with a Prensa Latina item about the Argentine Communist Party calling for a popular front against the government. A second section repeats AFP reports of unidentified flying objects over Bahia Blanca. On 21 May many residents watched a luminous body hover and then vanish. A newspaper reporter photographed it, and the Cordoba Astronomical Observatory asked the public to send in their observations.
This Central Intelligence Agency release is a Scientific Intelligence Study, TCS No. 4425/65. The Scientific Intelligence Committee prepared it with other intelligence community committees and approved it on 3 June 1965. It assesses Communist China's capabilities in science and technology through 1970, with particular attention to military and industrial programs. The study concludes that China will lag far behind advanced nations. The exceptions are a few priority areas such as nuclear weapons, missiles and air defense. It contains no discussion of UFOs.
This Central Intelligence Agency document is a page of foreign press summaries on Argentina, compiled from July 1965 news agency reports. It covers a government resolution against Tacuara and other extremist groups, a meatpacking industry crisis, continued relations with Algeria, and crude oil bids. One item, credited to ANSA, reports that Argentine, Chilean and British Antarctic bases watched red, green and yellow flying saucers over Decepción Island for two hours. It adds that they were also seen flying in formation over the South Orkney islands.
This Central Intelligence Agency document, dated 7 July 1965, is a page from a compilation of Latin American press items. Most items cover Argentine politics and the economy: an interior ministry resolution against nationalist groups and the Communist Youth Federation, a meatpacking crisis, relations with Algeria, and crude oil imports. One ANSA item says Argentine, Chilean and British bases in Antarctica saw red, green and yellow flying saucers over Deception Island for two hours. It adds that they were also seen flying in formation over the South Orkney islands.
This undated Central Intelligence Agency release, catalogued with an estimated date of 1966, is Volume 2 of a set of pharmacological test data on compounds identified only by number, from unknown projects. It holds tables on intravenous toxicity in mice, giving LD50 and MED50 values and reaction signs. It also has tables on the dominance behavior of squirrel monkeys and on blood pressure, heart rate and respiration in chloralosed cats. The text contains no conclusions and does not mention aerial phenomena.
This Central Intelligence Agency memorandum, written by David B. Stevenson of OSI, records a 19 July 1966 visit from Sara B. Hunt of the Air Force Office of Information. She came to discuss an Air Force request to declassify the February 1953 Report of the Scientific Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects. It notes that H. P. Robertson's television appearance caused a press reaction and that a sanitized version had been approved in 1957. It also states that further declassification would require significant deletions.
This undated CIA letter answers a request from Colonel Gerald E. Jorgensen, Chief of the Air Force Office of Information's Community Relations Division, to declassify the "Report of the Scientific Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects." It states that the Office of Scientific Intelligence found the original report could not be declassified. Instead, an unclassified version leaving out the names of personnel and organizations had been prepared. The CIA asked that the Agency's sponsorship of the panel not be publicized further and that participants not be listed in unclassified releases.
This is a CIA Office of Scientific Intelligence memorandum for record by David B. Stevenson, dated 23 August 1966. It covers three phone calls in August from Mrs. Sara Hunt of the Air Force Office of Information about the Air Force's request to declassify a CIA UFO report. Stevenson told her the response had gone out and that references to CIA and the names of CIA employees had been removed. The Air Force confirmed it had received the reply and asked for its copy of the report back.
This CIA memorandum for record was written by D. B. Stevenson of the Office of Scientific Intelligence and dated 11 August 1966. It records a 10 August phone call from Miss Sara Hunt of the Air Force Office of Information, who asked about the status of an Air Force request to declassify a CIA UFO report. On Dr. Walter Mackey's instructions, she was told the declassified report was being retyped and would be sent soon. Hunt said the Air Force wanted to show it to newsman John Leard, who had written about UFOs in the Saturday Review.
This is a Central Intelligence Agency memorandum for record by D. B. Stevenson of OSI, dated 11 August 1966. It follows up an Air Force request, referenced in a 20 July 1966 memo, to declassify a CIA UFO report. Sara Hunt of the Air Force Office of Information phoned on 10 August to ask for a status update. On Dr. Walter Mackey's instructions, she was told the declassified report was being retyped and would be forwarded soon. Hunt said the Air Force wanted to show it to a newsman who had written on UFOs in the Saturday Review.
