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---
category: "Historical Phenomenon"
tags:
- UAP
- UFO
- MajesticDocuments
- Disinformation
- Counterintelligence
- FBI
- NARA
- Roswell
alias:
- Majestic-12
- Majestic 12
- MJ-12
- MJ12
- MJ Twelve
- Majic-12
- Operation Majestic-12
- Operation Majestic 12
- Majestic Twelve
- Eisenhower Briefing Document
- Cutler-Twining memo
summary: "Documents describing a 1947 presidential committee on flying discs, received by Jaime Shandera in 1984 and reported found at the National Archives in 1985; the FBI wrote in 1988 that the briefing document was bogus."
start: 1984-12-11
location: "North Hollywood, California"
relations:
- type: subject_of
with: "[[Federal Bureau of Investigation]]"
start: 1988-09-15
role: "Dallas inquiry into a copy of the Eisenhower briefing document, closed December 2, 1988; Salt Lake City field office copy sent to headquarters October 31, 1991"
fn: 3
- type: subject_of
with: "[[Air Force Office of Special Investigations]]"
start: 1991-11-15
role: "FBI Intelligence Division asked the Commander, Office of Special Investigations, to ascertain the originator and classification of a copy"
fn: 19
created: 2026-10-01
updated: 2026-10-01
---
Majestic-12, written in the documents as MJ-12 or "Majic," is the name of a committee of twelve officials and scientists that the Eisenhower briefing document, dated November 18, 1952, says was established by a classified executive order of President [[Harry S. Truman]] on September 24, 1947 to run a research, development and intelligence operation on recovered craft.[^1] The papers reached the public through [[William L. Moore]], [[Jaime Shandera]] and [[Stanton Friedman]] in May 1987 and were the subject of [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] inquiries in 1988 and 1991 and of a reference report of the [[National Archives and Records Administration]].[^2][^3][^4]
### The Eisenhower briefing document
The document is headed "Top Secret / Majic, Eyes Only" and "Copy one of one," and is titled "Operation Majestic-12 Preliminary Briefing for President-Elect Eisenhower," with Admiral [[Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter]] as briefing officer, "MJ-1." It names as members of the group Hillenkoetter, [[Vannevar Bush]], Secretary [[James V. Forrestal]], General [[Nathan F. Twining]], General [[Hoyt S. Vandenberg]], [[Detlev Bronk]], [[Jerome Hunsaker]], [[Sidney W. Souers]], [[Gordon Gray]], [[Donald Menzel]], General [[Robert M. Montague]] and [[Lloyd V. Berkner]], and records that Forrestal's death on May 22, 1949 left a vacancy filled on August 1, 1950 by General [[Walter Bedell Smith]]. Its narrative begins with the sighting by a civilian pilot over the [[Cascade Mountains]] on June 24, 1947, describes a crash about seventy-five miles northwest of [[Roswell Army Air Base]], a secret recovery begun on July 7, 1947, the discovery of four small humanlike beings, and a weather balloon cover story.[^1]
The briefing document continues that an analytical effort organized by Twining and Bush reached a preliminary consensus on September 19, 1947 that the disc was most likely a short range reconnaissance craft; that Bronk's group proposed the term "Extra-terrestrial Biological Entities" or "EBEs"; and that "some scientists, most notably Dr. Menzel, consider it more likely that we are dealing with beings from another solar system entirely." It states that the Air Force's Project SIGN, begun in December 1947, kept liaison with Majestic-12 limited to two individuals in the Intelligence Division of Air Materiel Command; that SIGN evolved into Project GRUDGE in December 1948 and was then being conducted under the code name BLUE BOOK; that on December 6, 1950 a second object impacted in the El Indio-Guerrero area of the Texas-Mexican border and the recovered remains were taken to the [[Atomic Energy Commission]] facility at Sandia, [[New Mexico]]; and that a contingency plan, MJ-1949-04P/78, should be held ready for a public announcement.[^1]
The FBI's "Majestic 12" file reproduces the document, the Truman memorandum of September 24, 1947 to the Secretary of Defense, and a copy of the Cutler-Twining memorandum bearing a National Archives copy stamp for Record Group 341, each with the word "BOGUS" hand-lettered across it. The Truman memorandum, bearing a signature reading "Harry Truman," is addressed "Dear Secretary Forrestal" and states that the matter shall hereafter be referred to only as "Operation Majestic Twelve." The Cutler memorandum copy reads that "the President has decided that the MJ-12 SSP briefing should take place during the already scheduled White House meeting of July 16, rather than following it as previously intended."[^1] Friedman wrote in 2004 that if the Eisenhower briefing document, the Truman-Forrestal memorandum of September 24, 1947 and the Cutler-Twining memorandum were genuine, the government had recovered at least one crashed saucer and several bodies and kept it secret since 1947; he wrote that Menzel's presence on the list had bothered him, Moore and Shandera from the start, since Menzel, a Harvard astronomer, had written books and papers attacking UFO claims.[^5]
### Hillenkoetter, Berkner and the Robertson Panel
The CIA historian [[Gerald K. Haines]] wrote in 1997 that the [[Robertson Panel]], which met from January 14 to 17, 1953 and recommended that the National Security Council debunk UFO reports, included Lloyd Berkner, then a director of [[Brookhaven National Laboratory]]. Haines also wrote that in 1958 CIA officials, discussing how to answer the requests of [[Donald Keyhoe]] and [[Leon Davidson]] for the panel's full report, "worried that Keyhoe had the ear of former DCI VAdm. Roscoe Hillenkoetter, who served on the board of governors of NICAP" (the [[National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena]]); the officials discussed having the CIA general counsel show Hillenkoetter the report, and Hillenkoetter resigned from NICAP in 1962.[^6]
### Receipt of the film, December 1984
In their 1990 report Moore and Shandera wrote that on December 11, 1984 a brown manila envelope arrived at Shandera's residence in North Hollywood, taped across all seams, with no return address and postmarked [[Albuquerque]], New Mexico, December 8, 1984. Inside were nested envelopes, the innermost a white envelope bearing a Marriott Hotel logo, containing a black plastic canister with a roll of undeveloped 35mm Tri-X film. Developed, it yielded eight good negatives of what appeared to be a 1952 briefing document for President-elect [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]], two blank frames, the same sequence of eight frames a second time, and a blank remainder. Moore and Shandera had the negatives printed in a photo laboratory owned by an associate, and wrote that they obtained assistance from the FBI and the [[Los Angeles County Sheriff]]'s Department in locating questioned-document examiners; four examiners were approached and none allowed his name to be used.[^7] Klass wrote that on March 14, 1994 the writer [[Don Berliner]] received in the mail from an anonymous source an undeveloped roll of 35mm film, which yielded photographs of pages of a "Top Secret/MAJIC/Eyes Only" special operations manual, SOM 1-01; Friedman wrote that this roll was mailed from Wisconsin rather than Albuquerque.[^5][^8]
### The Cutler-Twining memorandum, July 1985
Moore and Shandera wrote that a typewritten postcard, which its stamp indicated was mailed from [[New Zealand]] and whose fine print said it came from the "Ethiopian Tourism Commission, Box 189, Addis Ababa," was among the mail forwarded in March 1985 from Moore's post office box 189 in Dewey, Arizona, a box he had kept from about August 1979 to mid-1987. It read in part: "When doors won't open, search for windows. Add some zest to your trip to Washington; Try Reece's pieces. For a stylish look, shop Suit Land." Friedman, already in Washington, told them the reference probably meant [[Ed Reese]] of the Modern Military Branch of the National Archives, and [[Suitland]], Maryland, the location of a federal records center. Reese told Friedman that the Air Force was declassifying a large block of Intelligence Directorate files from 1946 to 1955, many originally top secret, and that declassification officers had been sent from the [[The Pentagon|Pentagon]] to handle the task.[^9] Shandera found the memorandum on July 18, 1985, after searching nearly 100 boxes; in the authors' words it was in box number 189 of Record Group 341, "immediately adjacent to file folder 4-1846." They described it as an unsigned faded-blue carbon copy on onionskin paper bearing the watermarks "Dictation Onionskin" and what appeared to be "Fox."[^9] The National Archives describes it as filed in folder T4-1846.[^4]
The memorandum, dated July 14, 1954, is addressed by [[Robert Cutler]], special assistant to the President, to General Twining and refers to an "NSC/MJ-12 Special Studies Project" and a briefing on July 16. The National Archives published a reference report listing the problems it poses. The series in which it was filed is arranged by top secret register number and the memorandum has none; no other document in the folder concerns "NSC/MJ-12"; the marking "Top Secret Restricted Information" was not used by the [[National Security Council]] until the [[Richard Nixon]] administration; the paper is "diction onionskin" without letterhead or watermark, while Cutler's other carbons in the [[Eisenhower Library]] sample carry an eagle watermark or none; the National Security Council minutes record no meeting on July 16, 1954, and a folder titled "Special Meeting July 16, 1956" held a memo calling NSC members to a civil defense exercise on that date; the Eisenhower Library wrote on July 16, 1987 that the President's appointment books show no entry for such a meeting; the NSC declassification office had no record of declassifying it; and Cutler was visiting military installations in Europe and North Africa from July 3 to 15, 1954, having left written instructions on July 3 for his subordinates [[James S. Lay]] and [[J. Patrick Cone]] on handling NSC business during his absence. The National Archives searched the indexes of the NSC files under MJ-12, majestic, unidentified flying objects, UFO, flying saucers, extraterrestrial biological entities and Aquarius, and found nothing except this memorandum. It states that it certifies reproductions as true copies and does not authenticate documents.[^4]
### The Doty teletype and the earlier use of the term
[[Philip J. Klass]] wrote in 1997 that the term "MJ Twelve" first appeared in a one-page secret teletype dated November 17, 1980 concerning UFO photographs, which [[Richard Doty]] of the [[Air Force Office of Special Investigations]] gave Moore in early 1981 and which Moore showed to [[Brad Sparks]] and [[Kal Korff]] on January 17, 1982.[^2] The text printed by Moore and Shandera as the Aquarius message names "Project Aquarius," "MJ Twelve" and the Albuquerque instrument maker [[Paul Bennewitz]]; the Air Force Intelligence Service wrote on December 5, 1983 that AFOSI had reviewed a message of that description, circulated in at least three cities, and confirmed it was a hoax. The printed text is, by the authors' account, a late-1988 reconstruction by Moore with changes supplied by Doty.[^10][^11][^12] Moore wrote in 1989 that the version he was given was a retyped copy with spurious additions that he understood was meant to reach Bennewitz.[^12] Moore and Shandera wrote that in early March 1983 a telephone caller sent Moore on a cross-country trip to a motel in upstate New York, where a courier gave him nineteen minutes with eleven pages of a "Project Aquarius" briefing dated June 14, 1977, which he photographed and read into a tape recorder.[^13] Klass wrote that [[Linda Moulton Howe]] saw some of the same Aquarius papers on April 9, 1983 during a visit to Doty in Albuquerque; Hastings wrote that Howe placed the meeting in Doty's office at [[Kirtland Air Force Base]] and described the document as a "Briefing Paper for the President" that listed crashed UFO cases including one near Aztec, New Mexico; Doty denied in writing in 1988 that he knew of MJ-12.[^2][^14]
