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 Rel.e 2001/08/07: CIA-RDP81R00560R0.00030027-0 ~;:i~~·&4!i'#\,\%t S@"~i~r,~ 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 25X1A m -16- Approved For Release 2001/08/07: CIA-RDP81R00560R000100030027-0 25X1A
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.