Posted On: July 30, 2022

It has been said that the devil is in the details. In this episode, no super exciting cases this episode but just a lot of CIA documents and small details that if looked at closely, you can see a better picture of how the CIA viewed UFOs and the importance of lying to the public about them.

The Central Intelligence Agency was formed out of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and the Central Intelligence Group in 1947.

The CIA is divided into four Directorates, each Directorate containing many different offices and services. The Directorate of Operations oversees foreign intelligence (espionage) as well as counterintelligence, and includes the Covert Action Staff (disinformation and propaganda).

Above these four Directorates is the National Intelligence Council (formerly the Intelligence Resources Advisory Committee) which coordinates the various methods of intelligence-gathering according to the priorities assigned to the requests that are presented to it. At the same level of authority are the national intelligence officers who prepare the national intelligence estimates which go to the National Security Council and sometimes to the President.

According to Todd Zechel, a former employee of the National Security Agency, all four directorates of the CIA have been engaged in collecting, analyzing and suppressing UFO data since 1948. Zechel claims that the National Photographic Interpretation Center, established within the Directorate of Science and Technology in 1953, has been analyzing all UFO photographic data, and the Office of Scientific Intelligence (as it was then called) has been analyzing worldwide UFO data since its inception, including non-photographic cases, physical evidence and secondary analysis of photographic cases. Zechel further claims that domestic reports were collected by the CIA from the Air Force, via the Pentagon’s Office of Current Intelligence, and from other intelligence agencies such as the NSA and Defense Intelligence Agency, via links with their communications networks. Domestic reports have been collected from the CIA s Domestic Operations Division (Domestic Collection Division) offices in cities throughout the United States, Zechel maintains. Foreign reports were collected by the National Foreign Assessment Center via the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, the Office of Current Intelligence and the Office of Operations, as these departments were called until the 1970s. Zechel also makes the disturbing claim that agents of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations have interrogated UFO witnesses and that agents of the Domestic Operations Division have been involved in harassing, intimidating and even silencing witnesses.

Is there any evidence for these claims, which were made by Zechel in 1977?

THE CIA AND THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT.

It is largely due to the efforts of Todd Zechel, together with William Spaulding of Ground Saucer Watch (GSW), an Arizona-based UFO research organization, that almost 1000 pages of CIA UFO-related documents were released under provisions of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in 1978, following months of legal battles. Henry Rothblatt and Peter Gersten, two New York lawyers who acted on GSW’s behalf, had sued the CIA in 1977 under the FOIA in a successful attempt to force the Agency to release its files on UFOs. On 20 December 1978 a press release announcing "CIA Releases UFO Documents" was distributed to the news media in Washington, DC. It had been prepared by Citizens Against UFO Secrecy (CAUS), an organization founded a few months previously by Todd Zechel.

There are believed to be over 10000 pages of classified UFO documents at the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia, yet the Agency has admitted to withholding only fifty-seven documents.

Peter Gersten advised in 1980 that the CIA failed to disclose the existence of 200 or more documents, based on references in the released documents. Perhaps this can be explained by the fact that in 1980 the House of Representatives passed the Foreign Affairs Committee Bill, which effectively exempted the CIA from the majority of requirements flooding into it under the FOIA. And yet, out of nine exemptions to the FOIA, not one pertains to UFO records. When researchers request certain UFO records from the CIA, NSA, DIA, and other agencies, we are often told that they are exempt from release due to national security or that "records cannot be released because they have been destroyed" or that "the information is properly classified and cannot be released."

How curious, then, that the official US Air Force position is that "no UFO reported, investigated, and evaluated by the Air Force has ever given any indication of a threat to our national security."

