The Central Intelligence Agency’s Role in the Study of UFOs 1947-90

Conspiracy and Coverup

For decades, the American public has held a deep and abiding fascination with Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs). Surveys have shown that an extraordinary percentage of the population has heard or read about the phenomena, with a majority believing they are real. Even former U.S. Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan claimed to have seen a UFO. This widespread interest has been shadowed by an equally persistent belief, held by many private UFO organizations and “UFOlogists,” that the United States government, and specifically the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), has been engaged in a massive conspiracy and coverup of the issue.

The idea that the CIA has secretly concealed its research has been a major theme ever since the modern UFO era began in the late 1940s. This perception was so enduring that in late 1993, after being pressured by UFOlogists for more information, DCI R. James Woolsey ordered a new review of all Agency files on the subject. This article, based on an examination of those internal CIA records, traces the Agency’s true interest and involvement in the UFO controversy from its inception in 1947 to 1990. What emerges is a complex history where initial, substantial concern over national security in the early 1950s gradually faded, leaving behind only limited and peripheral attention. The “coverup” itself, it appears, was born from a combination of bureaucratic secrecy, Cold War paranoia, and the ironic need to hide other top-secret terrestrial projects that were being mistaken for objects from outer space.

The Dawn of the Flying Saucer Era

The “flying saucer” phenomenon emerged in lockstep with the Cold War. In 1947, as the confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union solidified, the first wave of sightings began. The first major report came on June 24, 1947, when Kenneth Arnold, a private pilot and reputable businessman, sighted nine disk-shaped objects near Mt. Rainier, Washington, traveling at an estimated speed of over 1,000 mph. Arnold’s story was followed by a flood of additional sightings from military and civilian pilots, air traffic controllers, and the general public across the nation.

The U.S. Air Force, fearing the objects might be Soviet secret weapons, took immediate action. In 1948, Gen. Nathan Twining established Project SIGN to collect, collate, and evaluate all information on the sightings, viewing it as a potential national security concern. The project, run by the Air Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, soon concluded that while UFOs were real, they were not extraordinary. An Air Force report found that almost all sightings stemmed from mass hysteria, hoaxes, or the misinterpretation of known objects. The report did not fully rule out the possibility of extraterrestrial phenomena.

By the late 1940s, Project SIGN was replaced by Project GRUDGE. This new project had a different focus: it was a public relations campaign designed to alleviate public anxiety. GRUDGE officials explained away sightings as balloons, conventional aircraft, planets, meteors, optical illusions, or even “large hailstones.” They found no evidence of advanced foreign weapons and concluded UFOs did not threaten U.S. security. In fact, Project GRUDGE recommended that the entire effort be reduced in scope, arguing that the very existence of official interest encouraged people to believe in UFOs and contributed to a “war hysteria” atmosphere. The project was officially terminated on December 27, 1949.

This official disinterest was short-lived. With the outbreak of the Korean War and mounting Cold War tensions, UFO sightings continued. In 1952, USAF Director of Intelligence Maj. Gen. Charles P. Cabell ordered a new, more robust effort. This was Project BLUE BOOK, the major Air Force study that would run throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Its task, like that of its predecessors, was to identify and explain UFOs and persuade the public that they were not extraordinary. These three projects – SIGN, GRUDGE, and BLUE BOOK – set the tone for the official U.S. government position for the next thirty years.

The CIA Takes Notice

Throughout this early period, the CIA closely monitored the Air Force effort. The Agency was aware of the mounting number of sightings and grew increasingly concerned that UFOs might pose a security threat. By 1952, with a massive buildup of sightings, CIA officials wondered if it was all “midsummer madness.” While the Agency accepted the Air Force’s conclusions, it also noted that “since there is a remote possibility that they may be interplanetary aircraft, it is necessary to investigate each sighting.”

This cautious interest turned into active concern during the summer of 1952. On July 19 and 20, radar scopes at Washington National Airport and Andrews Air Force Base tracked a series of mysterious blips. On July 27, the blips reappeared. The Air Force scrambled interceptor aircraft to investigate, but they found nothing. The incidents caused headlines across the country. The White House wanted to know what was happening. The Air Force quickly offered the explanation that the radar blips might be the result of “temperature inversions,” a phenomenon later confirmed by a Civil Aeronautics Administration investigation.

