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
were thought ten years ago to be fairly well understood. Within the past year, however, the whole concept of the "F" layer has been changed. It has been discovered that it splits sometimes into two layers of ionization known as F-1 and F-2. Recent tests utilizing these layers have shown it possible to transmit as far as 1,000 miles using certain VHF frequencies. This is totally opposed to the previous well accepted opinion that maximum VHF transmission distance was limited to "line of sight." Clouds of ice crystals become luminous under certain conditions of ionization. The factors affecting the way in which the electrostatic charge on the earth is continuously rejuvenated by thunderstorm lightning are obscure. Ball lightning, a luminous phenomenon which has been reported for centuries, appears in various colors but its nature is not known. St. Elmo's fire, corona discharge and Aurora Borealis are catalogued in a variety of forms but their exact nature is unknown. The movement of vortices of smoke particles, clouds of moisture and ice crystals will cause changes in electrostatic potential and amy be affected by the earth's magnetic field.
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.