Archive / search
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.Documents2,872 records · page 10
This Central Intelligence Agency telegram information report, dated 20 July 1960, describes an unidentified flying object seen at about 1600 GMT on 17 July 1960 over Behshahr, Iran. Witnesses said it was in view for about 15 to 20 seconds, moving from southeast to northwest. They said it made a gradual turn west and appeared to burn out before disappearing over the horizon. The report describes a subsonic sound like air passing through a tube, a low, flat trajectory and a circular shape. It also notes a bright aquamarine glow with a white and red tail.
This Central Intelligence Agency memo, dated 31 August 1960 and addressed to G. L. Cary, answers a note about Congressman Gordon H. Scherer and a constituent, Mrs. Catherine Golden of Cincinnati. It says the Air Force judged a photo she cited to be false, taken by a freelance photographer known for trick photography. It also quotes a naval attache's joke about Trindade island. A draft reply attached to the memo states that the CIA does not investigate UFOs and refers such matters to the Air Force.
This 1960 Central Intelligence Agency memo, signed P. G. Sirroga, responds to a note about Congressman Gordon H. Scherer and attaches a draft reply along with a letter from Catherine Golden of Cincinnati. It says the Air Force told Mrs. Golden that a U.S. Naval Attache evaluation found the Brazilian UFO photo was false, taken by a free lance photographer noted for trick photography. Golden's letter protests the hoax label and asks Scherer to seek open Congressional hearings.
This is a short letter from John S. Warner, Legislative Counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency, to Coral Lorenzen, International Director of the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization in Tucson, Arizona. It is filed with a date of November 1960, and its routing line reads 13 December 1960. Warner says the CIA has passed her letter and its enclosure to Lt. Colonel Lawrence Tacker of the U.S. Air Force, who handles unidentified aerial phenomena. He also corrects a typing error in the CIA's earlier letter to Congressman Scherer.
This CIA memorandum from the Chief of the Detroit Office, dated 16 December 1960, passes along a sighting report in case the USAF is still interested. A physics doctor describes a large, greenish, incandescent disc-like object seen about 6:54 pm on 14 December 1960, descending to the east toward the Detroit River before burning out. A student driving on Hines Drive saw the same thing. The witness said it was not a flying saucer and may have been part of a missile.
This is a letter dated 13 December 1960 from John S. Warner, CIA Legislative Counsel, to Coral Lorenzen, International Director of the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization in Tucson, Arizona. Warner says the CIA passed her letter and its enclosure to Lt. Colonel Lawrence Tacker of the U.S. Air Force, the Agency's contact point for unidentified aerial phenomena. He also corrects a typing error in the CIA's earlier letter to Congressman Scherer.
This is a CIA memorandum from the Chief of the Detroit Office, dated 16 December 1960. It passes on a report the office received and suggests the USAF may be interested in it. The witness, a doctor of dynamics and physics, saw a large, greenish, disc-like incandescent object over Detroit at about 6:54 pm on 14 December 1960. One student also saw it, and it burned out before reaching the ground. The witness said it was not flying saucer material and thought it might be part of a missile.
This is a short Central Intelligence Agency letter from retired Brigadier General Philip G. Strong to Lt. Colonel Lawrence J. Tacker of the US Air Force Office of Information, dated early January 1961. Strong thanks Tacker for an inscribed copy of Tacker's new book on flying saucers. He says he found it interesting and well presented, and hopes it will clear up confusion about UFOs. He adds that a "lunatic fringe" will never be convinced of Air Force objectiveness on the subject.
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.
During the recovery of the fourth launch and second crewed spaceflight of Project Mercury, Mercury-Redstone 4 (MR-4) Liberty Bell 7, the recovery team discusses a dye pack in the water that did not activate.
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 NASA file of astronaut scientific debriefing papers from 1962 collects internal Office of Space Sciences material on the science observations made on early Mercury flights. A February 1962 memo from Maurice Dubin asks for more detail on John Glenn's report of luminous particles and the atmospheric horizon layer. A draft memo concludes that the particles were tied to the spacecraft and were not extraterrestrial. The file also holds a Los Alamos letter that attributes the high haze layer to nitrogen peroxide, and notes on Carpenter's airglow observations.
In November 1962, journalist Walter Cronkite interviewed astronaut Gordon Cooper. In this excerpt from that interview, Cronkite asks Cooper about his views regarding the nature of unidentified flying objects, having previously expressed an interest in the subject. Cooper opines that “a large number of exceptionally well-qualified people have seen objects” without a “logical explanation” and speculates on the existence of other planets with “a livable atmosphere” and that maybe there are “some type of human life” out there. Interview was conducted in November 1962.
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.
During the fourth crewed spaceflight and second orbital flight of Project Mercury, Mercury-Atlas 7 (MA-7), Aurora 7 pilot Scott Carpenter describes white particles in view that appear to move at “random” and “look exactly like snowflakes.” He describes these phenomena as reflective, and that some seemed to move faster than the Aurora 7 spacecraft.
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.
During the Mercury Atlas 8 mission, Sigma 7 pilot Walter M. “Wally” Schirra Jr. describes observing “little white objects that tend to come from the capsule itself and drift off.” Schirra later also refers to those objects as “particles” and “lathe shavings.” Schirra also describes seeing a burst of light in the window, whose source he cannot identify. He speculates that his observation corresponds with the moment the sun passes below the horizon during sunset.
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.