Alarmed by the new rash of sightings, the CIA formed a special study group within the Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI) and the Office of Current Intelligence (OCI). The group’s initial report stated that most sightings could be easily explained. Nevertheless, it recommended that the Agency continue monitoring the problem in coordination with the Air Force. More important, the group urged that the CIA conceal its interest from the media and the public. It was feared that public knowledge of CIA interest would be seen as confirmation that UFOs were real, leading to “probable alarmist tendencies.”

This recommendation was relayed to Deputy Director for Intelligence (DDI) Robert Amory, Jr., who in turn was relaying the concerns of DCI Walter Bedell Smith. Smith was deeply concerned about the national security implications. He wanted to know if the Air Force investigation was sufficiently objective and how much more money and manpower would be needed to determine the cause of the small percentage of unexplained flying saucers. Smith believed there was “only one chance in 10,000 that the phenomenon posed a threat to the security of the country, but even that chance could not be taken.” He felt it was the CIA’s responsibility by statute to coordinate the intelligence effort to solve the problem. Smith also had another question: What use could be made of the UFO phenomenon in U.S. psychological warfare efforts?

The CIA study group met with Air Force officials at Wright-Patterson and reviewed their data. The Air Force claimed that 90 percent of sightings were easily accounted for. The other 10 percent were characterized as “a number of incredible reports from credible observers.” The Air Force rejected theories that the sightings involved U.S. or Soviet secret weapons, or that they involved “men from Mars,” citing no evidence. In these meetings, both CIA and Air Force officials agreed that outside knowledge of the Agency’s interest would make the problem more serious. This mutual decision to conceal the CIA’s involvement would contribute greatly to later charges of a conspiracy.

The National Security Threat Assessment

The CIA’s primary concern was not aliens, but the Soviet Union. The study group searched the Soviet press for UFO reports and found none. They concluded that this absence must be the result of a deliberate Soviet government policy of secrecy. This sparked serious national security fears. The group worried that the USSR could use UFOs as a psychological warfare tool to touch off mass hysteria and panic in the United States.

An even more pressing danger was identified: the group believed the Soviets might use UFO sightings to overload the U.S. air warning system. If the system was deliberately clogged with phantom UFO reports, it might not be able to distinguish real targets from false ones, giving the Soviets a surprise advantage in a nuclear attack.

This concern was articulated by H. Marshall Chadwell, the Assistant Director of OSI. In December 1952, Chadwell briefed DCI Smith, urging action. He was convinced that “something was going on that must have immediate attention.” He pointed to “sightings of unexplained objects at great altitudes and traveling at high speeds in the vicinity of major US defense installations” that were “not attributable to natural phenomena or known types of aerial vehicles.”

Chadwell believed the problem was so important that it should be brought to the attention of the National Security Council (NSC). He drafted a proposed NSC Directive to establish the investigation of UFOs as a priority project across the entire intelligence and defense research community. He also urged Smith to establish an external research project of top-level scientists to study the problem. Smith agreed and directed his staff to prepare the NSC directive.

The Robertson Panel: Science and Secrecy

On December 4, 1952, the Intelligence Advisory Committee (IAC) took up the issue. The committee agreed that the DCI should “enlist the services of selected scientists to review and appraise the available evidence.” At the same time, Chadwell looked into British efforts and learned they were also active. An eminent British scientist, R. V. Jones, headed a “flying saucer” committee that had concluded the sightings were misrepresentations of natural phenomena. The British were also having a difficult time correcting public opinion, especially after RAF pilots and senior military officials had observed a “perfect flying saucer” at an air show.

In January 1953, Chadwell and H. P. Robertson, a noted physicist from the California Institute of Technology, assembled a distinguished panel of nonmilitary scientists. The group, which became known as the Robertson Panel, included Samuel A. Goudsmit, a nuclear physicist; Luis Alvarez, a high-energy physicist; Thornton Page, an expert on radar and electronics; and Lloyd Berkner, a specialist in geophysics.

