SUBJECT: ARTICLE REGARDING UFOs & THE CIA FILE: UFO1781
DATE OF UPLOAD: December 21, 1989
ORIGIN OF UPLOAD: Crawdaddy Magazine/December, 1977
CONTRIBUTED BY: Kay Schaney/ParaNet Subscriber
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(C) Copyright 1989 ParaNet Information Service
All Rights Reserved unless copyrighted by Author.
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ParaNet Information Service (Denver, CO)--Certainly 1989
will be remembered as the year of discovery.
Whether or not we have moved any closer to the understanding
of the UFO phenomena, we can surely say that we have had our
share of 'deep throats' and secret sources seeming to come out of
the woodwork with tales of secret saucers being kept and flown at
Area 51 in the Nevada desert.
Regardless of the truth of these stories, there remains one
thing that should take precedence in our minds -- If true, this
is one of the most important events in our history. However, if
false, this is one of the most important displays of
disinformation ever perpetrated on the UFOlogical community and
the American public dealing with UFOs.
Disinformation has claimed many victims over the years and
has touched the lives of everyone who has looked at the very tip
of the UFO iceberg. It is as mysterious as the UFO phenomenon
itself and seems to be in every corner of the field.
It is probably the root of paranoia which has spread
throughout the UFO field at exponential proportions.
Disinformation works at the psychological level and invokes
one of the most basic human responses -- fear. This has been a
proven technique to keep those away from attempting to gain an
understanding of UFOs.
Where did it star? It is clear. The CIA has been at the
heart of it since the early 1950s. We also know that the CIA has
been in total control of the UFO mystery from the very first day.
The first clear indications that the CIA was in control comes
from the Robertson Panel which was held from January 14 through
January 17, 1953, and was a historic summit of scientific people
which discussed what to do about the problem of UFOs and the
public seeing them. This panel was under the control and
direction of the CIA.
Below is a reprint of an article which appeared in the
December 1977 issue of Crawdaddy Magazine. It is very
stimulating reading.
ParaNet will deal in depth with the aspect of disinformation
in the near future.
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THE CIA SAUCER WATCH
Could only Arthur Godfrey and Walt Disney save America from the
fear and pandemonium of the uncertain truth about UFOs? From
newly-released documents, here's the unsettling story of an early
CIA foray into national mind-games.
By Jim Hougan
The message coming out of the CIA in recent months is that
it's very much a "vanguard" operation. We know now that for more
than a decade before Ken Kesey's "Acid Tests," the Agency was
buying LSD by the gallon and testing it on unwitting
"volunteers," while at the same time contemplating Extra-Sensory
Perception (ESP) as an ideal means of secret communication
(covering its bases by having magicians reveal the secrets of
their trade, especially with regard to "mind-reading acts").
Hypnosis was another plaything of the Agency, as was behavioral
modification and a host of other non-scheduled disciplines.
Assuming that this vanguardism was not an aberration, but
typical of the Agency's foresight and supposed open-mindedness,
we may wonder upon what scientific and mystical frontiers they're
currently standing. Biofeedback? TM? Pyramid power? Silva Mind
Control? Has the Agency funded the study of more paranormal
phenomena -- Kirlian photography, psychokinesis, dousing? Does
the CIA have a Tac Squad of black-magicians, alchemists bent on
manipulating the value of Russian gold reserves? Does it have
its own psychics and astrologers and, if so, what are their GS
ratings?
I bring up all these things in light of a formerly secret
CIA report that has been quietly declassified: Report of
Meetings of (the) Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified
Flying Objects, Convened by (the ) Office of Scientific
Intelligence, CIA, January 14-18, 1953. A notorious document
within the community of UFO buffs, its existence has long been
known: indeed, a censored version has been published in at least
one book devoted to UFOlogy. What has not been generally
available, however, is the fact that the Report was prepared
under the auspices of the CIA. Indeed, it's precisely that fact
that has been the censors' target.