Hastings wrote in 1989 that the intelligence sources Moore called "Falcon" and "Condor" had been identified to him as Doty and the recently retired Air Force captain [[Robert Collins]]; Doty and Collins denied it, and Moore denied that Doty was Falcon.[^2][^14] Doty told [[Art Bell]] in 2005 that Moore was "recruited as an asset" by a person in the [[Defense Intelligence Agency]] to provide disinformation.[^15] In a letter to the newsletter [[Saucer Smear]] in 2000 Doty wrote that Moore "was a coded source for OSI," that if Moore was the original author of the MJ-12 documents "he did it without my assistance or my knowledge," and that he "went through two Government investigations regarding the MJ-12 documents," both of which, he wrote, cleared him.[^16]
### The Schulgen memorandum
Klass wrote in 1997 that the researcher [[Robert Todd]] had compared Moore's version of a draft Air Force collection memorandum of October 1947 from the office of Brigadier General [[George F. Schulgen]], which Moore published in the July and August 1986 issue of [[International UFO Reporter]], with an authentic copy that Todd obtained from the National Archives early in 1997. According to Klass, the version Moore published added words implying that some officials regarded the objects as interplanetary and deleted words treating them as a possible Soviet aircraft; Klass wrote that the text of the transmittal letter had also been altered, and that Friedman, Good and a report by [[Bruce Maccabee]] for the Fund for UFO Research had cited the altered version.[^2]
### Later documents
Klass wrote in 2000 that SOM 1-01, purportedly printed in April 1954, directed that crashed craft be sent to "Area 51 S-4" in Nevada, a name that he wrote the Nellis range portion had not been given until several years after the manual's purported date, and that a statement denouncing SOM 1-01 as counterfeit was released on March 14, 1999, signed by Berliner and several other prominent proponents of UFO reality. The CIA's history of the U-2 program places the addition of the [[Area 51|Groom Lake]] strip, known by its map designation as Area 51, to the Nevada Test Site after April 12, 1955.[^8][^17] Klass also wrote that more than a dozen further "Majestic" documents obtained by the researcher [[Tim Cooper]] were made public by [[Robert Wood]] and his son Ryan at a conference in Connecticut, that Wood endorsed them while admitting flaws, and that the Eisenhower briefing document uses a hybrid civil and military date format, "18 November, 1952," which Klass wrote Moore used repeatedly in personal letters, and a Truman signature that Klass wrote was a pasted-on photocopy of a genuine signature from a memorandum to Vannevar Bush of October 1, 1947.[^8]
### Moore's statements
Klass wrote that on April 16, 1983, twenty months before the film arrived, Moore told Sparks in [[Berkeley]] that counterfeit government documents about crashed saucers could induce former military personnel to speak, that Sparks urged him not to, and that Friedman defended the idea; Klass wrote that [[Kevin Randle]] and [[Don Schmitt]] reported in their 1994 book that Friedman, among others, said Moore had suggested creating Roswell documents as early as 1982.[^2] Klass also wrote that [[Lee Graham]], to whom Moore showed the papers in May 1985, filed a [[Freedom of Information Act]] request with the [[Department of Energy]] on June 17, 1985 that listed the twelve names; that the December 1985 issue of [[Barry Greenwood]]'s newsletter [[Just Cause]] was the first UFO publication to discuss the group; and that Moore released the papers to the press on May 28, 1987, a day before the British writer [[Timothy Good]], who said they came from "a reliable American source who has close connections with the intelligence community," presented them at a London press conference. Moore and Good later denied that Moore was that source. The papers were covered by [[The New York Times]] and [[The Washington Post]] and featured on ABC's [[Nightline]], where [[Ted Koppel]] interviewed Friedman and Klass.[^2]
On July 1, 1989 Moore told the [[MUFON]] symposium in [[Las Vegas]] that he would "play the disinformation game, get my hands dirty just often enough" to learn who was directing it and why, and, as he restated in [[FOCUS (newsletter)|FOCUS]] that September, that the Aquarius document was a retyped version of a real AFOSI message that was apparently created by AFOSI and handed to him in 1981 with the intention that he pass it to Bennewitz.[^12][^18] The 1990 report of Moore and Shandera describes the 1984 film as arriving in an envelope with no return address.[^7]
### The FBI file, 1988 to 1991
The FBI's "Majestic 12" file, number 65-81170, opens with a Dallas airtel to the Director dated October 25, 1988. On September 15, 1988 a special agent of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, name redacted, contacted the Dallas office with a possible classified document concerning Operation Majestic-12, received from a person whose name is redacted who said that an individual "at the school," whom he would not name, gave it to him as something received in the mail. Dallas wrote that in the previous six weeks there had been local publicity about Operation Majestic-12, with at least two appearances on a local radio talk show, and that "it is unknown if this is all part of a publicity campaign." OSI, in a passage with its source redacted, advised that "Operation Blue Book," mentioned on page 4 of the document, did exist. Dallas wrote that the purported document was over 35 years old but that it did not know whether it had been properly declassified, asked the Bureau to discern whether it was still classified, and held its investigation in abeyance.[^3]
On December 2, 1988 the Director sent Dallas a teletype stating that OSI had advised on November 30, 1988 that the document was fabricated, that "copies of that document have been distributed to various parts of the [[United States]]," that "the document is completely bogus," and that Dallas was to close the investigation. A note adds: "This advises Dallas that the document was bogus and the case should be closed."[^3]
On October 18, 1991 an employee of a Utah entity, name redacted, found a nine-page document dated November 18, 1952 lying on the lobby floor of his workplace and delivered it that afternoon to the receptionist of the FBI's [[Salt Lake City]] field office. Salt Lake City initially dismissed the document and its markings as a hoax. On October 25, 1991 a supervisory special agent there telephoned a contact at the [[Department of Defense]], asking about "Operation Majestic-12," the Air Force's "[[Project Sign]]" and "[[Project Grudge]]." The airtel of October 31, 1991 to the Director, classified confidential, states: "Based upon DOD representations made to SSA [redacted] which, incredibly, tended to buttress a portion of the document, he discussed this matter with DAD Brandon on 10/30/91." It asks the Intelligence Division, section CI-2, to determine any Defense Department interest and carries an editorial comment that the airtel is dated on Halloween and that it "could have been worse, and dated on the first of April."[^19] On November 15, 1991 [[Harry B. Brandon III]], acting assistant director of the Intelligence Division, wrote to the commander of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations at [[Bolling Air Force Base]] that the FBI had recovered what might be a classified document dated November 18, 1952 relating to "Operation Majestic 12," which "indicates that this project related to sightings/recovery of extra-terrestrial aircraft"; that "although this document may represent some type of hoax, it is our responsibility to insure that all incidents involving the mishandling of classified data receive adequate investigative attention"; and asked OSI to ascertain the originator or the current classification. The letter is marked "By Liaison" and carries a handwritten delivery endorsement.[^19] The file, which the FBI posted as a single part of 24 pages, contains no OSI reply to the 1991 request.[^19]
Doty said in 2005 that the FBI had investigated him in 1988 or 1989 because it thought he had disclosed the documents, that Klass had raised the matter, and that he offered to take the FBI to the Pentagon, where he said the documents and information on extraterrestrial visitation were kept.[^15] The FBI file as posted does not name him.[^3]
### National Archives, Air Force and General Accounting Office searches
The National Archives wrote that it had searched the records of the [[U.S. Air Force]] and the [[Joint Chiefs of Staff]], that the Truman and Eisenhower libraries had searched for references, and that its search of the National Security Council indexes was negative except for the Cutler memorandum.[^4] At the request of Representative [[Steven Schiff]], Republican of New Mexico, the General Accounting Office examined government records on the 1947 crash near Roswell and reported on July 28, 1995 that it had found only a July 1947 history of the 509th Bomb Group and [[Roswell Army Air Field]] and an FBI teletype of July 8, 1947, that Roswell Army Air Field administrative records from March 1945 through December 1949 and outgoing messages from October 1946 through December 1949 had been destroyed without any indication on the disposition form of who destroyed them or under what authority, and that responses from the FBI, the Department of Defense, the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] and the National Security Council produced no other records on the crash. The report describes a July 1994 Air Force report concluding that the most likely source of the wreckage was a balloon-launched classified project to determine the state of Soviet nuclear weapons research.[^20] The report does not mention MJ-12.[^20]
### Footnotes
[^1]: FBI, "Majestic 12," file 65-81170, Part 01, 24 pages, pages reproducing the document "Briefing Document: Operation Majestic 12 Prepared for President-Elect Dwight D. Eisenhower (Eyes Only) 18 November, 1952," with "BOGUS" written across (PDF pp. 4 to 7, 15 to 21), the Truman memorandum (PDF p. 22) and the Cutler-Twining memorandum copy (PDF p. 23), https://vault.fbi.gov/Majestic%2012/Majestic%2012%20Part%2001%20%28Final%29/at_download/file
[^2]: Philip J. Klass, Skeptics UFO Newsletter no. 44, March 1997, pp. 1 to 5, https://cdn.centerforinquiry.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/docs/SUN/SUN44.pdf
[^3]: FBI, "Majestic 12," file 65-81170, Part 01: SAC Dallas airtel to Director, "Unsub(s); Possible Disclosure of Classified Information Regarding Operation Majestic-12; ESP-X," October 25, 1988 (PDF pp. 2 to 3); Director to FBI Dallas teletype, December 2, 1988 (PDF pp. 8 and 10), same URL.