The panel met from January 14 to 17, 1953. It spent 12 hours reviewing the Air Force data and case histories. After reviewing motion-picture film from a 1952 sighting in Tremonton, Utah, the panel concluded the images were caused by sunlight reflecting off seagulls. A 1950 film from Great Falls, Montana, was explained as sunlight reflecting off the surface of two Air Force interceptors.

The panel’s conclusions were unanimous and definitive. First, there was no evidence of a direct threat to national security in the UFO sightings. Second, the panel could find no evidence that the objects might be extraterrestrials.

The panel did find a different kind of threat. It concluded that the continued emphasis on UFO reporting might threaten “the orderly functioning of the government.” How? By “clogging the channels of communication with irrelevant reports” and by inducing “hysterical mass behavior.” The panel also worried that potential enemies could exploit this hysteria to disrupt U.S. air defenses.

To meet these problems, the panel recommended that the National Security Council debunk UFO reports and institute a policy of public education. It suggested using the mass media, advertising, business clubs, schools, and even the Disney corporation to “get the message across” and reassure the public. Reflecting the era of McCarthyism, the panel also recommended that private UFO groups, such as the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO), be monitored for “subversive activities.”

Following the Robertson Panel’s findings, the CIA abandoned its effort to draft an NSC directive on UFOs. The Agency’s official position became that no further consideration of the subject was warranted, although it would continue to monitor sightings. Agency officials wanted knowledge of any CIA interest in the subject to be carefully restricted. The Robertson Panel report was classified, and any mention of CIA sponsorship of the panel was forbidden. This decision to enforce secrecy, born from a desire to prevent public panic, would later cause the Agency major problems and become the foundation of its credibility gap.

The U-2, OXCART, and the Birth of a Conspiracy

After the Robertson Panel report, Agency officials put the entire issue of UFOs on the back burner. In May 1953, responsibility was transferred to OSI’s Physics and Electronic Division, whose chief did not want the problem. He proposed to consider the project “inactive” and devote only one part-time analyst and a file clerk to it, later recommending its complete termination.

But some in the Agency continued to worry, especially about overseas reports. There were claims that German engineers held by the Soviets were developing a “flying saucer,” and mounting reports of UFOs over Eastern Europe and Afghanistan. The CIA was aware of Project Y, a joint Canadian-British-U.S. operation to produce a nonconventional flying-saucer-type aircraft, and feared the Soviets were testing similar devices. This concern was set against the backdrop of growing Soviet power: the USSR had detonated an atomic bomb in 1949 and a hydrogen bomb in 1953.

In October 1955, U.S. Senator Richard Russell and his party sighted a flying saucer while traveling on a train in the USSR. After extensive interviews, CIA officials concluded that the sighting did not support the theory of Soviet saucer development and that Russell had likely observed normal jet aircraft in a steep climb.

The most significant development in the 1950s UFO story came from the CIA itself. In November 1954, the Agency had entered the world of high-altitude reconnaissance with its U-2 project. By August 1955, the U-2 was conducting test flights at over 60,000 feet. At the time, most commercial airliners flew between 10,000 and 20,000 feet.

Consequently, once the U-2 started flying, commercial pilots and air traffic controllers began reporting a large increase in UFO sightings. The early U-2s were silver and reflected the rays of the sun, especially at sunrise and sunset. To observers below, they often appeared as fiery objects.

This created a serious problem for the Air Force’s Project BLUE BOOK. BLUE BOOK investigators, who were aware of the secret U-2 flights, had to explain away these sightings. They attributed them to natural phenomena like ice crystals and temperature inversions. By checking with the Agency’s U-2 Project Staff, investigators could attribute many UFO sightings to U-2 flights, but they were strictly forbidden from revealing the true cause to the public.

According to later estimates from CIA officials who worked on the U-2 and OXCART (SR-71) projects, over half of all UFO reports from the late 1950s through the 1960s were accounted for by these manned reconnaissance flights. This forced the Air Force to make misleading and deceptive statements to the public in order to allay fears and, more important, to protect an extraordinarily sensitive national security project. This deception, while deemed necessary, added significant fuel to the later conspiracy theories.

