by Dan Wright
On the same morning, at 10:50 a.m. on the George Air Force Base, California, three men on the firing range, plus an officer four miles away, observed five matte-white discs, all about 100 feet in diameter. The unknowns flew rapidly overhead in a formation of three followed by two. The saucers executed a 90-degree turn then darted about for perhaps half a minute before departing. USAF Project Blue Book listed the incident as unidentifiable.9
Within a week at Keesler Air Force Base, Mississippi, about 12:15 p.m. on May 7, 1952, a captain, two sergeants, and an airman on the ground watched a silvery cylinder dart in and out of clouds for 5–10 minutes. USAF Project Blue Book left the event unidentified.10
At San Antonio, Texas, around 7:00 p.m., May 29, 1952, an Air Force pilot on the ground watched a bright tubular object in the sky. It tilted from horizontal attitude to vertical for eight minutes before slowly returning to horizontal. It then accelerated, turned red, and appeared to stretch out as it went. The entire sighting lasted 14 minutes. USAF Project Blue Book left the event unidentifiable.11
From 11:40 p.m., July 19, until 5:00 a.m. the next morning, seven objects were detected near Andrews AFB, Maryland, and by separate radarscopes at Washington National Airport. Reports by commercial pilots in the vicinity verified their paths up, down, and sideways at 100+ mph, routinely violating restricted airspace. One air traffic controller referred to the maneuvers as “completely radical compared to those of ordinary aircraft.”
Nearby Bolling AFB, D.C., had no interceptors to send out due to runway repairs underway. The interceptor unit was instead called in from its temporary home in Wilmington, Delaware. After an unexplained delay, two fighter jets entered D.C.'s radar range at 3:30 a.m. But as soon as they arrived, the intruders left. Over the next 90 minutes, alternating pairs of interceptors played a cat-and-mouse game with the interlopers. On a final pass, they did not disappear; instead the approaching pilots witnessed an enormous fiery-orange sphere pace them from above.12
Following a brief visit on the 23rd of July, the intruders were back in numbers on the 26th. Beginning at approximately 9:00 p.m., between six and twelve unknowns were tracked by radar over the District and surrounding areas. At 2:00 a.m. two interceptors were scrambled from Wilmington. Having been present and mockingly apparent for several hours, the unknowns once again retreated when the jets reached D.C. radar range. Following a pass and return covering ten minutes, the pilots were directed back to Wilmington. Reportedly at the moment they left D.C.'s radar range, the unknowns reappeared on the screens. Finally, on retreat, one of the pilots gained visual recognition of multiple objects, which he described as blue-white lights tremendous in size.13
On the heels of all this activity, on July 29, Ralph Clark, Acting Assistant Director of the CIA's Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI), advised the Agency's deputy director (DDI) that verified UFO reports were ongoing. “In the past several weeks a number of radar and visual sightings of unidentified aerial objects” were received. Clark added that OSI had stayed on top of such matters around the world in the three years since its inception, but a study group had now been formed to review all that had been experienced. OSI would be participating in that study.14
Three days later, on August 1, the acting chief of the CIA Weapons and Equipment (W&E) Division wrote to the DDI informally. Of the roughly 1,000–2,000 reports of anomalies recorded by the US Air Force's Air Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC), mostly from inside the country, the majority were “phoney” [sic]; fewer than 100 remained unexplained. Among those, there was “no pattern of specific sizes, configurations, characteristics, performance, or location.” Better information, the chief added, might have explained most or all of those recent unresolved incidents as well. That information shortfall included misidentified conventional equipment, basics of the night sky, and things that were airborne but not yet identified.15
Because an alien origin could not be thoroughly discounted, caution required continued monitoring of the subject, he determined. The chief stressed that CIA interest or concern should not reach the press or public due to their alarmist tendencies. A thorough briefing by ATIC would follow.