[^4]: National Archives and Records Administration, "Project BLUE BOOK - Unidentified Flying Objects," including "Majestic 12 or 'MJ-12' Reference Report," https://www.archives.gov/research/military/air-force/ufos (printout of June 13, 2013).
[^5]: Stanton T. Friedman, "Update on Operation Majestic 12 Documents," April 2004, posted by The Black Vault on January 17, 2024, https://www.theblackvault.com/casefiles/update-on-operation-majestic-12-documents/
[^6]: Gerald K. Haines, "CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90: A Die-Hard Issue," Studies in Intelligence (1997), sections on the Robertson Panel and on 1958 requests by Keyhoe and Davidson, https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/static/cia-role-study-UFOs.pdf
[^7]: William L. Moore and Jaime H. Shandera, The MJ-12 Documents: An Analytical Report (Fund for UFO Research, 1990), "The MJ-12 Documents (Dec. 1984)," pp. 3 and 29, excerpt at http://www.openminds.tv/wp-content/uploads/The-MJ-12-Documents-An-Analytical-Report-Excerpts.pdf
[^8]: Philip J. Klass, "The New Bogus Majestic-12 Documents," Skeptical Inquirer, May/June 2000, pp. 44 to 46, https://centerforinquiry.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/2000/05/22164853/p44.pdf
[^9]: Moore and Shandera, MJ-12 Documents, "The Cutler-Twining Memorandum (Jul. 1985)," pp. 61 to 62, same excerpt.
[^10]: Message R 171130Z NOV 80, FM HQ AFOSI Bolling AFB DC/IVOE to AFOSI Dist 17 Kirtland AFB NM/BID, Moore and Shandera, MJ-12 Documents, Appendix C, p. 83, http://www.openminds.tv/wp-content/uploads/S18-Aquarius-Document.pdf
[^11]: Susan Cooksey, Freedom of Information Manager, Air Force Intelligence Service, letter to Peter L. Clarke, KOB Television, December 5, 1983, printout of a reproduction at http://www.openminds.tv/wp-content/uploads/KOB-TV-Bennewitz-FOIA.pdf
[^12]: Moore and Shandera, MJ-12 Documents, "The Aquarius Document (Feb. 1981)," pp. 7 to 9, quoting Moore in FOCUS, June 30, 1989, p. 13, and September 30, 1989, p. 8.
[^13]: Moore and Shandera, MJ-12 Documents, "The Carter Briefing Notes (Mar. '83)," p. 21, quoted in Klass, Skeptics UFO Newsletter no. 44, March 1997, p. 2.
[^14]: Robert Hastings, "The MJ-12 Affair: Facts, Questions, Comments," March 1, 1989, https://sacred-texts.com/ufo/hastings.htm
[^15]: "Greg Bishop and Richard Doty, Coast to Coast AM with host Art Bell," transcript of the broadcast of February 27, 2005, http://www.openminds.tv/wp-content/uploads/S5-Greg-Bishop-and-Richard-Doty-Coast-to-Coast-AM-with-host-Art-Bell-Interview-Transcript.pdf (transcript; audio not reviewed).
[^16]: James W. Moseley, ed., Saucer Smear, vol. 47, July 15, 2000, "Missives from the Masses" (letter of Richard Doty), http://www.martiansgohome.com/smear/v47/ss000715.htm (printout of June 14, 2013), pp. 6 to 7.
[^17]: Gregory W. Pedlow and Donald E. Welzenbach, The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance: The U-2 and OXCART Programs, 1954-1974 (CIA History Staff, 1992; released June 25, 2013), chapter 2, p. 56, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB434/docs/U2%20-%20Chapter%202.pdf
[^18]: Curt Collins, "Bill Moore and UFO Disinformation Accusations," Blue Blurry Lines, April 29, 2022, https://www.blueblurrylines.com/2019/12/bill-moore-on-hynek-and-vallee.html , quoting Moore's speech at the MUFON Symposium, Las Vegas, July 1, 1989 (MUFON UFO Journal, November and December 1989). The speech text was not obtained.
[^19]: FBI, "Majestic 12," file 65-81170, Part 01: SAC Salt Lake City airtel to Director, "Majestic-12; ESP-X," October 31, 1991 (PDF pp. 11 to 13); Harry B. Brandon III, Acting Assistant Director, Intelligence Division, FBI, letter to Commander, Office of Special Investigations, Department of the Air Force, Bolling AFB, November 15, 1991 (PDF p. 14), same URL.
[^20]: General Accounting Office, Government Records: Results of a Search for Records Concerning the 1947 Crash Near Roswell, New Mexico, GAO/NSIAD-95-187, July 28, 1995, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-NSIAD-95-187/pdf/GAOREPORTS-NSIAD-95-187.pdf

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---
category: "Intelligence Scandal"
tags:
- Committee
- USAF
- UFO
- UAP
- UniversityOfColorado
- AFOSR
- CondonReport
- NICAP
- NPIC
alias:
- Condon Committee
- University of Colorado UFO Project
- Colorado Project
- Condon Report
- Condon Study
- Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects
summary: "University of Colorado study of unidentified flying objects under an Air Force Office of Scientific Research contract (1966 to 1968), directed by Edward Condon, whose report preceded the termination of Project Blue Book."
start: 1966-11-01
end: 1968-10-31
location: "University of Colorado, Boulder"
relations:
- type: contractor_to
with: "[[U.S. Air Force]]"
role: "grantee under contract F44620-67-C-0035"
start: 1966-11-01
end: 1968-10-31
fn: 1
- type: funded
with: "[[Air Force Office of Scientific Research]]"
reverse: true
role: "contracting office"
start: 1966-11-01
fn: 1
- type: head_of
with: "[[Edward Condon]]"
reverse: true
role: "scientific director"
start: 1966-11-01
end: 1968-10-31
fn: 1
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Robert Low]]"
reverse: true
role: "project coordinator"
start: 1966-11
fn: 11
- type: employed_by
with: "[[David Saunders]]"
reverse: true
role: "principal investigator (dismissed)"
end: 1968-02
fn: 11
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Norman Levine]]"
reverse: true
role: "research associate (dismissed)"
start: 1967-06
end: 1968-02
fn: 11
- type: participant_in
with: "[[National Photographic Interpretation Center]]"
reverse: true
role: "informal technical liaison, not publicly acknowledged"
start: 1967-02
fn: 9
- type: investigated
with: "[[National Academy of Sciences]]"
reverse: true
role: "review panel under Gerald M. Clemence"
fn: 21
created: 2026-10-01
updated: 2026-10-01
---
The Condon Committee was the University of Colorado's Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects, conducted from 1966 to 1968 under a contract with the [[Air Force Office of Scientific Research]] and directed by the physicist [[Edward Condon]]. Its report, transmitted to the Secretary of the Air Force on 31 October 1968, stated that "nothing has come from the study of UFOs in the past 21 years that has added to scientific knowledge." A review by a panel of the [[National Academy of Sciences]] and the report were the stated bases for the termination of [[Project Blue Book]] on 17 December 1969.[^1][^2]
### Origin in the Air Force
In March 1966 an ad hoc committee of the [[Air Force Scientific Advisory Board]] chaired by [[Brian O'Brien]], with members [[Launor F. Carter]], [[Jesse Orlansky]], [[Richard Porter]], [[Carl Sagan]] and [[Willis H. Ware]], recommended that the Air Force contract with a few universities for investigation of selected sightings. On 31 August 1966 Colonel [[Ivan C. Atkinson]], Deputy Executive Director of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, wrote to the [[University of Colorado]] asking it to participate as grantee, with the guarantee that "the scientists involved will have complete freedom to design and develop techniques for the investigation." O'Brien, as chairman of the Advisory Committee to the [[Air Force Systems Command]] of the National Academy of Sciences-[[National Research Council]], had advised the Office on the suitability of Colorado.[^1][^3]
[[Philip J. Klass]], a senior editor of [[Aviation Week and Space Technology]] and a founding fellow of the [[Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal]], wrote that when the Air Force sought a prestigious institution in the spring of 1966, the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] and others declined, and that [[James E. McDonald]] of the [[University of Arizona]] "was lobbying to obtain the contract"; the dissertation of [[Paul McCarthy]] on McDonald states that McDonald "first thought he might be the principal investigator" and, when that possibility waned, volunteered his services.[^4][^5]
[[J. Thomas Ratchford]] of the Office asked Condon on 31 July 1966 to take the scientific direction of the project; Condon wrote that Ratchford was introduced by Dr. [[W. W. Kellogg]], associate director of the [[National Center for Atmospheric Research]] and at that time a member of the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board. Condon objected, mentioned the names of scientists "of considerable distinction who had already taken an active interest in UFOs," and was told that they were disqualified for having "taken sides"; he wrote that the objections "were met by counter-arguments in the form of an appeal to patriotic duty" and an emphasis on the shortness of the task, then envisioned as fifteen months.[^6] Ratchford visited [[Boulder, Colorado|Boulder]] in late July 1966 and, with the Office's executive director [[William Price]], addressed University administrators and faculty on 10 August 1966. The contract was announced on 7 October 1966.[^7] According to the Condon Report it provided $313,000 for the first fifteen months, 1 November 1966 to 31 January 1968; the CIA historian [[Gerald K. Haines]] gave $325,000 for eighteen months, and a Central Intelligence Agency memorandum of February 1967 gives $300,000.[^7][^8][^9] The report states that the contract provided that "the planning, direction and conclusions of the Colorado project were to be conducted wholly independently of the Air Force," that the Air Force was to furnish its records, and that "we were assured that the federal government would withhold no information on the subject."[^7] Brigadier General [[Edward Giller]] and Ratchford were the Air Force coordinators.[^8] The University's president, [[J. R. Smiley]], wrote in the letter of transmittal that the Air Force had followed "a policy of complete noninterference."[^10]
Klass wrote that the proposal, incorporated in the contract, promised that "the work will be conducted under conditions of strictest objectivity by investigators who, as carefully as can be determined, have no predilections or preconceived positions on the UFO question," and that [[David Saunders]], who later became a principal investigator, had himself participated in writing the proposal.[^4]