Approximately one hour and 41 minutes into the final and longest flight of Project Mercury, Mercury-Atlas 9 mission (MA-9) Faith 7 Pilot L. Gordon Cooper Jr. notes that he sees “John’s fireflies,” referring to John Glenn’s term from the Mercury-Atlas 6 mission. NASA later determined that the “fireflies” are attributable to frozen condensation separating from the spacecraft body. The white, green-hued appearance of this phenomenon results from sunlight reflecting off frozen condensation.
During the final and longest flight of Project Mercury, Mercury-Atlas 9 mission (MA-9) Faith 7 Pilot L. Gordon Cooper Jr. describes the brilliant blue of sunrise beneath the haze layer of the Earth’s atmosphere. As he approaches sunrise, he describes small, luminous, brilliant white particles drifting away from the spacecraft. Cooper describes observing “fireflies” after deploying beacons, which are spherical mission-related equipment with xenon strobe lights.
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 July 18, 1963 memorandum from Maxwell W. Hunter II of the National Aeronautics and Space Council staff, Executive Office of the President, went to Robert F. Packard of the State Department's Office of International Scientific Affairs. Titled "Thoughts on the Space Alien Race Question," it considers policy if an alien intelligence were discovered. It notes that flying saucer advocates exist but sides with scientists that contact is unlikely. It concludes that any alien race's level of space flight should be determined quickly, since that would drastically affect policy.
This FBIS transcript, released through the National Archives under authority NND968063, relays a Rio de Janeiro Radio Tupi broadcast of 8 November 1963. The broadcast said a large metal sphere had fallen in the center of the municipality of Conde, in Bahia, and gouged a hole four meters deep. The sphere reportedly had window-shaped openings covered with thick glass. Inside was a human body in heavy clothing bearing inscriptions nobody could decipher, and the authorities had been informed.
This U.S. Department of State incoming telegram, dated November 14, 1963, was sent by the American Embassy in Rio de Janeiro to the consulate in Salvador and passed to Defense and NASA. It asks the consulate to confirm that it denies a local newspaper report. The report said a large metal manned balloon was found near Salvador around November 8 with a dead crewman in a strangely marked uniform or spacesuit, and that it left a crater. The cable notes an object sighted nearby had been tentatively identified as a weather balloon, but that no object was found on the ground.
This is an unclassified airgram that the U.S. Embassy in Rio de Janeiro sent to the Department of State on November 20, 1963. It gives a negative report on an unidentified flying object said to have come down near Conde, Bahia. The Consul in Salvador, Harold Midkiff, reported that the story looked fabricated in Rio and that nobody in the area had seen any such object. Local newspaper clippings added that the Ministry of Aeronautics denied that any strange object had appeared.
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 1965 record, released by the JFK Library via The Black Vault, holds an August 17, 1965 letter from Charles J. Quagliana of Lockport, New York to Senator Robert F. Kennedy and the U.S. Air Force reply. The letter accuses the Air Force of censoring UFO information. In the reply, Colonel L. Conquest denies any censorship and says that 18 years of investigating over 9,000 reports point to man-made, atmospheric or celestial explanations. It also says Captain Mantell died of oxygen starvation while pursuing a UFO over Godman Field, Kentucky.
This NASA file from 1965 combines Mission Operation Report M-913-65-04 on the Gemini 4 (GT-4) flight with related correspondence. Memoranda from the Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight describe the planned four-day mission with James McDivitt and Edward White, including a spacewalk, a rendezvous with the booster second stage and thirteen experiments. Later letters and telegrams from NASA's Manned Space Science office concern the astronaut debriefing and requests for GT-4 photography and film for scientific analysis.
This is a preliminary transcript of the Gemini V (GT-5) flight crew debriefing, prepared by NASA's Spacecraft Operations Branch, Flight Crew Support Division, and dated September 1, 1965. It records Cooper and Conrad's operational account from the debriefing held August 30 to September 1, 1965 at Cape Kennedy. Topics include countdown, window fogging, POGO vibration, fairing jettison debris, radio loss, reentry and recovery. Visual sightings are left for a later part of the debriefing.
This is a preliminary Part II transcript of the Gemini 5 (GT-5) flight crew debriefing, prepared by the Spacecraft Operations Branch of NASA's Flight Crew Support Division and dated September 2, 1965. It records astronauts Cooper and Conrad at the Crew Quarters, Cape Kennedy. They discuss how the spacecraft systems worked, including the platform and the OAMS thruster failures. The transcript also covers operational checks, visual sightings, experiments, training, premission planning, and medical aspects. It was originally classified Confidential.
This is a preliminary transcript of the Gemini 7 technical debriefing, dated December 23, 1965, from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. It was made from tape recordings of the crew debriefing held December 19 to 21, 1965 at the Crew Quarters, Cape Kennedy, Florida. In it, Frank Borman and Jim Lovell go through countdown, powered flight, insertion, station keeping with the booster, systems, experiments and training. The table of contents also lists a section on visual sightings during orbital flight.
This file contains Gendarmerie nationale records from July and August 1965, released through GEIPAN. It holds a regional daily summary, procès-verbal no. 445, a follow-up report with site measurements and photographs, and a further hearing dated 18 August. The records cover a 41-year-old farmer's report that on 1 July 1965 he saw a craft land in his lavender field at L'Olivol near Valensole. His later statement describes two small beings who left him unable to move. Officers recorded a cylindrical hole and cross-shaped furrows at the site.
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.