THE RELEASED CIA DOCUMENTS

The CIA’s public position on UFOs, prior to the release of the documents, is best summed up in a letter to Bill Spaulding, dated 26 March 1976:

"In order that you may be aware of the true facts concerning the involvement of the CIA in the investigation of the UFO phenomena, let me give you the following brief history. Late in 1952, the National Security Council levied upon the CIA the requirement to determine if the existence of UFOs would create a danger to the security of the United States. The Office of Scientific Intelligence established the Intelligence Advisory Committee to study the matter. That committee made the recommendations [in] the Robertson Panel Report. At no time prior to the formation of the Robertson Panel and subsequent to this issuance of the panel’s report [January 1953], has the CIA engaged in the study of UFO phenomena. The Robertson Panel Report is the summation of the Agency’s interest and involvement in this matter."

The released documents, categorically show that the CIA’s interest in UFOs predates the National Security Council directive to set up the Robertson Panel. It was in fact the CIA that urged the NSC to conduct the investigation, as is evident from the following extracts taken from a four-page emorandum to the Director of the CIA (DCI), General Walter Bedell Smith, from H. Marshall Chadwell, Assistant Director of Scientific Intelligence, dated 24 September 1952:

1. Recently an inquiry was conducted by the Office of Scientific Intelligence to determine whether there are national security implications in the problem of "unidentified flying objects," i.e. flying saucers; whether adequate study and research is currently being directed to this problem in its relation to such national security implications; and what further investigation and research should be instituted, by whom, and under what aegis.

2. It was found that the only unit of government currently studying the problem is the Directorate of Intelligence, USAF, which has charged the Air Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC) with the responsibility for investigating the reports of sightings. A worldwide reporting system has been instituted and major Air Force bases have been ordered to make interceptions of unidentified flying objects.

3. Since 1947, ATIC has received approximately 1500 official reports of sightings. During 1952 alone, official reports totaled 250. Of the 1500 reports Air Force carries 20 percent as unexplained and of those received from January through July 1952 it carries 28 percent unexplained.

4. public concern with the phenomena. indicates that a fair proportion of our population is mentally conditioned to the acceptance of the incredible. In this fact lies the potential for the touching-off of mass hysteria and panic.

8. In order to minimize risk of panic, a national policy should be established as to what should be told the public regarding the phenomena.

11. I consider this problem to be of such importance that it should be brought to the attention of the National Security Council in order that a community wide coordinated effort toward its solution may be initiated.

Although Marshall Chadwell states in paragraph 2 that "the only unit of government currently studying the problem is the Directorate of Intelligence, USAF," the CIA had been closely monitoring the phenomenon since 1947, as the released documents show. According to investigative journalist Warren Smith the CIA first became interested in UFO reports prior to its establishment in 1947, when it was known as the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), headed by Major General William ("Wild Bill") Donovan. The "foo-fighters" were being sighted in increasing numbers during the latter stages of World War II, and the OSS was at first convinced that they were German pilotless probes. Investigation by OSS agents in Europe proved otherwise, and Donovan and his staff decided that the foo-fighters were unusual but harmless phenomena.

Shortly after pilot Kenneth Arnold’s famous sighting on 24 June 1947, Smith was told, the OSS met at the prestigious Brooks Club in New York and organized a funded effort to establish the truth about the flying disks. At first it was believed that the Russians were responsible, assisted by captured German scientists, but certain characteristics of the reports negated this theory. The OSS was concerned that such sightings could cause panic, and that phone lines and military communication channels would be swamped. The flying saucers had to be debunked.

Psychological warfare and propaganda were brought to bear, using hoaxes, false sightings and wild reports. Articles ridiculing flying saucers were planted in national newspapers and magazines.

A CIA memorandum dated 31 March 1949 from H. L. Bowers to Dr. Machle, with the subject heading "Notes and Comments on ‘Unidentified Flying Objects’, Project Sign" (an early US Air Force study), concluded:

Studies on the various possibilities have been made by Dr. Langmuir of GE, Dr. Valley of MIT, Dr. Lipp of Project Rand, Dr. Hynek of Ohio State and the Aero Medical Lab.