### Staff
Condon was scientific director; [[Stuart Cook]], chairman of the psychology department, and [[Franklin E. Roach]] of the [[Environmental Science Services Administration]] were principal investigators; [[Robert Low|Robert J. Low]], assistant dean of the Graduate School, was coordinator.[^3] The staff list in the report also names Saunders as principal investigator, [[William A. Scott]] as co-principal investigator, [[Norman Levine]] as research associate, [[William K. Hartmann]] of the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, and the journalist [[Daniel S. Gillmor]] as editor. Contributors came from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the Environmental Science Services Administration, the [[Stanford Research Institute]], the University of Arizona and other institutions; the [[National Aeronautics and Space Administration]] named a liaison officer.[^11]
Condon's entry in the staff list records that he was a former director of the [[National Bureau of Standards]], associate director of research for [[Westinghouse Electric Corporation]], director of research for [[Corning Glass Works]], a member of the committee named in 1941 that established the atomic bomb program, and a past president of the [[American Physical Society]]. A [[House Un-American Activities Committee]] report of 1 March 1948 had called him "one of the weakest links in our atomic security" while he directed the Bureau of Standards. The historian [[Jessica Wang]] wrote that no evidence of wrongdoing emerged from the inquiries that followed, that he left the Bureau in August 1951 for Corning, and that in October 1954 the Secretary of the Navy revoked his clearance for a classified Navy project of Corning after the [[The Washington Post|Washington Post]] reported that it had been granted, with Vice President [[Richard Nixon]] publicly taking credit.[^11][^12]
### Civilian groups and the field network
The Condon Report states that the project's preliminary study included briefings by Lieutenant Colonel [[Hector Quintanilla]], the head of Blue Book, by [[J. Allen Hynek]] and by [[Donald Keyhoe]] and [[Richard Hall]] of the [[National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena]].[^13] Klass wrote that the project's "early warning network" of several dozen persons consisted principally of that committee's field investigators, and that Levine and Saunders helped decide which reports received field investigation; Appendix I of the report lists the network's participants.[^4][^14]
Hynek and others at Northwestern's [[Dearborn Observatory]], including [[Jacques Vallee]] and [[William Powers]], are acknowledged in the report for consultation "voluntarily supplied." The same appendix thanks McDonald for information on UFO matters in [[Australia]], [[New Zealand]] and [[Tasmania]] "which he studied during a trip there which was sponsored by the U.S. Office of Naval Research."[^15] Hynek's contract records for November 1967 show him recommending that the project send an investigator to [[Newfield, New York]], and noting "They did."[^16]
### The Low memorandum
Low's memorandum "Some Thoughts on the UFO Project," dated 9 August 1966 and addressed to [[E. James Archer]], dean of the Graduate School, and [[Thurston E. Manning]], vice-president for academic affairs, was written in preparation for the meeting of 10 August 1966 with Air Force Office of Scientific Research staff, before the University decided to accept the contract. Condon wrote in the report that a copy "was later stolen from Low's personal files and given wide distribution by persons desirous of discrediting this study," that the memorandum was "at most, preliminary 'thinking out loud' about the proposed project by an individual having no authority to make formal decisions," that one proposal in it, "to stress investigation, not of physical phenomena, but rather of the people who do the observing," ran contrary to the procedure followed, and that he was not aware of the memorandum until eighteen months after it was written.[^6]
Klass quoted the memorandum as stating that "the Duke study was done by believers who, after they finished, convinced no one. Our study would be conducted almost exclusively by non-believers who, although they couldn't possibly prove a negative result, could and probably would add an impressive body of evidence that there is no reality to the observations," and: "The trick would be, I think, to describe the project so that, to the public, it would appear a totally objective study, but to the scientific community would present the image of a group of non-believers trying their best to be objective but having an almost zero expectation of finding a saucer." Klass wrote that "trick" can mean "the art or knack of doing something skillfully," and that [[Lewis M. Branscomb]], chairman of the [[Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics]] at Boulder, told him Low had used the word in that sense.[^4]
Klass wrote that a project member "believed to have been" the project's administrative assistant [[Mary Lou Armstrong]] found the memorandum in August 1967, and that Saunders allowed Keyhoe to copy it on the day before Thanksgiving 1967 and encouraged him to show it to the National Investigations Committee's board. According to Klass, citing Saunders, McDonald and Hynek met in [[Denver]] on 12 December 1967 with Saunders, Levine and Armstrong, and Hynek left early, after which McDonald raised the memorandum.[^4] Hynek's own log of November 1967 records that he told a caller about the Volunteer Flight Officer's Network that he would attend a meeting in Denver "unofficially, and at my own expense," and that he did so on 13 December.[^16] The dissertation of McCarthy states that McDonald wrote to Condon's coordinator on 31 January 1968 quoting the memorandum, and that McDonald and NICAP's [[Gordon Lore]] and Keyhoe resolved to put it on the record at the National Academy and at the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.[^5]
### Dismissal of Saunders and Levine
Both Klass and McCarthy state that Condon dismissed Saunders and Levine after McDonald's letter, Klass giving 7 February 1968 and McCarthy 8 February; McCarthy states that Condon accused them of stealing the memorandum from private files and fired them for "incompetence." Klass wrote that Armstrong resigned shortly afterward.[^4][^5] On 9 February 1968 McDonald sent the memorandum and his letter to the National Academy of Sciences, and on 11 February sent a copy to [[James Hughes]] of the [[Office of Naval Research]], the contract monitor for McDonald's atmospheric-research contracts. Klass wrote that McDonald "had covertly used these research funds for his UFO investigations and travels, with Hughes's tacit approval"; McCarthy wrote that McDonald said he forwarded the material to keep Hughes apprised "in light of the day when he would apply to the ONR for funding to do UFO work."[^4][^5] The report's staff appendix still lists Saunders as principal investigator and Levine as research associate.[^11]
### Publicity and Congress
On 30 April 1968 the National Investigations Committee held a press conference at which Klass asked Keyhoe about his own field work; the same day Representative [[J. Edward Roush]] of [[Indiana]] spoke in the House, calling the project a likely "$500,000 fiasco." The May 14, 1968 issue of the magazine [[Look]] carried [[John G. Fuller]]'s "Flying Saucer Fiasco," described by Klass as presenting the project as "a half-million dollar 'trick.'"[^4] On 29 July 1968 the [[House Committee on Science and Astronautics]] held a one-day symposium, with Roush presiding, at which Hynek, McDonald, Sagan, [[Robert L. Hall]], [[James A. Harder]] and [[Robert M. L. Baker]] testified, and at which Representative [[Donald Rumsfeld]] introduced Hynek as a constituent. Klass, relying on McCarthy, wrote that Roush allowed McDonald to select the six scientists and to use his office and telephone credit card, and that after Roush's defeat in November 1968 he was named to the committee's board of directors.[^4][^17]
McCarthy's account adds that Roush asked the National Academy, [[Frederick Seitz]] of the Academy, to examine the Look allegations, the dismissals and cases recommended by Hynek, and said he would suspend a [[Government Accounting Office]] review of the project that he had initiated until the Academy finished.[^5]
### The Central Intelligence Agency and the National Photographic Interpretation Center
Section II of the Condon Report says that "one person with whom we have dealt actually maintains that the Air Force has nothing to do with UFOs, claiming that this super-secret matter is in the hands of the Central Intelligence Agency which, he says, installed one of its own agents as scientific director of the Colorado study," and that allegations of a conspiracy "have, so far as any evidence that has come to our attention, no factual basis whatever." The report adds that where sightings involve classified missile launchings or classified radar systems "this fact is merely stated" and that these reservations affected "a negligible fraction" of the material.[^7]
A memorandum for the record of the [[National Photographic Interpretation Center]], numbered TID-50/67 and dated 23 February 1967, states that the Air Force "has let a $300,000 contract" to the University of Colorado; that on 20 February 1967 at 0915 Condon and four members of his team visited the Center, accompanied by "Dr. Richard Lowe, University of Colorado," Saunders, "Dr. William Price, Executive Director of AFRST," and Ratchford; and that the clearance level for the meeting was Secret. The Colorado project's coordinator was Robert J. Low. The memorandum records that in a discussion of ten to fifteen minutes between [[Arthur C. Lundahl]], the Center's director, and Condon it was "clearly established" that work by the Center to assist Condon "will not be identified as work accomplished by CIA," that "Dr. Condon was advised by Mr. Lundahl to make no reference to CIA in regard to this work effort," that Condon said that if he felt it necessary to obtain an official Agency comment "he would make a separate distinct entry into CIA not related to contacts he has with NPIC," and that the Center "will not prepare any written comments, will not analyze information with the intent of drawing a conclusion, nor prepare written reports." Briefings followed on photogrammetry, microdensitometry and the Center's measuring instruments, and after lunch the group left for a meeting with Giller at the [[Pentagon]]. The memorandum refers to "the second UFO project assigned TID," the Center's Technical Intelligence Division.[^9]
