Documents / Report

Robertson Panel Report

The Black Vault · 1953 · 29 pages · text from the file's own layer

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.

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  • p. 3 …23 24 Tab A Tab B Tab C Approved For Release 2001/08/07: CIA-RDP81R00560R000100030027…
  • p. 4 …4 December meeting of the Intelligence Advisory C~mnittee, the following action was agreed: "The Director…
  • p. 8 …as many of the reports as possible. c. That some increase in the ATIC section devoted…
  • p. 9 …the final report is appended as Tab c.) This was followed by a review of work…
  • p. 10 …Yaa..~, Montana (1 September 1952); Washington, D.C. area (19 July 1952); and Haneda A.F…
  • p. 15 …high reflectivity of seagulls in bright sunlight. c. P.I.L. description of the objects sighted…
  • p. 18 …nfalsen information (nnoise to signal ratio" analogy- c. Subjectivity of' public to mass hysteria and greater…
  • p. 20 …aurorae), Kuiper (asteroids), Morgan ('vide angle camera) • c, University of Alaska, Fairbanks (aurorae) - Elvey do Dominion…
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  • p. 23 …It 1.va s ::elt s·C.ronr;ly that psychologists fwniliar vJith mass psycholocy should…
  • p. 24 …The teachinc; techni4ue::- used by this ac;ency for aircraft identification c_urin~ the pad 1mr…
  • p. 25 …Four officer investiGators c. A briefinE: officer d. ii.n LDC liason officer e. A Heather…
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awareness of security measures near such locations. On the other
hand, there had been no sightings in the vicinity of sensitive
related AE establishments while there were occasionally multiple
cases of unexplained sightings in non-strategic areas. FV.rthermore,
there appeared to be no logical relationship to population centers.
The Panel could find no ready explanation for these clusters. It
wo.s noted, however, that if terrestrial n.rtifacts were to be observed
it would be likely that they would be seen first near foreign areas
rather than central U. S.
INSTRUHENTATION'TO OBTAIN DATA
The Panel was of the opinion that the present ATIC program to
place 100 inexpensive 35 mm. stereo cameras in the hands of various
airport control tower operators 1vould probably produce little valu-
able data related to U.F.o. 's. HoweverJ it was recognized that
such action 1-rould tend to allay public concern in the !!Ubject until
an educational program had taken effect. It was believed that pro-
curement of these cameras was partly the result of public pressure
in July 1952. With the poor results of the year-long Project
TWINKLE program of 24-hour instrumentation watch (two frames of
film showing nothing distinguishable) J a widespread program of sky-
watching 1-rould not be expected to yeild much direct data of value.
There ~>ras considerable discussion of a possible "sky patrol 11 by
amateur astronomers (Hynek) and by ivide-angle cameras
and pointed out that at present a considerable fraction
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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.