In a later untitled note regarding a phone call from the FBI, on August 8, 1952, the W&E chief declared: “So long as a range of reports remains ‘unexplainable’ (interplanetary aspects and alien origin not being thoroughly excluded from consideration), caution requires that intelligence continue coverage of the subject.”16
Muddying the waters was an attached untitled radio teletype (translated from French) summarizing an article written for the German magazine Der Flieger (The Aviator). The text outlined an alleged UFO crash at Spitsbergen, an island off Norway. The saucer had allegedly been studied by Norwegian and German rocket experts. Described as 47 meters in diameter and pilotless, it was outfitted with a radio piloting transmitter containing a plutonium nucleus. On its periphery were “46 automatic jets.” An inscription in Russian was discovered inside. There was no firm evidence either to confirm or cast doubt on the credence of the teletyped report.17
An OSI branch, in an August 8 meeting, discussed an upcoming project that would originate in the Agency's Physics and Electronics (P&E) Division to evaluate unidentified aerial objects reported to date. P&E's Dr. Todos M. Odarenko took charge of the gathering. He was a Czech-trained electrical engineer and recipient of a civilian award from the US Navy for his electronics work at Bell Laboratories during World War II. He would later consult for the Joint Chiefs.
Dr. Odarenko suggested maintaining a file to permit the division and branch to take a stand and form an opinion as appropriate. Already underway, the Air Force's ATIC was examining the subject, keeping records, and informing the CIA. All P&E members were to review the materials and determine how to contribute. Outside inquiries would be handled by ATIC via its standard form. A P&E project officer was appointed and directed to learn who handled such cases, get a past history, and find out what had been learned in meteorology, radar, and other technologies relative to the aerial events.18
On August 20, after an OSI briefing, Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) Walter Smith ordered the preparation of a formal document for consideration by the National Security Council, advising on the great numbers of UFO reports and “stating the need for investigation and directing agencies concerned to cooperate in such investigations.”19
Attached to CIA Director Smith's directive was a July 29, 1952, draft memo to unknown parties, enclosing a memo from the Acting Assistant Director of OSI to inform them that UFO visual and radar reports were ongoing. Also attached was an undated NSC directive for Smith to establish procedures for identifying unknown aerial objects.20
Tasked with drafting that set of Smith procedures based on supportive staff studies, the deputy CIA director and his OSI staff determined that the broader problem was essentially one of research and development. Though OSI had continually reviewed anecdotal reports from Agency sources and others over its first three years, that material was all unevaluated. A special task force of experts was needed, one devoted to reviewing the entire UFO subject to date. If such a group were formed, OSI would participate.21
The DDI decided to contact an Air Force R&D resource, no doubt in hopes of sharing the burden of this sticky wicket. An interagency conference soon followed. The Air Force, specifically ATIC, had been analyzing incoming written reports from the public since 1948, most from within US borders. By the second half of 1952, those reports numbered around 1,500. Hoaxes were few, but at least 80 percent were resolved to the military command's satisfaction as ordinary objects (aircraft, weather balloons, meteors, Venus, and the like). Common sense suggested that many of the misidentifications stemmed from hopeful delusions.
Within that 80 percent rejection pile was every single-witness account anywhere at any time—disqualified out of hand for lack of corroboration. Given sufficient resources, most of the remaining 20 percent would likewise be explained, the argument went. Still, a small percentage of reports conti
nued to involve multiple, credible observers describing seemingly incredible things. To some within the Agency, at least, that was puzzling. Still, it was legitimate to pose a fundamental question: For what, if any, reason was the Central Intelligence Agency involved in this odd business?
The Agency's assistant director for operations wrote to the DDI on August 22. The FBI had latently intercepted the transcript of a June 10, 1951, Moscow radio program on the UFO subject—the first-ever mention by the Kremlin-controlled state service. Responding to a question in the “Listener's Mailbag,” the Soviet broadcast proclaimed, in reference to purported misidentification of weather balloons:
The Chief of Nuclear Physics in the US Naval Research Bureau explained them recently as being used for stratospheric studies. US Government circles knew all along that these objects were of a harmless nature, but if they refrained from denying “false reports,” the purpose behind such tactics was to fan war hysteria in the country.22
The DDI in response requested the FBI director to alert field stations to convey any mention of flying saucers in Iron Curtain countries.