Haines's history for the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] states that in February 1967 Giller asked Lundahl for an informal liaison to give the Condon Committee technical advice on photographs; that Lundahl and the Deputy Director for Intelligence, [[R. Jack Smith]], approved it "as a way of 'preserving a window'" on the study; and that they wanted the Agency to keep a low profile, take no part in writing conclusions, and not formally acknowledge any work done.[^8] A second memorandum for the record, dated 8 May 1967, describes a briefing at 0900 on 5 May 1967 on an analysis of the Zanesville, Ohio, photographs, attended by Condon, "Dr. Robert Lowe," Hartmann of the University of Arizona (printed "Hartman"), "Dr. Charles Reed, National Research Council," Ratchford and Center staff. It records that Condon "stated he had for the first time a scientific analysis of a UFO that would stand up to investigation"; that further analysis would pass to University of Colorado control "but Dr. Condon indicated he wished to keep a channel open into our organization"; that he "was most appreciative of the unofficial role NPIC had played"; and that it was suggested to review all the photography held by the National Investigations Committee, which "would put Dr. Condon in a position to say that he had reviewed and analyzed all the photography in NICAP files, and was now depending on the American public to furnish him new photography."[^18] Haines wrote that the analysis debunked that sighting, that Agency officials also agreed that the committee could release the full Durant report on the [[Robertson Panel]] with minor deletions, and that the final report "did not mention CIA participation."[^8]
The acknowledgments appendix names the Air Force, NASA, the Environmental Science Services Administration, the [[U.S. Naval Observatory|Naval Observatory]], the [[Internal Revenue Service]]'s Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Division, the [[U.S. Forest Service|Forest Service]], the [[Federal Aviation Agency]], the [[Library of Congress]] and the [[U.S. Department of State|State Department]], and does not name the Agency or the Center.[^15] Saunders, listed as a visitor in the Center's memorandum of February 1967, was dismissed in February 1968.[^4][^9]
### Treatment of the secrecy question
In the historical section the Condon Report adopted the term "conspiracy hypothesis" for "the view that some agency of the Government either within the Air Force, the Central Intelligence Agency, or elsewhere knows all about UFOs and is keeping the knowledge secret." Condon wrote that without denying the possibility "we decided very early in the study, that we were not likely to succeed in carrying out a form of counter-espionage against our own Government," and decided to "keep alert to any indications" that not all essential facts were being given to the project. He continued: "Although we found no such evidence, it must be conceded that there may be a supersecret government UFO laboratory hidden away somewhere of whose existence we are not aware. But I doubt it." He added that about halfway through the study a staff member of a national magazine telephoned to ask about a report that the Colorado study was a cover story for a "Top Secret" study for the Defense Department's "Martian Invasion Defense Program," and that his answer was that if it were true it would be Top Secret and he would not be at liberty to say.[^19]
The same chapter reproduces the 23 September 1947 letter of Lieutenant General [[Nathan F. Twining]], which lists among the possibilities that the objects were "of domestic origin" and "the product of some high security project not known to AC/AS-2 or this Command," and comments on it: "Where secrecy is known to exist one can never be absolutely sure that he knows the complete truth."[^19]
### Conclusions of the report
Section I states that "further extensive study of UFOs probably cannot be justified in the expectation that science will be advanced thereby," that "we have no evidence of secrecy concerning UFO reports," that "only so much attention to the subject should be given as the Department of Defense deems to be necessary strictly from a defense point of view," and that the defense function "could be performed within the framework established for intelligence and surveillance operations without the continuance of a special unit such as Project Blue Book, but this is a question for defense specialists rather than research scientists." It also recommends that teachers "refrain from giving students credit for school work based on their reading of the presently available UFO books and magazine articles."[^20]
In the report Condon wrote: "Had I known of the extent of the emotional commitment of the UFO believers and the extremes of conduct to which their faith can lead them, I certainly would never have undertaken the study."[^6]
### Review and termination
The report went to Secretary of the Air Force [[Harold Brown]] under cover of Smiley's letter of 31 October 1968. The National Academy panel, chaired by [[Gerald M. Clemence]], wrote that it was "unanimous in the opinion that this has been a very creditable effort to apply objectively the relevant techniques of science" and that "the least likely explanation of UFOs is the hypothesis of extraterrestrial visitations by intelligent beings." The Air Force release of 17 December 1969 says the report was released to the public in January 1969; Haines gives April 1969.[^8][^10][^21]
Hynek had told the [[House Armed Services Committee]] on 5 April 1966 that "the body of data accumulated since 1948 through the Air Force investigations deserves close scrutiny by a civilian panel of physical and social scientists."[^22] An Air Force action memorandum of 20 October 1969, with the signature block of Brigadier General [[C. H. Bolender]], cited the report and the Academy review as reasons that continuation of Blue Book "cannot be justified, either on the ground of national security or in the interest of science."[^2]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Edward U. Condon, ed., Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects (University of Colorado, 1968), Preface and Letter of Transmittal (J. R. Smiley to Harold Brown, 31 October 1968, citing Contract No. F44620-67-C-0035), http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/preface.htm and http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/covrletr.htm; Section I, p. 2, http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/sec-i.htm.
[^2]: Air Force action memorandum, "Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO)," 20 October 1969, with signature block of Brigadier General C. H. Bolender, paragraph 2, http://www.nicap.org/Bolender_Memo.htm; Air Force news release No. 1077-69, 17 December 1969, in the compilation at https://www.physics.smu.edu/pseudo/UFOs/dod174.pdf.
[^3]: Condon, Appendix A, "Special Report of the USAF Scientific Advisory Board Ad Hoc Committee to Review Project 'Blue Book,'" March 1966, members list, https://files.ncas.org/condon/text/appndx-a.htm; Condon, Preface.
[^4]: Philip J. Klass, "The Condon UFO Study: A Trick or a Conspiracy?" The Skeptical Inquirer 10 (Summer 1986), pp. 328-341, https://cdn.centerforinquiry.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/1986/07/22165324/p42.pdf. Klass cites David R. Saunders and R. Roger Harkins, UFOs? Yes! Where the Condon Committee Went Wrong (Signet, 1968), and Paul McCarthy's thesis.
[^5]: Paul McCarthy, "Politicking and Paradigm Shifting: James E. McDonald and the UFO Case Study," Ph.D. thesis, University of Hawaii, 1975, chapter 3, "The Condon Study," pp. 140-153, https://files.ncas.org/mccarthy/chap03.html.
[^6]: Condon, Section V, chapter 2, "UFOs, 1947-1968," section 7, "Initiation of the Colorado Project," pp. 912-916, http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/s5chap02.htm.
[^7]: Condon, Section II, "Summary of the Study," pp. 11-12 and 20-21, http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/sec-ii.htm.
[^8]: Gerald K. Haines, "CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90," Studies in Intelligence (1997), section "The 1960s: Declining CIA Involvement and Mounting Controversy," notes 75 to 80 (Lundahl memorandum for DDI, 7 February 1967; memorandum for the record, "Visit of Dr. Condon to NPIC, 20 February 1967," 23 February 1967; memorandum for the record, "UFO Briefing for Dr. Edward Condon, 5 May 1967," 8 May 1967), https://sgp.fas.org/library/ciaufo.html.
[^9]: Memorandum for the record, "Visit of Dr. Condon to NPIC, 20 February 1967," TID-50/67, 23 February 1967, Central Intelligence Agency, CREST document CIA-RDP79B00752A000300100004-1 (3 pages, declassified in part, released 2013), https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp79b00752a000300100004-1.
[^10]: Condon, Letter of Transmittal, http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/covrletr.htm; Air Force news release No. 1077-69, 17 December 1969, in the compilation at https://www.physics.smu.edu/pseudo/UFOs/dod174.pdf.
[^11]: Condon, Appendix X, "Authors and Editors, Staff of the Colorado Project," pp. 1433-1438, http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/appndx-x.htm.
[^12]: Jessica Wang, "Edward Condon and the Cold War Politics of Loyalty," Physics Today 54, no. 12 (December 2001), https://physicstoday.aip.org/features/edward-condon-and-the-cold-war-politics-of-loyalty; Haines, note 75.
[^13]: Condon, Section II, p. 20.
[^14]: Condon, Appendix I, "Individuals Who Participated in the Early Warning Network," p. 1333, http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/appndx-i.htm.
[^15]: Condon, Appendix W, "Acknowledgments," pp. 1428-1432, http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/appndx-w.htm.
[^16]: Project 1947, "Details and Memoranda of Dr J. A. Hynek's Final USAF-sponsored UFO Investigation Contract," entries for telephone calls of 18 November 1967 and 11 November 1967, http://www.project1947.com/hynek/jah_af_contract.htm.
[^17]: Symposium on Unidentified Flying Objects, Hearings before the Committee on Science and Astronautics, House of Representatives, 90th Congress, 2d Session, 29 July 1968, pp. 1-10, https://nicap.org/books/1968Sym/1968_UFO_Symposium.pdf.
