Documents / Memo
This CIA file, released in 2001, gathers 1952 memoranda from H. Marshall Chadwell, Assistant Director of the Office of Scientific Intelligence, to the Director of Central Intelligence, along with draft letters to the Secretary of Defense and the NSC and a briefing on the Air Force position. It concludes that flying saucers carry national security implications, namely mass panic and air defense vulnerability. It recommends expanded scientific research, a public information policy and study of Soviet interest, noting that about 20 percent of roughly 1500 Air Force reports remained unexplained.
“Nature”16 pages
# Approved For Release 2001/04/02 : CIA-RDP81R00560R000100020012-7 SECRET Security Information h. CONCLUSIONS a. The flying saucer situation contains two elements of danger which, in a situation of international tension, have national security implications. These are: (1) Psychological - With world-wide sightings reported, it was found that, up to the time of our investigation, there had been in the Russian press no report or comment, even satirical, on flying saucers, though Andre Oromyko had made one humorous mention of the subject. With a State-controlled presc, this could result only from an official policy decision. The question, therefore, arises as to whether or not these sightings: (a) Could be controlled, (b) Could be predicted, and (c) Could be used from a psychological warfare point of view either offensively or defensively. The public concern with the phenomena, which is reflected in the United States press and in pressure of inquiry upon the Air Force, indicates that there is a fair proportion of our population which is mentally conditioned to the acceptance of the incredible. In this fact lies the potential for the touching-off of mass hysteria and panic. (2) Air Vulnerability - The United States Air Warning System will undoubtedly always depend upon a combination of radar screening and visual observation. We give Russia the present capability of delivering an air attack against us, yet at any given moment now, there may be current a dozen official unidentified sightings plus many unofficial. At any moment of attack, we are now in a position where we cannot, on an instant basis, distinguish hardwere from phantom, and as tension mounts we will run the increasing risk of false alerts and the even greater danger of falsely identifying the real as phantom. b. Both of these problems are primarily operational in nature but each contains readily apparent intelligence factors. From an operational point of view, three actions are required: (1) Immediate steps should be taken to improve identification of both visual and electronic phantom so that in the event of an attack, instant and positive identification of enemy planes or missiles can be made. Security Information
Memo, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. The text was read from the page images by an OCR model; expect the odd misread word. 36 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.