The Coverup Becomes the Story

As the CIA was unintentionally generating UFO reports, public pressure was building for the release of the 1953 Robertson Panel report. In 1956, Edward Ruppelt, the former head of Project BLUE BOOK, publicly revealed the panel’s existence. UFOlogist Donald Keyhoe, a retired Marine Corps major, advocated for the release of all government information. Civilian UFO groups like the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) and APRO immediately pushed for the report.

Under pressure, the Air Force approached the CIA for permission to declassify and release it. The Agency refused. Instead, it prepared a “sanitized version” of the report, which deleted any reference to the CIA and any mention of the psychological warfare potential discussed by the panel.

The demands did not stop. In 1958, Keyhoe, in an interview with Mike Wallace of CBS, claimed deep CIA involvement with UFOs and Agency sponsorship of the Robertson Panel. He and Dr. Leon Davidson, a chemical engineer and UFOlogist, demanded the release of the full report. Davidson had convinced himself that the CIA, not the Air Force, was responsible for UFO analysis and that “the activities of the US Government are responsible for the flying saucer sightings of the last decade.” Because of the U-2 and OXCART flights, Davidson was closer to the truth than he suspected. Still, the CIA held firm and refused to declassify the full report.

The Agency’s concern over secrecy was so high that it worried about former DCI Roscoe Hillenkoetter, who served on the board of governors of NICAP. Agency officials debated whether to show him the report to defuse the situation. (Hillenkoetter resigned from NICAP in 1962).

This policy of rigid secrecy backfired spectacularly in two rather bizarre cases that helped contribute to a growing public distrust of the CIA.

The first was the “radio code” incident of 1955. Two elderly sisters in Chicago, Mildred and Marie Maier, reported recording a radio program in which an unidentified code from a flying saucer was heard. CIA’s Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI) became interested and asked the Contact Division (CD) to obtain a copy. A CD officer, Dewelt Walker, met with the sisters, who were “thrilled that the government was interested.” Walker cabled headquarters that the scene was “like Arsenic and Old Lace.” He secured the tape, which OSI analyzed and found to be nothing more than Morse code from a known U.S. radio station.

The matter rested there until 1957, when Leon Davidson talked with the Maier sisters. They remembered a Mr. Walker from the “US Air Force.” Davidson, suspecting Walker was CIA, wrote to DCI Allen Dulles. The Agency, wanting to protect Walker’s identity, was now in a quandary. It had the Air Force write to Davidson, falsely claiming that Walker “was and is an Air Force Officer” and that the tape was analyzed by “another government organization.”

Not satisfied, Davidson pressed for more details. The Agency sent another officer, under cover and wearing an Air Force uniform, to meet with him. When Davidson continued to press for the source of the recording, the officer checked with headquarters and later called Davidson with a new story: because the signal was of known U.S. origin, the tape and notes “had been destroyed to conserve file space.”

Davidson was incensed. He told the officer that “he and his agency, whichever it was, were acting like Jimmy Hoffa and the Teamster Union in destroying records which might indict them.” This minor incident, handled poorly by both the CIA and the Air Force, turned into a major flap that added to the mystery surrounding the CIA’s role.

A few months later, another incident added to the questions. In 1958, Major Keyhoe charged that the Agency was deliberately asking eyewitnesses of UFOs not to make their sightings public. This stemmed from a 1957 incident where OSI asked the CD to obtain 1952 UFO photographs from Ralph C. Mayher, a TV photographer in Cleveland. A CD officer, John Hazen, obtained the photos, had them analyzed, and returned them to Mayher “without comment.” Mayher asked for the Agency’s evaluation, explaining he was trying to organize a TV program and wanted to mention that a U.S. intelligence organization had viewed the photos.

Keyhoe later contacted Mayher, heard the story, and asked the Agency to confirm Hazen’s employment in writing, in an effort to expose the CIA’s role. Although CD field representatives were normally overt, the Agency refused. DCI Dulles’s aide sent Keyhoe a noncommittal letter, referring him to the Air Force. Like the response to Davidson, this reply only fueled speculation that the Agency was deeply involved.