The significance if the CIA's involvement in the UFO
controversy is substantial. And, if we can put aside our
prejudices concerning the subject of "flying saucers" --
prejudices which, as we'll see, have been shaped by the Agency's
mass psychologists -- we'll find that the Report documents a
proposed course of action that constitutes a dangerous breach of
the CIA's Charter forbidding domestic operations. The questions
raised by the Report are fundamental ones concerning the
subservience of scientific objectivity to "national security"
goals, the manipulation of national myths, and the use of
psychological warfare tactics in peacetime against the very
public whose tax dollars support the Agency's operations. And
the questions are specific as well. For instance: did the CIA
place American UFO groups under surveillance, as the Report
panelists recommended? Were Arthur Godfrey and Walt Disney (and
other celebrities) used in a domestic psywar campaign to "debunk"
UFOs -- as some panelists recommended? Does the CIA routinely,
or only occasionally, manipulate American "myths" -- as the
Report makes clear that it does? Are the conclusions of
scientific advisory panels to the CIA and other government
agencies arrived at via the scientific method or, as the Report
suggests, by political prescription? The "CIA-UFO conspiracy" is
an ideal case in point.
***
To understand the significance of the Report, it should be
noted it was produced at the very zenith of the Cold War. Rapid
scientific advances in such fields as nuclear energy and jet
propulsion had ignited the imagination of the public, while
hostility toward China and Russia added an element of paranoia to
the country's mood. At the same time, "flying saucers" were a
relatively new phenomenon in the sense that, while strange lights
had been seen in the skies for centuries, it was not until the
late '40s that they became a subject of national speculation, a
cause celebre. Initial investigations of these early reports of
bizarre aerial phenomena suggested that most -- 75% or so --
could be attributed to natural causes poorly observed, optical
illusions, hoaxes, equipment malfunctions or other such banal
origins. But that left a significant number of sightings, films
and artifacts which could not be rationally explained and which,
therefore, literally constituted "Unidentified Flying Objects."
The nature of those objects could be almost anything, but many
suspected them to be intelligently-guided aircraft -- Russian,
American, or Martian. (This was no exaggeration. According to
an article by Pentagon staffer Maj. David R. Carlson in The
Aerospace Historian [Winter, 1974], a Top Secret 1948 "Estimate
of the Situation," prepared by the USAF Air Technical
Intelligence Center, concluded that UFOs were "interplanetary" in
origin.) Amid this mix of scientific progress, political
paranoia, and seemingly impossible occurrences in the air, the
1953 CIA Panel was convened.
The Panel, composed of seven highly prestigious scientists,
(Dr. H. P. Robertson, Chairman, California Institute of
Technology; Dr. Luis W. Alvarez, University of California; Dr.
Lloyd Berkner, Associated Universities, Inc.; Dr. Samuel
Goudsmith, Brookhaven National Laboratories; Dr. Thornton Page,
Office of Research Operation, Johns Hopkins University; Dr. J.
Allen Hynek, Ohio State University; and Mr. Frederick C. Durant,
Arthur D. Little, Inc.), was attended by the upper echelon of the
Agency's Office of Scientific Intelligence, and apparently
reported directly to Allen Dulles, Director of Central
Intelligence (DCI). (That the Panel reported to the DCI is a
fact, though it's not known for certain who was DCI at the time
of the Report's completion. Gen. Walter Bedell Smith retired as
DCI on Feb. 9, 1953; Dulles served as Acting Director from then
until Feb. 26, when his appointment as DCI was confirmed.)
The CIA made it clear from the start, however, that its
interest in UFOs was operational rather than academic. While
several days were spent studying films of UFOs, reports by the
Air Force and Battelle Institute, and listening to numerous
interviewees, the Agency had little interest in the subject per
se. For one thing, there was no evidence that the "saucers"
represented a security threat: they hadn't bombed anything and,
in the absence of hardware indicating otherwise, they didn't seem
to be Russian. That they might be extraterrestrial in origin was
a possibility that might be raised, but only in order to dismiss
it. Nevertheless, there were dissenters among the Panelists, and
among the witnesses. According to the report:
It was interesting to note that none of the members of
the Panel were loath to accept that this earth might be
visited by extraterrestrial intelligent beings of some
sort, some day. What they did not find was any evidence
that related the objects sighted to space travellers.