Coincidentally, that summer there arose a revealing, if non-sourced, 29-page statement, “The Air Force Stand on Flying Saucers—As Stated by CIA, in a Briefing on 22 August 1952.” The statement's cover sheet revealed that ATIC was responsible for handling UFO reports to the Air Force, backed by the USAF Office of Special Investigations for authenticity and witness reliability. The USAF officially denied that flying saucers were US or Soviet secret weapons, nor were they evidence of extraterrestrial visitors. All sightings, it said, were (a) well-known things (for example, balloons, aircraft, meteors, clouds) or (b) atmospheric phenomena (refractions, reflections, temperature inversions, ball lightning, and so forth). “Not a shred of evidence exists” that any report lay outside those categories. Sightings were frequent near atomic energy plants due to the numbers of security staff observing the sky and grounds there. Other less well-advanced ideas were also offered. The notion that byproducts of atomic fission might produce flying saucers was likewise advanced. Cumulative data showed 78 percent of cases to be explainable as (a) or (b); 2 percent were hoaxes; and 20 percent were left unexplained due to the ambiguity of the accounts.23
The Air Force was mainly interested in the psychological warfare factor. Key members of saucer societies who kept the subject alive were of dubious loyalty and open suspicion. Some had suspect financial sources. A public “made jumpy by the ‘flying saucer’ scare would be a serious liability in the event of air attacks by an enemy.”24
Attached to the August 22, 1952, “Air Force Stand” document was one from three days before, “Flying Saucers.” A semi-formal Air Force-OSI Study Group had pondered “the implications of the ‘Flying Saucer’ problem.” They had reviewed available intelligence, official reports, press and magazine articles, and popular books leading up to their findings:
Following the June 1947 Mount Rainier, Washington/Kenneth Arnold incident plus great numbers of claimed sightings in the months to follow, the Air Force had begun a study, initially titled Project Saucer. In December 1947, its task force released sections of a secret report that concluded the sightings resulted from mass hysteria, hoaxes, hallucinations, and misinterpretation of known objects. The public, the report went on, was initially satisfied, but in the years to follow read popular but “highly speculative books and magazine articles” by “sensational writers.”25
Those, plus increasing sighting numbers overall, prompted the Air Force in early 1951 to institute worldwide reporting and alert USAF bases to “intercept the unidentified objects.”26
USAF General John A. Samford had offered to the press that study's interim conclusions: Analysis showed: (a) no threat was posed to the United States; (b) recent Washington, D.C., reports were likely caused by temperature inversions; and (c) no American experiment or test was responsible.
Despite those findings, the authors concluded, “There are many who believe in them (UFOs) and will continue to do so in spite of any official pronouncement ...”27
In light of all the aerial phenomena reported in Europe, America, and worldwide, ongoing Agency monitoring of the Soviet press curiously revealed no mention of the subject whatsoever. CIA staff concluded such an utter silence had to be official Soviet government policy in order to somehow use the data in psychological warfare.
As alluded to in the paper, civilian saucer groups had formed in the United States. The unnamed leader of one was perhaps of questionable character and could set off mass hysteria. USAF was already monitoring that group.
The report had concluded that, for a given month, perhaps a dozen sightings by the general public remained unidentified.
Also attached to the “Air Force Stand” document was a non-sourced, untitled, 14-page draft paper dated August 15, 1952 (page 12 was missing). The author or authors asserted that four issues bore on the subject of aerial anomalies: (a) earnestness of the witness; (b) absence of a reference point for objects seen against the sky; (c) difficulty of estimating size, distance, and speed without a reference point; and (d) absence of material evidence.
Psychological factors impacting an individual's veracity included mental conditioning from earlier stories in print, emotional response to the unknown, and a potential desire for publicity.
Physiological factors—the person's general physical condition—included possible fatigue or anemia, eye strain, and adaptation to night viewing.