The Condon Committee and the End of BLUE BOOK

In the early 1960s, Keyhoe and Davidson maintained their assault. Davidson now claimed that the CIA “was solely responsible for creating the Flying Saucer furor as a tool for cold war psychological warfare since 1951.”

In 1964, following White House discussions on what to do if alien intelligence was discovered in space, DCI John McCone asked for an updated CIA evaluation of UFOs. OSI reported back that “little had changed” since the 1950s and there was still no evidence of a threat or of “foreign origin.”

At the same time, public pressure forced the Air Force to establish a special ad hoc committee, chaired by Dr. Brian O’Brien and including Carl Sagan, to review Project BLUE BOOK. Its report offered nothing new: no threat, no extraterrestrial technology. It did recommend that UFOs be studied intensively by a leading university. In 1966, brief hearings by the House Armed Services Committee produced similar results.

Following these reviews, and a disclosure by Dr. Robertson himself on a CBS program that the CIA had been involved, the Air Force in July 1966 again approached the Agency for declassification of the entire 1953 Robertson Panel report. The Agency again refused. Karl H. Weber, Deputy Director of OSI, wrote the Air Force, “We are most anxious that further publicity not be given to the information that the panel was sponsored by the CIA.”

This response was shortsighted. The Saturday Review published an article criticizing the “sanitized version” of the report. Worse, Dr. James E. McDonald, a noted atmospheric physicist from the University of Arizona, had already seen the full report at Wright-Patterson. When he returned to copy it, the Air Force refused, stating it was a CIA classified document. McDonald, emerging as a UFO authority, publicly claimed the CIA was behind the Air Force’s secrecy and coverup.

Bowing to public pressure and its own O’Brien Committee, the Air Force announced in 1966 that it was seeking a university to conduct an 18-month study. In October, the University of Colorado accepted a $325,000 contract. The program was headed by Dr. Edward U. Condon, a physicist who pronounced himself an “agnostic” on the subject.

What the public did not know was that the CIA was informally involved. An Air Force general contacted Arthur C. Lundahl, Director of the CIA’s National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC), and proposed an informal liaison. NPIC would provide the Condon Committee with technical advice and services in examining photographs. CIA leadership approved the arrangement as a way of “preserving a window” on the new effort.

The entire arrangement was kept secret. The CIA maintained a low profile and insisted that any work done by NPIC for the committee not be formally acknowledged. In February 1967, Condon and his team visited NPIC and were impressed by its special photoanalysis equipment. In May, NPIC provided an analysis of UFO photographs from Zanesville, Ohio, which debunked the sighting. Condon was thrilled, remarking that for the first time, a scientific analysis of a UFO would stand up to investigation.

In April 1969, Condon and his committee released their report. It concluded that “little, if anything” had come from the study of UFOs in the past 21 years and that further extensive study was “unwarranted.” It recommended that Project BLUE BOOK be discontinued. The report did not mention the CIA’s participation.

A special panel of the National Academy of Sciences reviewed the Condon report and concurred, stating that “the least likely explanation of UFOs is the hypothesis of extraterrestrial visitations.” Following these recommendations, the Secretary of the Air Force announced the termination of Project BLUE BOOK on December 17, 1969.

The FOIA Era: The Issue Refuses to Die

The Condon report did not satisfy many UFOlogists, who considered it just another part of the coverup. In June 1975, William Spaulding, head of a small group called Ground Saucer Watch (GSW), wrote to the CIA requesting a copy of the Robertson Panel report and all records relating to UFOs.

In 1976, CIA’s Information and Privacy Coordinator, Gene Wilson, sent Spaulding an “ill informed” reply. Wilson stated, “At no time prior to the formation of the Robertson Panel and subsequent to the issuance of the panel’s report has CIA engaged in the study of the UFO phenomena.” This was, based on the U-2 monitoring and NPIC’s Condon Committee support, not true.