That the objects are from outer space or are an advanced aircraft of a foreign power is a possibility, but the above group concluded it is highly improbable.

In discussion of this subject with Mr. Deyarmond at Wright Patterson Air Force Base he seemed to think, and I agree, that the "flying disks" will turn out to be another "sea-serpent." However, since there is even a remote possibility that they may be interplanetary or foreign aircraft it is necessary to investigate each sighting.

Proof that the CIA was monitoring the UFO phenomenon for several years prior to the Robertson Panel in 1953 is contained in several documents. One, classified Eyes Only, is a memorandum from Ralph L. Clark, Acting Assistant Director for the Office of Scientific Intelligence, to the Deputy Director of Intelligence, dated 29 July 1952:

"In the past several weeks a number of radar and visual sightings of unidentified aerial objects have been reported. Although this office has maintained a continuing review of such reported sightings during the past three years a special study group has been formed to review this subject to date, the Office of Central Intelligence Agency will participate in this Study Office of Scientific Intelligence and a report should be ready about 15 August."

Another document, an informal memorandum written only a few days later, was from Edward Tauss, then Acting Chief of the Weapons and Equipment Division of the Office of Scientific Intelligence, to the Deputy Assitant Director of the OSI. Although expressing skepticism about the reliability of even the unexplained reports, Tauss nevertheless adds:

"so long as a series of reports remains unexplainable (interplanetary aspects and alien origin not being thoroughly excluded from consideration) caution requires that intelligence continue coverage of the subject. It is recommended that CIA surveillance of subject matter, in coordination with proper authorities of primarily operational concern at ATIC, be continued. It is strongly urged, however, that no indication of CIA interest or concern reach the press or public, in view of their probable alarmist tendencies to accept such interest as confirmatory of the soundness of unpublished facts in the hands of the U.S. government."

Resources: Above Top Secret, Timothy Good, 1988.

My Take:  This is just the tip of the iceberg of the CIAs real interest in UFOs. This information is just what has been released through the cracks in the government’s cone of silence.

Posted On: July 30, 2022

It has been said that the devil is in the details. In this episode, no super exciting cases this episode but just a lot of CIA documents and small details that if looked at closely, you can see a better picture of how the CIA viewed UFOs and the importance of lying to the public about them.

The Central Intelligence Agency was formed out of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and the Central Intelligence Group in 1947.

The CIA is divided into four Directorates, each Directorate containing many different offices and services. The Directorate of Operations oversees foreign intelligence (espionage) as well as counterintelligence, and includes the Covert Action Staff (disinformation and propaganda).

Above these four Directorates is the National Intelligence Council (formerly the Intelligence Resources Advisory Committee) which coordinates the various methods of intelligence-gathering according to the priorities assigned to the requests that are presented to it. At the same level of authority are the national intelligence officers who prepare the national intelligence estimates which go to the National Security Council and sometimes to the President.

According to Todd Zechel, a former employee of the National Security Agency, all four directorates of the CIA have been engaged in collecting, analyzing and suppressing UFO data since 1948. Zechel claims that the National Photographic Interpretation Center, established within the Directorate of Science and Technology in 1953, has been analyzing all UFO photographic data, and the Office of Scientific Intelligence (as it was then called) has been analyzing worldwide UFO data since its inception, including non-photographic cases, physical evidence and secondary analysis of photographic cases. Zechel further claims that domestic reports were collected by the CIA from the Air Force, via the Pentagon’s Office of Current Intelligence, and from other intelligence agencies such as the NSA and Defense Intelligence Agency, via links with their communications networks. Domestic reports have been collected from the CIA s Domestic Operations Division (Domestic Collection Division) offices in cities throughout the United States, Zechel maintains. Foreign reports were collected by the National Foreign Assessment Center via the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, the Office of Current Intelligence and the Office of Operations, as these departments were called until the 1970s. Zechel also makes the disturbing claim that agents of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations have interrogated UFO witnesses and that agents of the Domestic Operations Division have been involved in harassing, intimidating and even silencing witnesses.