Mr. Fournet, in his presentation, showed how he had
eliminated each of the known and probable causes of
sightings leaving him with 'extraterrestrial' as the
only one remaining in many cases. Fournet's background
as an aeronautical engineer and technical intelligence
officer (Project Officer, Bluebook for 15 months) could
not be slighted. However, the Panel could not accept
any of the cases sighted by him because they were raw,
unevaluated reports. Terrestrial explanations of the
sightings were suggested in some cases and in others the
time of the sighting was so short as to cause suspicion
of visual impressions.
Elsewhere, the Report discusses spectacular films of UFOs
sighted over Trementon, Utah, and the resultant briefing by
representatives of the U.S. Navy's Photo Interpretation
Laboratory (P.I.L.).
This team had expended (at Air Force request)
approximately 1,000 man-hours of professional and sub-
professional time in the preparation of graph plots of
individual frames of the film, showing apparent and
relative motion of objects and variations in their light
intensity. It was the opinion of P.I.L. representatives
that the objects sighted were not birds, balloons or
aircraft; were not reflections because there was no
blinking while passing through 60 degrees of arc and
were, therefore, 'self-luminous.' Plots of motion and
variation in light intensity of the objects were
displayed. While Panel Members were impressed by the
evident enthusiasm, industry, and effort of the P.I.L.
team, they could not accept the conclusions reached..."
Despite the "enthusiasm" of the P.I.L. team (reading between the
lines, I come up with "They're flying saucers, goddammit, look at
them!"), and in the absence of any evidence to back up what
amounted to their dogmatic skepticism, the panel concluded that
if further extensive tests were conducted (which they would not
be),"...the results of such tests would probably lead to
creditable explanations of value in an educational or training
program." In other words, "If we broke our necks trying, we
might be able to convince people that these things, whatever they
are, are something other than what they would seem to be." The
conclusions reached by the P.I.L. team, after exhaustive efforts,
were unacceptable simply because they didn't conform to the
(untested) hypotheses of the CIA panelists. The panelists
therefore decided that the objects filmed over Utah must be
seagulls or "pillow-balloons" or airplanes or camera tricks or
something.
It was this attitude, reflecting CIA policy on the matter,
that led the Air Force Bluebook project (analyzing UFO reports)
to be dubbed "The Society for the Explanation of the
Uninvestigated."
My purpose here, however, and I hasten to point it out, is
not to convince anyone that UFOs are anything other than what the
acronym implies -- "unidentified." My intention is, instead, to
emphasize the absence of scientific certainty prevailing at the
time, the lack of objectivity exhibited at most of the meetings,
and the palpable intention of the panelists to dismiss, virtually
out of hand, any evidence that challenged existing orthodoxy.
In any case, since the CIA and the majority of panelists had
discounted the UFOs as phenomenal figments, it might be thought
that this would have ended the matter. But that isn't how things
work at CIA headquarters.
The panel concluded that while UFOs didn't constitute"...a
direct physical threat to national security...the continued
emphasis on the reporting of these phenomena does, in these
parlous times, result in a threat to the orderly functioning of
the protective organs of the body politic."
Specifically,"...panel members were in agreement with O/SI
[Office of Scientific Intelligence, CIA]...that dangers might
well exist resulting from:
a. Misidentification of actual enemy artifacts by defense
personnel.
b. Overloading of emergency reporting channels with 'false'
information...
c. Subjectivity of public to mass hysteria and greater
vulnerability to possible enemy psychological warfare."