This CIA memorandum by David B. Stevenson of OSI, dated 20 July 1966, records a visit from Sara B. Hunt of the Air Force Office of Information about an Air Force request to declassify the February 1953 Report of the Scientific Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects. The request followed a 12 May television program on which panel chairman Dr. H. P. Robertson referred to CIA involvement. Stevenson noted that a sanitized version had already been released, and he said further declassification would require significant deletions.
This CIA Historical Review Program release, dated 1966-07-28 and released under the JFK Act, reproduces a New York Review article by Richard H. Popkin reviewing Edward Jay Epstein's Inquest and Harold Weisberg's Whitewash. The article argues that Oswald could not have fired all the shots in the Kennedy assassination. It points to FBI reports, the Zapruder film and bullet No. 399. Popkin proposes a two-assassin conspiracy involving a 'second Oswald' and calls for release of the autopsy photographs and X-rays.
This Central Intelligence Agency information report, marked as unevaluated information and dated 1966, relays a pilot's account of a sighting on 17 June 1966 near Tehran. While circling the Rudashur beacon at about 18,000 feet, the source saw a brilliant white sphere on the horizon toward the Soviet Union. It grew larger and fainter over four to five minutes. Another airliner also saw it. The pilot suggested it may have been gases from a man-made explosion lit by the sun.
This Central Intelligence Agency memorandum for the Director of Central Intelligence, signed by Executive Officer Walter D. Hacey, reviews the U.S. Air Force's 1966 requests to declassify the 1953 report of the CIA's Office of Scientific Intelligence panel on unidentified flying objects. It traces a sanitized 1957 release, panel chairman H. P. Robertson's reported television remarks, and publicity from a Saturday Review article. It records that OSI forwarded a declassified version of the complete report to the Air Force on 15 August.
This Central Intelligence Agency memorandum for record, written by David B. Stevenson of the Office of Scientific Intelligence and dated 23 August 1966, logs phone calls from Mrs. Sara Hunt of the Air Force Office of Information about an Air Force request to declassify a CIA UFO report. Stevenson told her the CIA had sent its reply and that references to CIA and the names of CIA employees had been removed. He also said further sanitizing had probably been done. The Air Force then asked for its copy of the report back.
This Central Intelligence Agency memorandum, dated 1 September 1966 and signed by an OSI executive officer, reviews Air Force requests to declassify CIA material on unidentified flying objects. It recounts how OSI convened a panel of scientists in 1953, chaired by Dr. H. P. Robertson, whose report was classified secret. A sanitized version of its conclusions went to the USAF in 1957. After further 1966 requests citing prior publicity, a declassified version of the complete report was forwarded to the Air Force on 15 August.
This Central Intelligence Agency information report, dated 21 August 1967, recounts a US astrophysicist's conversations about UFOs with Soviet astronomers during a one-month trip through the USSR in spring 1967. It covers visits to observatories in Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Crimea and Alma Ata, including N.A. Kozyrev's view that UFOs may originate on Venus. It concludes that the USSR had given the UFO problem no official treatment, yet Soviet astronomers were widely aware of the phenomenon and often interested in it.
This Central Intelligence Agency memorandum, dated 1967, answers a speed letter of 30 January 1967 requesting analysis of UFO photographs. Analysts examined copy prints rather than originals, comparing grain, edge sharpness and changes in image size between prints. They concluded that the photographs could not establish whether the object was a genuine UFO or a model. Several factors were said to fit the model theory, and the memo noted that analysing the original photographs might allow a definite conclusion.
This 1967 memorandum from the Director of the CIA's National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC) informs a CIA deputy director that the U.S. Air Force contract with the University of Colorado to investigate UFOs is underway. The contract is worth $325,000 and is scheduled to run 18 months. The author asks for approval to host the project's scientists at NPIC for a technical briefing on photogrammetry. He states that the CIA would take no part in the project's conclusions but could keep a window on the program.
This CIA memorandum for the record, dated 1967, describes a 20 February 1967 visit by Dr. E.U. Condon and members of his University of Colorado UFO study team to the National Photographic Interpretation Center. Mr. Lundahl agreed that NPIC would give technical photogrammetric help but no written reports or conclusions, and that the work would not be credited to CIA. The group was briefed on photogrammetry, microdensitometers and measuring instruments, and on NPIC's analysis of UFO photographs.