Is there any evidence for these claims, which were made by Zechel in 1977?

THE CIA AND THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT.

It is largely due to the efforts of Todd Zechel, together with William Spaulding of Ground Saucer Watch (GSW), an Arizona-based UFO research organization, that almost 1000 pages of CIA UFO-related documents were released under provisions of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in 1978, following months of legal battles. Henry Rothblatt and Peter Gersten, two New York lawyers who acted on GSW’s behalf, had sued the CIA in 1977 under the FOIA in a successful attempt to force the Agency to release its files on UFOs. On 20 December 1978 a press release announcing "CIA Releases UFO Documents" was distributed to the news media in Washington, DC. It had been prepared by Citizens Against UFO Secrecy (CAUS), an organization founded a few months previously by Todd Zechel.

There are believed to be over 10000 pages of classified UFO documents at the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia, yet the Agency has admitted to withholding only fifty-seven documents.

Peter Gersten advised in 1980 that the CIA failed to disclose the existence of 200 or more documents, based on references in the released documents. Perhaps this can be explained by the fact that in 1980 the House of Representatives passed the Foreign Affairs Committee Bill, which effectively exempted the CIA from the majority of requirements flooding into it under the FOIA. And yet, out of nine exemptions to the FOIA, not one pertains to UFO records. When researchers request certain UFO records from the CIA, NSA, DIA, and other agencies, we are often told that they are exempt from release due to national security or that "records cannot be released because they have been destroyed" or that "the information is properly classified and cannot be released."

How curious, then, that the official US Air Force position is that "no UFO reported, investigated, and evaluated by the Air Force has ever given any indication of a threat to our national security."

THE RELEASED CIA DOCUMENTS

The CIA’s public position on UFOs, prior to the release of the documents, is best summed up in a letter to Bill Spaulding, dated 26 March 1976:

"In order that you may be aware of the true facts concerning the involvement of the CIA in the investigation of the UFO phenomena, let me give you the following brief history. Late in 1952, the National Security Council levied upon the CIA the requirement to determine if the existence of UFOs would create a danger to the security of the United States. The Office of Scientific Intelligence established the Intelligence Advisory Committee to study the matter. That committee made the recommendations [in] the Robertson Panel Report. At no time prior to the formation of the Robertson Panel and subsequent to this issuance of the panel’s report [January 1953], has the CIA engaged in the study of UFO phenomena. The Robertson Panel Report is the summation of the Agency’s interest and involvement in this matter."

The released documents, categorically show that the CIA’s interest in UFOs predates the National Security Council directive to set up the Robertson Panel. It was in fact the CIA that urged the NSC to conduct the investigation, as is evident from the following extracts taken from a four-page emorandum to the Director of the CIA (DCI), General Walter Bedell Smith, from H. Marshall Chadwell, Assistant Director of Scientific Intelligence, dated 24 September 1952:

1. Recently an inquiry was conducted by the Office of Scientific Intelligence to determine whether there are national security implications in the problem of "unidentified flying objects," i.e. flying saucers; whether adequate study and research is currently being directed to this problem in its relation to such national security implications; and what further investigation and research should be instituted, by whom, and under what aegis.

2. It was found that the only unit of government currently studying the problem is the Directorate of Intelligence, USAF, which has charged the Air Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC) with the responsibility for investigating the reports of sightings. A worldwide reporting system has been instituted and major Air Force bases have been ordered to make interceptions of unidentified flying objects.

3. Since 1947, ATIC has received approximately 1500 official reports of sightings. During 1952 alone, official reports totaled 250. Of the 1500 reports Air Force carries 20 percent as unexplained and of those received from January through July 1952 it carries 28 percent unexplained.

4. public concern with the phenomena. indicates that a fair proportion of our population is mentally conditioned to the acceptance of the incredible. In this fact lies the potential for the touching-off of mass hysteria and panic.