ATIC attested that the most commonly misinterpreted sources were balloons, aircraft, astronomical bodies, atmospheric phenomena, instrument errors, and windblown objects. Examples:
The Mantell Incident (see pages 9–11) and a later observation at Wright-Patterson AFB were misperceived Skyhook balloons.
Conventional aircraft were misidentified during the day (reflections) and at night (running lights).
Astronomical sources of routine visual mistakes included planets (especially Venus) and meteors.
Atmospheric sources distorting optics or even radar returns included ball lightning, temperature inversions, turbulent air masses, the Aurora Borealis, and jet streams.
Also mistaken were birds in flight as well as clouds masking the moon or illuminated by searchlights.
These sources explained 80 percent of all sightings. Another 10 percent would be explained with more accurate details and investigative follow-up. “This still leaves ATIC with a possible 10 percent of sightings for which there is no available explanation.” Little-understood natural phenomena could have caused optical or electronic aberrations, while some of the unknowns could have been electromagnetic or electrostatic in nature. However, “we still are left with numbers of incredible reports from credible observers” (emphasis added).28
A fourth attachment to the “Air Force Stand” file was a nine-page, non-sourced August 14, 1952, document titled “Flying Saucers”—seemingly a prepared speech. A “phenomenal increase” in reported sightings in recent weeks had been accompanied by great numbers of requests to the Air Force for information, the paper exclaimed. NSA Director and Air Force General John Samford had already spoken out that there was “no pattern of anything remotely consistent with any menace to the United States.”29
That paper outlined various types of misidentifications and denied the US government was responsible for any sightings, adding that the Air Force would emphasize instrumentation in its continuing efforts. The report recalled two military interceptions previously ordered. The first and more prominent occurred on January 7, 1948, resulting in the pilot's death—the much-publicized case of Captain Thomas Mantell of the Kentucky Air National Guard. (See “Mantell Incident,” pages 9–11)
Despite explanations from American officials to the contrary, reports of inexplicable airborne objects continued to stream in from across the Atlantic. An IFDRB distributed August 27, 1952, referenced anomalies in southern Europe and North Africa in the spring. A newsman's personal account published in the Tangiers, Algeria, newspaper de
scribed a rocket-shaped object that passed over Barcelona, Spain, on May 21, 1952, at an estimated 2,000 meters altitude. The object traveled on a straight line, he said, trailing smoke.30
From the same document, on June 3 an unknown trailing pale-green light and travelling at a high rate of speed over Sousse, Tunisia, was seen by many. Four days later, an incident in Meknes, Morocco, involved a flying saucer trailing white smoke and moving at great speed. Also, a June 15 incident at Taourirt, Morocco, as viewed by multiple dock workers, was described as a “disc of white flames surrounded by two circular strands” that flew past the witnesses. Saucer sightings were also reported on June 15 over Marrakesh and Casablanca.31
The July 16 Casablanca news carried reports from various locations:
On July 12 at night, two policemen saw an elongated object at high speed with a white trail.
Also July 12 at 9:30 p.m., a diminutive yellow object (under one meter) passed overhead at high speed.
On July 13, a blue-green sphere with a short tail was observed at great speed; in seconds it was gone.
Also July 13, three “white fires” were observed in the sky at 9:30 p.m. Additional 9:00–10:00 p.m. reports described a “luminous flying object” near Casablanca.
The July 18 Casablanca daily reported that a “phosphorescent, ovoid object” 20 meters long allegedly rose rapidly from the ground with a bluish trail—date uncertain.32
An undated, heavily redacted Information Report was distributed September 2, 1952. The lone untouched section outlined an Arnhem, Netherlands, incident occurring on July 24 (see page 29).33
Also distributed was an IFDRB relating UFOs reportedly seen in North and West Africa, originating in the Dakar, Senegal, and Casablanca, Morocco, newspapers. In Dakar, at 6:08 a.m., July 3, a flat yet tapered object was observed, estimated to be 1,500 meters high and traveling at great speed, issuing red and blue flames.34