The Report then goes on to point out that the first two of these
"dangers" are "not the concern of CIA," but rather that of the
Air Defense Command (ADC). What the CIA is concerned about,
however, is the third "danger." As the Report makes clear, the
Agency feared that the "myth of UFOs" might lead to an
"inappropriate" response by the public in case of nuclear attack
or an invasion of the U.S. by air. (Just what the Agency had in
mind in this regard is uncertain: one supposes they feared
Russia's surrounding its MIGs with phosphorescent papier mache,
thereby posing as flying saucers, and landing in suburbia with
demands that they be taken to our leader.) That they worried
about Russia's manipulation of the saucer myth, however, is
explicit in the Report. "The Panel noted that the general
absence of Russian propaganda based on a subject with so many
obvious possibilities for exploitation might indicate a possible
Russian official policy." Note the reasoning: it seems to say
that because Russia demonstrated no interest in the saucer myth,
it must therefore be fascinated by it. Obviously the commies
were covering up.
In the face, or apparition, of Marxist manipulation of the
UFO controversy, the Panel decided that "a broad education
program must be undertaken" and "that it should have two major
aims: training and 'debunking'."
"The training aim," continues the Report, "would result in
proper recognition of unusually illuminated objects (e.g.,
balloons, aircraft reflections) as well as natural phenomena
(meteors, fireballs, mirages, noctilucent clouds)...This training
should result in a marked reduction in reports caused by
misidentification and resultant confusion."
"The 'debunking' aim," the Report went on, "would result in
reduction in public interest in 'flying saucers' which today
evokes a strong psychological response. This education could be
accomplished by mass media such as television, motion pictures,
and popular articles. Basis of such education would be actual
case histories which had been puzzling at first but later
explained...Such a program should tend to reduce the current
gullibility of the public and consequently their susceptibility
to clever hostile propaganda."
Moreover:
Members of the Panel had various suggestions related to
the planning of such an educational program. It was
felt strongly that psychologists familiar with mass
psychology should advise on the nature and extent of the
program. In this connection, Dr. Hadley Cantril
(Princeton University) was suggested. Cantril authored
'Invasion from Mars' (a study in the psychology of
panic, written about the famous Orson Welles broadcasts
in 1938), and has since performed advanced laboratory
studies in the field of perception...Also, perhaps an
advertising expert would be helpful. Arthur Godfrey was
mentioned as possibly a valuable channel of
communication reaching a mass audience of certain
levels...The Jam Handy Co. which made World War II
training films (motion picture and slide strips) was
also suggested, as well as Walt Disney, Inc. animated
cartoons. Dr. Hynek suggested that amateur astronomers
in the U.S. might be a potential source of enthusiastic
talent 'to spread the gospel.' It was believed that
business clubs, high schools, colleges, and television
stations would all be pleased to cooperate in the
showing of documentary type motion pictures if prepared
in an interesting manner.
You can see the scenario: CIA officers and flag-crazed
astronomers huddle in secret to fathom the insidious meaning of
Russian disinterest in flying saucers. In front of them are
movie screens over which play the images of UFOs hovering in Utah
-- and, for the purposes of comparison, films of seagulls
flapping through the air. In another room, Allen Dulles sits
meditating on Korea's place in the cosmos, waiting to hear if
UFOs are imaginary or real (and, if real, to learn the ideology
of their occupants). It's ludicrous.
And yet, even setting aside the rape of scientific
objectivity in the supposed best interests of national security,
there's something dangerous here as well.
That is, the manipulation of domestic "myths" by secret
agencies of the federal government, agencies which consider the
use of celebrities and mass-psychologists in a peacetime campaign
for "right-thinking," is the first step toward psychiatric
facism. (It was precisely this kind of activity that led to the
persecution of the Jews under the Axis, the evolution of occult
pseudo-sciences in Nazi Germany, and the propagation of official
myths about Aryan supremacy; they were politically useful ideas.)
It's absurd, of course, to make a categorical comparison
between the CIA's planned "debunking" of flying saucers with the
myth-manipulations of the Nazis. Even if the CIA plans were put
into effect, their target was a seemingly innocuous one, and the
ridiculing of "flying saucer nuts" relatively mild and harmless.