8. In order to minimize risk of panic, a national policy should be established as to what should be told the public regarding the phenomena.

11. I consider this problem to be of such importance that it should be brought to the attention of the National Security Council in order that a community wide coordinated effort toward its solution may be initiated.

Although Marshall Chadwell states in paragraph 2 that "the only unit of government currently studying the problem is the Directorate of Intelligence, USAF," the CIA had been closely monitoring the phenomenon since 1947, as the released documents show. According to investigative journalist Warren Smith the CIA first became interested in UFO reports prior to its establishment in 1947, when it was known as the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), headed by Major General William ("Wild Bill") Donovan. The "foo-fighters" were being sighted in increasing numbers during the latter stages of World War II, and the OSS was at first convinced that they were German pilotless probes. Investigation by OSS agents in Europe proved otherwise, and Donovan and his staff decided that the foo-fighters were unusual but harmless phenomena.

Shortly after pilot Kenneth Arnold’s famous sighting on 24 June 1947, Smith was told, the OSS met at the prestigious Brooks Club in New York and organized a funded effort to establish the truth about the flying disks. At first it was believed that the Russians were responsible, assisted by captured German scientists, but certain characteristics of the reports negated this theory. The OSS was concerned that such sightings could cause panic, and that phone lines and military communication channels would be swamped. The flying saucers had to be debunked.

Psychological warfare and propaganda were brought to bear, using hoaxes, false sightings and wild reports. Articles ridiculing flying saucers were planted in national newspapers and magazines.

A CIA memorandum dated 31 March 1949 from H. L. Bowers to Dr. Machle, with the subject heading "Notes and Comments on ‘Unidentified Flying Objects’, Project Sign" (an early US Air Force study), concluded:

Studies on the various possibilities have been made by Dr. Langmuir of GE, Dr. Valley of MIT, Dr. Lipp of Project Rand, Dr. Hynek of Ohio State and the Aero Medical Lab.

That the objects are from outer space or are an advanced aircraft of a foreign power is a possibility, but the above group concluded it is highly improbable.

In discussion of this subject with Mr. Deyarmond at Wright Patterson Air Force Base he seemed to think, and I agree, that the "flying disks" will turn out to be another "sea-serpent." However, since there is even a remote possibility that they may be interplanetary or foreign aircraft it is necessary to investigate each sighting.

Proof that the CIA was monitoring the UFO phenomenon for several years prior to the Robertson Panel in 1953 is contained in several documents. One, classified Eyes Only, is a memorandum from Ralph L. Clark, Acting Assistant Director for the Office of Scientific Intelligence, to the Deputy Director of Intelligence, dated 29 July 1952:

"In the past several weeks a number of radar and visual sightings of unidentified aerial objects have been reported. Although this office has maintained a continuing review of such reported sightings during the past three years a special study group has been formed to review this subject to date, the Office of Central Intelligence Agency will participate in this Study Office of Scientific Intelligence and a report should be ready about 15 August."

Another document, an informal memorandum written only a few days later, was from Edward Tauss, then Acting Chief of the Weapons and Equipment Division of the Office of Scientific Intelligence, to the Deputy Assitant Director of the OSI. Although expressing skepticism about the reliability of even the unexplained reports, Tauss nevertheless adds:

"so long as a series of reports remains unexplainable (interplanetary aspects and alien origin not being thoroughly excluded from consideration) caution requires that intelligence continue coverage of the subject. It is recommended that CIA surveillance of subject matter, in coordination with proper authorities of primarily operational concern at ATIC, be continued. It is strongly urged, however, that no indication of CIA interest or concern reach the press or public, in view of their probable alarmist tendencies to accept such interest as confirmatory of the soundness of unpublished facts in the hands of the U.S. government."

Resources: Above Top Secret, Timothy Good, 1988.

My Take:  This is just the tip of the iceberg of the CIAs real interest in UFOs. This information is just what has been released through the cracks in the government’s cone of silence.