[^18]: Memorandum for the record, "UFO Briefing for Dr. Edward Condon, 5 May 1967," 8 May 1967, Central Intelligence Agency, CREST document CIA-RDP79B00752A000300100003-2 (2 pages, declassified in part, released 2013), https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp79b00752a000300100003-2.
[^19]: Condon, Section V, chapter 2, pp. 873-874, http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/s5chap02.htm; Appendix R, http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/appndx-r.htm.
[^20]: Condon, Section I, "Conclusions and Recommendations," pp. 2 and 6-7, http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/sec-i.htm.
[^21]: "Review of the University of Colorado Report on Unidentified Flying Objects by a Panel of the National Academy of Sciences," 1969 (Gerald M. Clemence, chairman; H. R. Crane, David M. Dennison, Wallace O. Fenn, H. Keffer Hartline, E. R. Hilgard, Mark Kac, Francis W. Reichelderfer, William W. Rubey, C. D. Shane, Oswald G. Villard Jr.), Attachment 2, pp. 8-9, in the Navy UFO fact-sheet compilation at https://www.physics.smu.edu/pseudo/UFOs/dod174.pdf.
[^22]: Condon, Section V, chapter 2, pp. 909-910 (Hynek's opening statement at the House Armed Services Committee hearing of 5 April 1966), http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/s5chap02.htm.

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---
category: "Intelligence Scandal"
tags:
- Panel
- CIA
- OfficeOfScientificIntelligence
- UFO
- UAP
- ProjectBlueBook
- Debunking
- ColdWar
alias:
- Robertson Panel
- Robertson Committee
- Robertson Report
- Durant Report
- Robertson Panel Report
- Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects
- Scientific Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects
summary: "CIA-convened panel of five scientists (January 1953) that found no threat in unidentified flying objects and recommended a training and debunking program and the watching of civilian UFO groups."
start: 1953-01-14
end: 1953-01-17
location: "Central Intelligence Agency, Washington, D.C."
relations:
- type: founded
with: "[[Central Intelligence Agency]]"
reverse: true
role: "sponsor, through the Office of Scientific Intelligence"
start: 1953-01
fn: 2
- type: founded
with: "[[H. Marshall Chadwell]]"
reverse: true
role: "assistant director for scientific intelligence who assembled the panel with Robertson"
start: 1953-01
fn: 3
- type: head_of
with: "[[H. P. Robertson]]"
reverse: true
role: "chairman"
start: 1953-01-14
end: 1953-01-17
fn: 5
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Luis Alvarez]]"
reverse: true
role: "panel member"
start: 1953-01-14
end: 1953-01-17
fn: 5
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Lloyd Berkner]]"
reverse: true
role: "panel member"
start: 1953-01-16
end: 1953-01-17
fn: 10
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Samuel Goudsmit]]"
reverse: true
role: "panel member"
start: 1953-01-14
end: 1953-01-17
fn: 5
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Thornton Page]]"
reverse: true
role: "panel member"
start: 1953-01-14
end: 1953-01-17
fn: 5
- type: participant_in
with: "[[J. Allen Hynek]]"
reverse: true
role: "associate member"
start: 1953-01-14
end: 1953-01-17
fn: 11
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Frederick C. Durant]]"
reverse: true
role: "associate member and author of the report of meetings"
start: 1953-01-14
end: 1953-01-17
fn: 8
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Edward J. Ruppelt]]"
reverse: true
role: "briefer, Air Technical Intelligence Center"
start: 1953-01-14
end: 1953-01-17
fn: 11
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Philip G. Strong]]"
reverse: true
role: "Office of Scientific Intelligence staff attending the sessions"
start: 1953-01-14
end: 1953-01-17
fn: 10
created: 2026-10-01
updated: 2026-10-01
---
The Robertson Panel was a group of five scientists convened by the [[Office of Scientific Intelligence]] of the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] to review [[Air Technical Intelligence Center]] files on unidentified flying objects. It met in January 1953, reported that the sightings showed no direct physical threat to national security, and recommended that the national security agencies "strip the Unidentified Flying Objects of the special status they have been given and the aura of mystery they have unfortunately acquired."[^1]
### Origin in the Office of Scientific Intelligence
In the summer of 1952 the Office of Scientific Intelligence and the Office of Current Intelligence formed a study group on the flying saucer reports. [[Edward Tauss]], acting chief of the Office's Weapons and Equipment Division, reported that most sightings could be easily explained, recommended continued monitoring in coordination with the Air Technical Intelligence Center, and urged that the Agency conceal its interest from the press and public, "in view of their probable alarmist tendencies" to read it as confirmation. [[Robert Amory]], the Deputy Director for Intelligence, passed the matter to the Office's Physics and Electronics Division on the concerns of the [[Director of Central Intelligence]], [[Walter Bedell Smith]], who according to a memorandum of 20 August 1952 summarized by [[Gerald K. Haines]] of the Agency's history staff wanted to know whether the Air Force investigation was sufficiently objective, thought there was "only one chance in 10,000" that the phenomenon posed a threat but that "even that chance could not be taken," and asked what use could be made of the phenomenon in psychological warfare. The study group's members searched the Soviet press, found no flying saucer reports, and concluded that the absence resulted from Soviet Government policy.[^2]
The Durant memorandum lists an "O/SI Study Group of August 1952" of [[Philip G. Strong]], a colleague named Eng and [[Frederick C. Durant]], which led to the briefing of the Director, an Air Technical Intelligence Center briefing on 21 November, consideration by the [[Intelligence Advisory Committee]] on 4 December, and a visit to the Center by Chadwell, [[H. P. Robertson]] and Durant.[^1] The Intelligence Advisory Committee, according to Haines, agreed that the Director should "enlist the services of selected scientists to review and appraise the available evidence in the light of pertinent scientific theories" and draft a National Security Council Intelligence Directive on the subject.[^2]
[[H. Marshall Chadwell]], Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence, sent the Director a memorandum on unidentified flying objects that the Agency's reading-room copy catalogs under the date 9 December 1952 (Haines cites a Chadwell memorandum of 2 December). It states that on 20 August the Director had directed preparation of a National Security Council directive; that the problem was "largely a research and development problem" which the Deputy Director for Intelligence tried to start through the [[Research and Development Board]], whose chairman, Dr. Whitman, reported on about 6 November that inquiries in the Air Staff had not disclosed "undue concern" and that the matter had been referred to the [[Air Defense Command]]; and that after an Air Technical Intelligence Center briefing on 25 November "the reports of incidents convince us that there is something going on that must have immediate attention." It continues: "Sightings of unexplained objects at great altitudes and travelling at high speeds in the vicinity of major U.S. defense installations are of such nature that they are not attributable to natural phenomena or known types of aerial vehicles." The memorandum states that the Office was proceeding to establish "a consulting group of sufficient competence and stature to review this matter and convince the responsible authorities in the community that immediate research and development on this subject must be undertaken." It attached a draft memorandum from the Director to the [[National Security Council]], which put the number of official reports received since 1947 at approximately 2000 and proposed a program of intelligence and research on "instant positive identification" of the objects, and a draft directive providing that the effort be coordinated with the military services, the Research and Development Board and the [[Psychological Strategy Board]].[^3]
Chadwell and Robertson put the panel together, and Chadwell wrote the Director on 9 January 1953 on consultants for the panel.[^2][^4] Strong recorded a meeting about an external research project with [[Julius A. Stratton]], provost of the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]], and [[Max Millikan]], director of MIT's Center for International Studies.[^2][^4]
### Membership
The panel members signed the report with these affiliations: [[Lloyd Berkner]], [[Associated Universities, Inc.]]; Robertson, chairman, [[California Institute of Technology]]; [[Samuel Goudsmit]], [[Brookhaven National Laboratories]]; [[Luis Alvarez]], [[University of California]]; and [[Thornton Page]], [[Johns Hopkins University]]. The roster lists Page's office as the Office of Research Operations. [[J. Allen Hynek]] ([[Ohio State University]], astronomy) and Frederick C. Durant ([[Arthur D. Little]], Inc., rockets and guided missiles) appear as associate members.[^5][^6]
Robertson served from 1950 to 1952 as research director of the [[Weapons Systems Evaluation Group]] in the office of the Secretary of Defense and from 1954 to 1956 as scientific advisor to the [[Supreme Allied Commander Europe|Supreme Allied Commander in Europe]]. Goudsmit had been scientific chief of the [[Operation Alsos|Alsos Mission]]. Alvarez had worked on microwave radar at the [[MIT Radiation Laboratory]] and then under [[J. Robert Oppenheimer]] at [[Los Alamos National Laboratory|Los Alamos]]. Berkner had been executive secretary of the Research and Development Board of the [[Department of Defense]], special assistant to the Secretary of State in 1949, a rear admiral in the Naval Reserve, and from 1951 to 1960 active in managing Associated Universities, Inc., the operator of Brookhaven. Page had done research at the [[Naval Ordnance Laboratory]] during the war.[^7] Durant, a past president of the [[American Rocket Society]], was on contract with the Office of Scientific Intelligence.[^8]
The interviewees were Brigadier General [[William N. Garland]], commanding general of the Air Technical Intelligence Center; Chadwell; [[Ralph L. Clark]], Deputy Assistant Director; Strong, chief of the Operations Staff; [[Stephen T. Possony]], acting chief of the Special Studies Group, Directorate of Intelligence, [[U.S. Air Force]]; Captain [[Edward J. Ruppelt]], chief of the Aerial Phenomena Branch; [[Dewey Fournet]] of the [[Ethyl Corporation]]; and Lieutenant [[R. S. Neasham]] and [[Harry Woo]] of the [[Navy Photo Interpretation Laboratory]] at [[Anacostia]].[^6]