Still, it is a dangerous policy and, as other reports indicate,
it wouldn't be the first time the CIA indulged in such
manipulations (more of which later). The question is: were the
recommendations of the CIA panelists put into effect? In the
absence of a credible statement from the CIA, we can only judge
by what happened. Prior to the panel's being convened, judging
by the open-mindedness of its expert witnesses, the subject was
given serious study. Subsequently, however, the Air Force
embarked on a campaign that precisely conformed to the
recommendations of the CIA group. UFO-buffs have long argued
that the Air Force was carrying out a policy of cover-up, but few
guessed that the policy originated with the CIA.
***
The history of the Bluebook project from 1953 to its
termination in 1969 is one of self-defeat and the waste of tax
revenues. As Hynek points out in his book, The UFO Experience,
not even the most basic steps were taken. "By and large," he
writes, "Bluebook data were poor in content, and even worse, they
were maintained in virtually unusable form. With access to
modern electronic data processing techniques, Bluebook maintained
its data entirely unprocessed. Cases were filed by date alone,
and not even a rudimentary cross-indexing was attempted. Had the
data been put in a machine readable form, the computer could
have been used to seek patterns in the reports, to compare the
elements of one report with those of another...Since all the
thousands of cases were recorded only chronologically, even so
simple a matter as tabulating sightings from different
geographical locations, from different types of witnesses, etc.
was impossible...A proposal for elementary computerization of the
data...was summarily turned down." In addition, Bluebook tended
not to "investigate" sightings until they achieved notoriety in
the press; its staff was invariably too small, and its status
inevitably low.
The Air Force, in other words, carried out an essential
aspect of the CIA's proposed dirty work: the pseudo-scientific
"debunking" of the UFOs. That the debunking was unsuccessful is
obvious from two polls taken by the Gallup organization. In
1947, 90% of the U.S. public had heard about UFOs; in 1966, 96%
had heard of them. What's more, a 1966 Gallup poll indicated
that more than five million Americans had witnessed a UFO; in
1973, another Gallup poll showed that 15 million had seen one or
more UFOs. Whatever it is they think they've seen, it is as
Hynek says: "Through the years there [has] been a stubborn,
unyielding residue of 'incredible reports from credible people.'"
If we could be certain that this was the only instance in
which the CIA set out to manipulate national myths, it could be
dismissed as an aberration, a temporary crankishness on the part
of the Agency. But there's no way to be certain of that. The
CIA's early involvement in the practice, and its apparent success
in bringing about the ridicule of witnesses and buffs, raises the
possibility that other American "myths" have been similarly
manipulated (perhaps with more success). To what extent, if any,
have CIA scientists intervened in ESP researches, and toward what
end? To what extent, if any, have "assassination buffs" been
lampooned by campaigns hatched in the Directory of De-
mythification?
***
It's not just that the Agency violated its Charter against
domestic operations at an early age. The 1953 meetings also
raised the specter -- concretely -- of placing people under
surveillance on the grounds that they held scientific or cultural
views that differed from the Agency's own. Quoting from the 1953
Report:
The Panel took cognizance of the existence of such
groups as the 'Civilian Flying Saucer Investigators'
(Los Angeles) and the 'Aerial Phenomena Research
Organization' (Wisconsin). It was believed that such
organizations should be watched because of their great
influence on mass thinking if widespread sightings
should occur. the apparent responsibility and the
possible use of such groups for subversive purposes
should be kept in mind.
While some justification can be made for "watching" political
groups and individuals deemed dangerous to society, there can be
no innocent grounds for monitoring persons who hold minority
views on astronomical phenomena.