Unconvinced, GSW filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Agency in September 1977. Deluged by similar requests, the CIA agreed to conduct a “reasonable search.” Agency officials, led by Launie Ziebell from the Office of General Counsel, conducted a thorough search. They even turned up an old UFO file under a secretary’s desk. The search finally produced 355 documents, totaling approximately 900 pages.

On December 14, 1978, the Agency released all but 57 documents, which were withheld on national security grounds. Although the released documents produced no smoking gun and revealed only a low-level Agency interest after 1953, the press treated the release in a sensational manner. The New York Times, for example, claimed the documents confirmed “intensive government concern” and secret surveillance. GSW then sued for the release of the withheld documents, claiming the Agency was still holding out key information.

The situation was much like the JFK assassination issue: no matter how much material the Agency released, people continued to believe in a coverup. DCI Stansfield Turner was so upset when he read the Times article that he asked his senior officers, “Are we in UFOs?” His staff reviewed the records and reported back that there was “no organized Agency effort to do research… nor has there been an organized effort to collect intelligence on UFOs since the 1950s.” The GSW lawsuit was dismissed in May 1980.

During the late 1970s and 1980s, the Agency continued its low-key interest. While most scientists dismissed flying saucers, some in the Intelligence Community shifted their interest to studying parapsychology and psychic phenomena, including “remote viewing” experiments. CIA officials also looked at the problem from a counterintelligence perspective: Were the Soviets and the KGB using U.S. citizens and UFO groups to obtain information on sensitive U.S. weapons programs, such as the Stealth aircraft? Or could the vulnerability of the U.S. air-defense network be exploited by foreign missiles mimicking UFOs?

There was no formal UFO project within the Agency in the 1980s. In fact, officials purposely kept files on UFOs to a minimum to avoid creating records that might mislead the public if they were ever released.

The Modern Myths: Roswell and Majestic-12

The 1980s also produced renewed charges that the Agency was withholding documents related to the 1947 Roswell incident, in which a flying saucer supposedly crashed in New Mexico, allowing the government to recover debris and alien bodies. In September 1994, the U.S. Air Force released a new report on Roswell. It concluded that the debris found in 1947 probably came from a once top-secret balloon operation, Project MOGUL, which was designed to monitor the atmosphere for evidence of Soviet nuclear tests.

Around 1984, a series of documents surfaced that supposedly proved President Truman had created a top-secret committee in 1947, code-named Majestic-12, to secure the recovery of UFO wreckage and alien bodies. Most if not all of these documents have proved to be fabrications. One of the so-called Majestic-12 documents, for example, was discovered to be a complete fraud. It was a photocopy of an authentic 1944 letter from George C. Marshall regarding “Magic” intercepts, but the dates and names had been altered and “Magic” had been changed to “Majic.” No original MJ-12 documents have ever surfaced.

Summary

The history of the CIA’s involvement with UFOs is not one of deep interest in extraterrestrial life. Instead, it was a brief, intense period of national security concern during the height of the Cold War. The Agency’s primary fear was not “men from Mars,” but that the UFO phenomenon could be exploited by the Soviet Union for psychological warfare or to mask a surprise nuclear attack.

The 1953 Robertson Panel, sponsored by the CIA, concluded there was no evidence of a threat or of alien visitors. Its key finding was that the reporting of UFOs was the real danger, as it could clog intelligence channels and cause public panic. The panel’s recommendation for a campaign of public education and debunking, combined with a strict policy of hiding the CIA’s own sponsorship, set the stage for decades of distrust.

This distrust was then unintentionally inflamed by the CIA itself. The development of top-secret high-altitude aircraft like the U-2 and OXCART led to a massive spike in “UFO” sightings – sightings that the Air Force and CIA had to actively, and deceptively, explain away with cover stories. This, combined with “shortsighted” refusals to declassify old reports and “poorly handled” inquiries from the public, cemented the belief in a government coverup.

The belief that we are not alone in the universe is too emotionally appealing, and the distrust of government too pervasive, to make the issue amenable to traditional scientific explanation. Like the JFK assassination conspiracy theories, the UFO issue, and the belief in a CIA coverup, will likely not go away soon, no matter what the Agency does or says.

Reference: CIA