### Sessions of January 14 to 17, 1953
The memorandum is headed "January 14-18, 1953." Its first meeting is dated "Wednesday, 14 January" and its eighth and final meeting is a Saturday afternoon, which makes the date 17 January; the attached lists and the Agency's later history also give 14 to 17 January.[^9] Present at the first meeting were Robertson, Alvarez, Page, Goudsmit, Strong, Lieutenant Colonel [[Frederick C. E. Oder]], [[David B. Stevenson]] and Durant; Berkner was absent until Friday afternoon.[^10] Strong enumerated what the Office regarded as potential dangers. The Panel saw motion pictures of sightings at [[Tremonton, Utah|Tremonton]], [[Utah]] (2 July 1952) and [[Great Falls, Montana|Great Falls]], [[Montana]] (15 August 1950), and in the afternoon Neasham and Woo presented the [[U.S. Navy]] laboratory's analysis. Ruppelt spoke for about forty minutes on Air Technical Intelligence Center methods. Hynek, Fournet, Captain [[Harry B. Smith]] and Possony attended that session.[^11]
On Thursday Ruppelt and Hynek attended both sessions. The memorandum records that "the Project STORK support at Battelle Memorial Institute, Columbus, was described by Dr. Hynek." Oder briefed [[Project Twinkle]], the camera-watch project of the [[Air Force Meteorological Research Center]] at [[Cambridge, Massachusetts]]. At 1615 Garland joined and gave three personal opinions: more use of Air Force intelligence officers in follow-up, "vigorous effort" to declassify reports, and a larger Air Technical Intelligence Center section for the subject. On Friday Hynek read a prepared paper and Fournet gave a briefing on his fifteen months as Washington project officer; Hynek attended the Friday afternoon session. On Saturday morning Chadwell reported that he had shown the rough draft to the Director of Intelligence of the Air Force "whose reaction was favorable."[^1]
The list of evidence presented included seventy-five case histories of 1951 and 1952 selected by the Air Technical Intelligence Center as the best documented, the status and progress reports of [[Project Grudge]] and [[Project Blue Book]], the progress reports of Project Stork, described as the code name for the [[Battelle Memorial Institute]] contract work supporting the Center, reports on Project Twinkle and Project Pounce (a proposal of [[Kirtland Air Force Base]]), a draft manual on making a flying object report, charts of unexplained 1952 sightings by location and of balloon launching sites, and "Intelligence Reports Relating to U.S.S.R. Interest in U.S. Sightings."[^12]
### The Tremonton and Great Falls films
The Navy laboratory had spent about 1,000 man-hours, at Air Force request, on plots of the 1,600-frame Kodachrome film of Tremonton and concluded that the objects were not birds, balloons or aircraft but "self-luminous." The Panel rejected the conclusion for eleven stated reasons, among them the analysis of duplicate rather than original film, faulty light-intensity data and unremoved hand jitter, and judged the Tremonton objects probably birds after viewing a short film of seagulls in sunlight. It judged the Great Falls objects probably reflections from aircraft known to have been in the area. The Panel added that tests with polyethylene "pillow" balloons and with ornithologists would probably lead to "creditable explanations of value in an educational or training program."[^1]
### Findings and recommendations
Tab A, signed by the five members, states that the evidence "shows no indication that these phenomena constitute a direct physical threat to national security" and that there is "no residuum of cases which indicates phenomena which are attributable to foreign artifacts capable of hostile acts" and "no evidence that the phenomena indicates a need for the revision of current scientific concepts." It states that "continued emphasis on the reporting of these phenomena does, in these perilous times, result in a threat to the orderly functioning of the protective organs of the body politic," citing "the clogging of channels of communication by irrelevant reports," "continued false alarms" and "the cultivation of a morbid national psychology in which skillful hostile propaganda could induce hysterical behavior." It recommends an integrated program "designed to reassure the public of the total lack of evidence of inimical forces behind the phenomenon" and to train personnel to recognize and reject false indications.[^13]
### Comments recorded in the Durant memorandum
The Panel's remarks "inappropriate for inclusion in the formal report" were recorded in Part II of Durant's memorandum of 16 February 1953 to the Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence.[^1]
On extraterrestrial artifacts, the memorandum records that no Panel member was "loath to accept that this earth might be visited by extraterrestrial intelligent beings of some sort, some day" but that none found evidence relating the sightings to space travelers. Fournet, who as an aeronautical engineer and Blue Book project officer had eliminated each known cause in many cases and was left with "extra-terrestrial," was not followed because his cases were "raw, unevaluated reports." Goudsmit and others held that artifacts, if they existed, would be a subject for natural science; Robertson did not concur and thought they would be "of immediate and great concern not only to the U.S. but to all countries." Page held the existence of intelligent beings elsewhere than on the earth "extremely unlikely."[^1]
On geography, an Air Technical Intelligence Center map of unexplained 1952 sightings "showed clusters in certain strategic areas such as Los Alamos," which the memorandum says might be explained by 24-hour watchful guard and awareness of security measures there; it adds that there had been no sightings near other sensitive Atomic Energy establishments, and that the Panel "could find no ready explanation for these clusters." Of two cosmic-ray counter episodes ([[Palomar Observatory|Palomar Mountain]], October 1949, and the Los Alamos "Bird Watchers Association," August 1950 to January 1951), the Panel rejected the implication that radioactive effects were correlated with the objects, Alvarez having pointed out that the recorded data of the second were instrumental effects.[^1]
On reporting channels, the Panel regarded the Air Force reporting system as having been encouraged by popular articles and public pressure, and the "mass receipt of low-grade reports" as "possibly dangerous in having a military service foster public concern." It listed related dangers: misidentification of actual enemy artifacts, overloading of emergency channels (Berkner's "noise to signal ratio" analogy) and "mass hysteria and greater vulnerability to possible enemy psychological warfare."[^1]
### The educational program
The memorandum describes a program with "two major aims: training and 'debunking.'" Training would cover pilots, radar operators, control tower operators and [[Ground Observer Corps]] personnel. The "debunking" aim "would result in reduction in public interest in 'flying saucers'" through "mass media such as television, motion pictures, and popular articles," using case histories "which had been puzzling at first but later explained," on the model of conjuring tricks, to "reduce the current gullibility of the public and consequently their susceptibility to clever hostile propaganda." The memorandum adds 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."[^1]
Suggested participants were psychologists, including [[Hadley Cantril]] of [[Princeton University|Princeton]], [[Don Marquis]] of the [[University of Michigan]] and [[Leo Roston]]; "someone familiar with mass communications techniques, perhaps an advertising expert"; the radio and television host [[Arthur Godfrey]] as "possibly a valuable channel of communication"; the Navy's [[Special Devices Center]] at [[Sands Point, New York|Sands Point]], [[Long Island]], on Berkner's suggestion; the [[Jam Handy Company]], a maker of Second World War training films; and the animated cartoons of "Walt Disney, Inc.," the studio of [[Walt Disney]]. Hynek suggested amateur astronomers "to spread the gospel." The Panel proposed that the program run for "a minimum of one and one-half to two years" and recorded that some expansion of the Air Technical Intelligence Center would be required. Ruppelt "unofficially" proposed a staff of four analyst officers, four officer investigators, a briefing officer, an air defense liaison officer, a weather and balloon officer, an astronomical consultant and a group leader, which drew "generally favorable comment."[^1]
On "Unofficial Investigating Groups," the memorandum states that the "Civilian Flying Saucer Investigators" of [[Los Angeles]] and the "Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (Wisconsin)" "should be watched because of their potentially great influence on mass thinking if widespread sightings should occur," and that "the apparent irresponsibility and the possible use of such groups for subversive purposes should be kept in mind." The Panel predicted that sightings would increase that summer.[^1]
[[Jennie Zeidman]], Hynek's assistant at Ohio State, wrote in 1991 that after the sessions Hynek told her: "They're not going to have a scientific investigation. For some strange reason they voted it down. They didn't even take a decent look at the data, and they decided to discredit them."[^14]
### Distribution and sponsorship
The report went to the Intelligence Advisory Committee, the Secretary of Defense, the director of the [[Federal Civil Defense Administration]] and the chairman of the [[National Security Resources Board]]. Strong and Durant briefed the [[Office of National Estimates]]. The Agency dropped its effort to draft a National Security Council directive on unidentified flying objects, and, according to Haines, "any mention of CIA sponsorship of the panel was forbidden." Chadwell transferred monitoring in May 1953 to the Physics and Electronics Division, whose chief, [[Todos M. Odarenko]], proposed treating the project as inactive and, in 1955, terminating it.[^2][^15]
### Contacts after the sessions
A note from Ruppelt to Hynek of 11 February 1953, among the Blue Book cables in Hynek's "Project Henry" files, states that Durant had called asking for the pencilled notes Hynek had promised him on a contact with the [[Aerial Phenomena Research Organization]]. A note of 13 July 1953 from Lieutenant [[Robert M. Olsson]] states: "we sent five of our best unsolved reports to Dr. Robinson [Dr. Robertson] on the West Coast" ([[Luke Air Force Base]], Continental Divide, [[Port Austin, Michigan|Port Austin]] and others). [[Jan Aldrich]] of Project 1947 added in a bracketed comment that Robertson was briefed on Blue Book again in 1957 at the Air Technical Intelligence Center and that Durant arranged for the Condon Committee to obtain copies of the Montana and Utah films and corresponded with Condon about official investigations in [[Norway]].[^16]
