Documents / Report
This declassified CIA document, released through The Black Vault, reports on the meetings of the Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects, which the Office of Scientific Intelligence convened on January 14 to 18, 1953. It includes a history of the sessions and the panel's informal comments, and it appends the formal report signed by H. P. Robertson and others. The panel found no evidence of a direct threat to national security. It recommended stripping UFOs of their special status and starting a public education program.
“ATIC”12 pages
Approved For Re.e 2001/08/07: CIA-RDP81R00560R-00030027-0 ;porENTIAL RELATED DANGERS The Panel Members vTere in agreement with 0/SI opinion that, although evidence of' any direct threat :from these sightings ivas vmolly lacking, related dangers might well exist resulting from: a. ltisidentification of actual enemy artifacts by defense personnel• b• Overloading of emergency reporting channels with nfalsen information (nnoise to signal ratio" analogy- c. Subjectivity of' public to mass hysteria and greater vul- ~erability to possible enemy ~sychological warfare. Although not the concern of CIA, the first two of' these problems may seriously affect the Air Defense intelligence system, and should be studied by experts, possibly under ADC. If. U.F.O.'s become dis- credited in o. reaction to the nflying saucer" scare, or if report- ing channels are saturated with false and poorly documented reports, our capability of detecting hostile activity will be reduced. nr. Page noted that more competent screening or filtering of reported sightings at or near the source is required, and that this can best be accomplished by an educational program. GEOGRAPHIC LOCATIONS OF UNEXPLAINED SIGRTINGS 25X1A The map prepared by ATIC showing geogr~phic locations of officially reported unexplained sightings (1952 only) was ex8mined by the Panel. This map shol·red clusters in certain strategic areas such as Los Alamos. This might be explained on the basis of 24-hour watchful guard and -15- Approved For Release 2001/08/07: CIA-RDP81R00560R000100030027-0
Report, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 29 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.