Although there's no way, short of subpoena, to determine if
the CIA has exploited other "myths" at home, it is well-known
that they've done so abroad. In the Philippines, for instance,
an indigenous vampire myth flourishes. To capitalize on that
myth, CIA counter-insurgency experts instructed Filipino troops
under their command to fake vampirism following battle encounters
with the Huks. When time permitted, the enemy dead were strung
upside-down from the limbs of trees, and their jugulars pierced
with small incisions. Found days later by their comrades, their
bodies drained of blood and with what seemed to be "teeth-marks"
on their necks, the dead were presumed to have fallen victim of
immortal enemies (i.e., the "living dead"). This same tactic
was, reportedly, tried in Vietnam, but it met with no success
since the Vietnamese wouldn't know a vampire from a Fig Newton.
They merely thought Americans peculiarly savage for killing
people in such a barbaric way.
What the Vietnamese did have, however, was a belief in hexes
associated with "the evil eye." To exploit that myth, some
Special Forces troops were instructed to remove the eyes of dead
enemy soldiers -- to gouge them out, as it were -- and place them
on the backs of the enemy dead. This anomaly, when encountered
by the Viet Cong or NVA, was expected to freak them out and,
reportedly, it did. Even more bizarre, though, was the
Americans' way of "making do." Soldiers disgusted at the
prospect of disfiguring the dead, or simply pressed for time,
resorted to tossing copies of the CBS "eye" logo on the backs of
dead NVA and Viet Cong. While not quite so effective as the real
thing, the practice was said to have had some impact.
This isn't to say that the CIA gives an automatic go-ahead
to every proposal for the exploitation of myth. Some proposals
are so outlandish that even the Agency is flabbergasted by them.
For instance, a witness before Sen. Frank Church's Select
Committee on Intelligence described a plan concocted by General
Edward Lansdale for the overthrow of Fidel Castro. "I'll give
you one example of Lansdale's perspicacity," the witness said.
"He had a wonderful plan for getting rid of Castro. The plan
consisted of spreading the word that the Second Coming of Christ
was imminent and that Christ was against Castro, (who) was the
Anti-Christ. And you would spread this word around Cuba, and
then on whatever date it was, that there would be a manifestation
of this thing. And at that time -- this is absolutely true --
and at that time just over the horizon there would be an American
submarine which would surface off of Cuba and send up some
starshells (flares). And this would be the manifestation of the
Second Coming and Castro would be overthrown...Well, some wag
called this operation -- and somebody dubbed this -- Elimination
by Illumination."
***
It's entirely possible, of course, that we'll never know
what the CIA's been up to all these years, at home or abroad.
Indeed, even an understanding of exactly what happened with the
UFO experience becomes increasingly unlikely. Currently, what
UFOlogists regard as the coup de grace "of the longest cover-up"
is taking place at Maxwell Air Force Base. It's there that
nearly 30 years of UFO sightings and research have been kept.
Throughout most of that time, interested researchers were given
virtually free access to the available records. Now, however,
those records are being given by the Air Force to the National
Archives with the stipulation that the identities of witnesses
and officials mentioned in the reports be deleted. Excising all
proper names from the tens of thousands of pages accumulated over
three decades is a monumental, time-consuming and expensive task
that would seem to have no purpose but to diminish the historical
and scientific value of the records. As John Taylor, an official
at the National Archives, pointed out: "It's just a waste of
money. For years, anyone who wanted to look at those records,
with all the names left in, just had to visit Maxwell Air Base.
Now, all of a sudden, they want the names removed. It doesn't
make sense: it's too late to protect anyone's privacy. All
they're going to do is damage the historical record, and spend a
small fortune doing it."
A spokeswoman for Dr. Hynek's Center for UFO Studies also
deplored the removal of the names, but for somewhat different
reasons. "The reports of sightings will still be valuable...What
disturbs us so much more is the Air Force's deleting the names of
officials who were involved in the various projects, scientists
who rendered opinions on sightings, and others who attended
military and governmental meetings on the subject. Suddenly, all
that's going to be a blank. There'll be no way to know who was
responsible for what. It's the last stage of the cover-up. It
completes it."
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