### Disclosure, 1956 to 1966
In 1956 [[The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects|Ruppelt's book]] disclosed the existence of the Panel, and civilian groups pressed for the report. The Air Force asked the Agency for permission to declassify; Strong refused to disclose Agency sponsorship. On 20 December 1957 Strong wrote to Berkner, Page, Robertson, Goudsmit and Alvarez and sent a memorandum to Major James F. Byrne of Air Force intelligence on declassification, and the Agency prepared a sanitized version that deleted references to the Agency and to psychological warfare. Berkner (20 November 1957) and Page (4 December 1957) had written to Strong, and the Agency's history states that the panel members "were also reluctant to have their association with the Agency released."[^2][^17]
On 8 March 1958 [[Donald Keyhoe]] of the [[National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena]] told [[Mike Wallace]] on [[CBS]] that the Agency sponsored the Panel, and Keyhoe and the chemical engineer [[Leon Davidson]] wrote to the Agency; Davidson also wrote to Berkner and Goudsmit. Agency officers, according to the history, worried that Keyhoe "had the ear of" Hillenkoetter, who served on the committee's board of governors, and discussed having the General Counsel, [[Lawrence R. Houston]], show him the report. Hillenkoetter resigned from the committee in 1962.[^2][^17]
On 22 September 1958 Keyhoe wrote to the Agency as the committee's director that he had been aware since January 1953 that the Agency had assembled a group of scientists to examine the evidence; that an investigator for the McClellan subcommittee on Government Operations had told him the Air Force said the report was not an Air Force document and that it proved to be the Agency's, with a classified summary sent to the investigator; and that the Air Force, which had officially denied the existence of the document, then admitted it and released a summary with no mention of the Agency. He asked for declassification and for an interview with an Agency official, and wrote that Vice Admiral [[Roscoe Hillenkoetter]], formerly director of the Agency and a board member, and all the members of the board would, if questioned, say that they disagree with the secrecy. A routing slip dated 30 September 1958 records that the Air Force's Major [[Lawrence J. Tacker]] had received a letter of the same date and would answer both along the lines that the Air Force was "the only agency qualified to speak on unidentified flying objects," and that "the remaining portions of the report are not only Secret but do not deal with unidentified flying objects"; the writer adds, "Both the above statements are true."[^18]
Haines wrote that the Air Force again asked in July 1966 for declassification of the Panel report and the Durant report, after the [[House Armed Services Committee]] hearings and "Dr. Robertson's disclosure on a CBS Reports program that CIA indeed had been involved in UFO analysis"; the Condon Report, printed in 1968, refers to Robertson as "the late Prof. H. P. Robertson."[^2][^7] On 15 August 1966 the Office of Scientific Intelligence's deputy director, [[Karl H. Weber]], wrote to the Air Force that "We are most anxious that further publicity not be given to the information that the panel was sponsored by the CIA." [[James E. McDonald]] of the [[University of Arizona]] had read the Durant report at Wright-Patterson on 6 June 1966 and was refused a second look on 30 June as it was an Agency document. The science editor of the [[Saturday Review]], [[John Lear]], criticized the sanitized version on 3 September 1966.[^2][^17]
### Publication in the Condon Report
The report was declassified in the summer of 1966 and printed as Appendix U of the [[Condon Committee]]'s Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects, with some names deleted; the Condon Report states that the record is "still partially classified to the extent that the names of some of the members are deleted."[^7] The editors of the online edition restored deletions, which they marked in braces, from a copy they obtained from the [[Parascope]] site and checked against a [[National Archives and Records Administration|National Archives]] copy. The deleted items included the names of Alvarez, Chadwell, Strong, Oder, Stevenson, Neasham, Woo, Hynek, Fournet, Smith, Possony and Garland, the words "Office of Scientific Intelligence," the "Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence," "Battelle Memorial Institute" and the Intelligence Advisory Committee, and one tab.[^1][^19] Haines wrote that in 1967 Agency officials agreed that the Condon Committee could release the full Durant report "with only minor deletions."[^2]
The Condon Report described the Panel as five scientists "who had distinguished themselves in physics research and in their contributions to military research during and after World War II," said that a group of this competence could review the subject in a week, stated that "no official steps were ever taken to put into effect the training and 'debunking' recommendations," and held that "the word debunking means to take the bunk out of a subject."[^7][^20]
### Later references
The Scientific Advisory Board committee under [[Brian O'Brien]] that reviewed Project Blue Book in 1966 gave "particular attention" to the Panel report. An Air Force action memorandum of 20 October 1969 recommending termination of Blue Book quoted the Panel's finding of no direct physical threat and added that "in spite of this finding, the Air Force continued to maintain a special reporting system."[^21][^22]
In 1975 [[William Spaulding]] of [[Ground Saucer Watch]] asked the Agency for the Panel report; a privacy coordinator, [[Gene Wilson]], replied that "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." Ground Saucer Watch sued under the [[Freedom of Information Act]] in September 1977; a search produced 355 documents of about 900 pages, of which the Agency released all but 57 on 14 December 1978, and a court dismissed the suit in May 1980. Haines wrote that the Agency's Deputy Director for Administration told Director [[Stansfield Turner]] there had been "no organized Agency effort to do research in connection with UFO phenomena nor has there been an organized effort to collect intelligence on UFOs since the 1950s."[^2]
### Footnotes
[^1]: F. C. Durant, memorandum to the Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence, "Report of Meetings of the Office of Scientific Intelligence Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects, January 14-18, 1953," Central Intelligence Agency, 16 February 1953, Parts I and II, Tabs A to C, in Edward U. Condon, ed., Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects (University of Colorado, 1968), Appendix U, pp. 1392-1421, full text with restored deletions at https://files.ncas.org/condon/text/appndx-u.htm. Quotations on this page not otherwise cited are from this document.
[^2]: Gerald K. Haines, "CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90," Studies in Intelligence (1997), sections "Early CIA Concerns, 1947-52," "The Robertson Panel, 1952-53," "The 1950s," "The 1960s" and "The 1970s and 1980s," copy at https://sgp.fas.org/library/ciaufo.html.
[^3]: H. Marshall Chadwell, memorandum for the Director of Central Intelligence, through the Deputy Director for Intelligence, "Unidentified Flying Objects," with attached draft memorandum to the National Security Council and draft NSC directive, 1952, Central Intelligence Agency, CREST document CIA-RDP81R00560R000100020008-2 (5 pages; reading-room publication date 9 December 1952), https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp81r00560r000100020008-2.
[^4]: Haines, text and notes 22 to 25, 30 and 36, citing Chadwell memoranda of 25 November and 2 December 1952, Chadwell to the Director, "Consultants for Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects," 9 January 1953, Strong's memorandum for the record on the meeting with Stratton and Millikan, and Chadwell's letter to Stratton of 27 January 1953.
[^5]: Durant memorandum, Tab A, signatures: Berkner (Associated Universities, Inc.), Robertson (California Institute of Technology, chairman), Goudsmit (Brookhaven National Laboratories), Alvarez (University of California), Page (Johns Hopkins University).
[^6]: Durant memorandum, Tab B (members, associate members and interviewees; Tab B was omitted from the 1968 Condon printing and the online edition labels the document list as Tab B).
[^7]: Condon, Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects, Section V, chapter 2, "UFOs, 1947-1968," pp. 865-868, http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/s5chap02.htm.
[^8]: Durant memorandum, Tab B ("Associate Members"); Haines, notes 30 and 31, describing Durant as on contract with the Office of Scientific Intelligence and a past president of the American Rocket Society.
[^9]: Durant memorandum, Part I ("Wednesday, 14 January," "Saturday afternoon"), and Tab B and Tab C headings (January 14 to 17, 1953); Haines, text ("The panel met from 14 to 17 January 1953") and note 32 (Panel report dated 17 January 1953).
[^10]: Durant memorandum, Part I, "Wednesday Morning" and "Friday Afternoon": "Dr. Lloyd V. Berkner, as Panel Member, was present at this meeting for the first time"; Saturday morning, the rough draft "had been reviewed and approved earlier by Dr. Berkner."
[^11]: Durant memorandum, Tab B ("Associate Members"), and Part I, Wednesday afternoon through Saturday.
[^12]: Durant memorandum, Tab C, "Evidence Presented."
[^13]: Durant memorandum, Tab A, "Report of the Scientific Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects," paragraphs 2 to 4.
[^14]: Jennie Zeidman, "I Remember Blue Book," International UFO Reporter (Center for UFO Studies), March/April 1991, section "Project Henry," https://www.project1947.com/articles/jzbluebook.htm.
[^15]: Haines, text and notes 34 to 39 and 80.
[^16]: "Project Henry," Project 1947, notes of 11 February 1953 (Ruppelt) and 13 July 1953 (Olsson) and the bracketed comment of Jan L. Aldrich, http://www.project1947.com/projecthenry/index.htm.
[^17]: Haines, notes 47 to 51, 72 to 74 and 79, citing Strong's letters and memorandum of 20 December 1957, Berkner's letter of 20 November 1957, Page's letter of 4 December 1957, Weber's letter of 15 August 1966, and Lear, "The Disputed CIA Document on UFOs," Saturday Review, 3 September 1966, p. 45.
[^18]: Donald E. Keyhoe, National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena, to the Central Intelligence Agency, 22 September 1958, with Agency routing slips of 30 September 1958 and note of 2 October 1958, CREST document CIA-RDP80B01676R004000110004-4 (5 pages), https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp80b01676r004000110004-4.
[^19]: Editors' notes in the online Condon Report, Appendix U, https://files.ncas.org/condon/text/appndx-u.htm ("previously deleted names" shown in braces).
[^20]: Condon, Section V, chapter 2, pp. 865 and 877-878.
[^21]: Condon, Appendix A, "Special Report of the USAF Scientific Advisory Board Ad Hoc Committee to Review Project 'Blue Book,'" March 1966, section I, https://files.ncas.org/condon/text/appndx-a.htm.
[^22]: Air Force action memorandum, "Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO)," 20 October 1969, with signature block of Brigadier General C. H. Bolender, paragraph 4, text at http://www.nicap.org/Bolender_Memo.htm.