CIA's
U-2 and OXCART as UFOs
In November
1954, CIA had entered into the world of high technology with its U-2
overhead reconnaissance project. Working with Lockheed's Advanced Development
facility in Burbank, California, known as the Skunk Works, and Kelly
Johnson, an eminent aeronautical engineer, the Agency by August 1955
was testing a high-altitude experimental aircraft--the U-2. It could
fly at 60,000 feet; in the mid-1950s, most commercial airliners flew
between 10,000 feet and 20,000 feet. Consequently, once the U-2 started
test flights, commercial pilots and air traffic controllers began reporting
a large increase in UFO sightings. (44)
(U)
The early
U-2s were silver (they were later painted black) and reflected the rays
from the sun, especially at sunrise and sunset. They often appeared
as fiery objects to observers below. Air Force BLUE BOOK investigators
aware of the secret U-2 flights tried to explain away such sightings
by linking them to natural phenomena such as ice crystals and temperature
inversions. By checking with the Agency's U-2 Project Staff in Washington,
BLUE BOOK investigators were able to attribute many UFO sightings to
U-2 flights. They were careful, however, not to reveal the true cause
of the sighting to the public.
According
to later estimates from CIA officials who worked on the U-2 project
and the OXCART (SR-71, or Blackbird) project, over half of all UFO reports
from the late 1950s through the 1960s were accounted for by manned reconnaissance
flights (namely the U-2) over the United States. (45) This
led the Air Force to make misleading and deceptive statements to the
public in order to allay public fears and to protect an extraordinarily
sensitive national security project. While perhaps justified, this deception
added fuel to the later conspiracy theories and the coverup controversy
of the 1970s. The percentage of what the Air Force considered unexplained
UFO sightings fell to 5.9 percent in 1955 and to 4 percent in 1956. (46)
At the
same time, pressure was building for the release of the Robertson panel
report on UFOs. In 1956, Edward Ruppelt, former head of the Air Force
BLUE BOOK project, publicly revealed the existence of the panel. A best-selling
book by UFOlogist Donald Keyhoe, a retired Marine Corps major, advocated
release of all government information relating to UFOs. Civilian UFO
groups such as the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena
(NICAP) and the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) immediately
pushed for release of the Robertson panel report. (47) Under
pressure, the Air Force approached CIA for permission to declassify
and release the report. Despite such pressure, Philip Strong, Deputy
Assistant Director of OSI, refused to declassify the report and declined
to disclose CIA sponsorship of the panel. As an alternative, the Agency
prepared a sanitized version of the report which deleted any reference
to CIA and avoided mention of any psychological warfare potential in
the UFO controversy. (48)
The demands,
however, for more government information about UFOs did not let up.
On 8 March 1958, Keyhoe, in an interview with Mike Wallace of CBS, claimed
deep CIA involvement with UFOs and Agency sponsorship of the Robertson
panel. This prompted a series of letters to the Agency from Keyhoe and
Dr. Leon Davidson, a chemical engineer and UFOlogist. They demanded
the release of the full Robertson panel report and confirmation of CIA
involvement in the UFO issue. Davidson had convinced himself that the
Agency, not the Air Force, carried most of the responsibility for UFO
analysis and that "the activities of the US Government are responsible
for the flying saucer sightings of the last decade." Indeed, because
of the undisclosed U-2 and OXCART flights, Davidson was closer to the
truth than he suspected. CI, nevertheless held firm to its policy of
not revealing its role in UFO investigations and refused to declassify
the full Robertson panel report. (49)
In a meeting
with Air Force representatives to discuss how to handle future inquires
such as Keyhoe's and Davidson's, Agency officials confirmed their opposition
to the declassification of the full report and worried that Keyhoe had
the ear of former DCI VAdm. Roscoe Hillenkoetter, who served on the
board of governors of NICAP. They debated whether to have CIA General
Counsel Lawrence R. Houston show Hillenkoetter the report as a possible
way to defuse the situation. CIA officer Frank Chapin also hinted that
Davidson might have ulterior motives, "some of them perhaps not in the
best interest of this country," and suggested bringing in the FBI to
investigate. (50) Although
the record is unclear whether the FBI ever instituted an investigation
of Davidson or Keyhoe, or whether Houston ever saw Hillenkoetter about
the Robertson report, Hillenkoetter did resign from the NICAP in 1962. (51)
The Agency
was also involved with Davidson and Keyhoe in two rather famous UFO
cases in the 1950s, which helped contribute to a growing sense of public
distrust of CIA with regard to UFOs. One focused on what was reported
to have been a tape recording of a radio signal from a flying saucer;
the other on reported photographs of a flying saucer. The "radio code"
incident began innocently enough in 1955, when two elderly sisters in
Chicago, Mildred and Marie Maier, reported in the Journal of Space
Flight their experiences with UFOs, including the recording of a
radio program in which an unidentified code was reportedly heard. The
sisters taped the program and other ham radio operators also claimed
to have heard the "space message." OSI became interested and asked the
Scientific Contact Branch to obtain a copy of the recording. (52)
Field officers
from the Contact Division (CD), one of whom was Dewelt Walker, made
contact with the Maier sisters, who were "thrilled that the government
was interested," and set up a time to meet with them. (53) In
trying to secure the tape recording, the Agency officers reported that
they had stumbled upon a scene from Arsenic and Old Lace. "The
only thing lacking was the elderberry wine," Walker cabled Headquarters.
After reviewing the sisters' scrapbook of clippings from their days
on the stage, the officers secured a copy of the recording. (54) OSI
analyzed the tape and found it was nothing more than Morse code from
a US radio station.
The matter
rested there until UFOlogist Leon Davidson talked with the Maier sisters
in 1957. The sisters remembered they had talked with a Mr. Walker who
said he was from the US Air Force. Davidson then wrote to a Mr. Walker,
believing him to be a US Air Force Intelligence Officer from Wright-Patterson,
to ask if the tape had been analyzed at ATIC. Dewelt Walker replied
to Davidson that the tape had been forwarded to proper authorities for
evaluation, and no information was available concerning the results.
Not satisfied, and suspecting that Walker was really a CIA officer,
Davidson next wrote DCI Allen Dulles demanding to learn what the coded
message revealed and who Mr. Walker was. (55)
The Agency, wanting to keep Walker's identity as a CIA employee
secret, replied that another agency of the government had analyzed the
tape in question and that Davidson would be hearing from the Air Force. (56) On
5 August, the Air Force wrote Davidson saying that Walker "was and is
an Air Force Officer" and that the tape "was analyzed by another government
organization." The Air Force letter confirmed that the recording contained
only identifiable Morse code which came from a known US-licensed radio
station. (57)
Davidson
wrote Dulles again. This time he wanted to know the identity of the
Morse operator and of the agency that had conducted the analysis. CIA
and the Air Force were now in a quandary. The Agency had previously
denied that it had actually analyzed the tape. The Air Force had also
denied analyzing the tape and claimed that Walker was an Air Force officer.
CIA officers, under cover, contacted Davidson in Chicago and promised
to get the code translation and the identification of the transmitter,
if possible. (58)
In another
attempt to pacify Davidson, a CIA officer, again under cover and wearing
his Air Force uniform, contacted Davidson in New York City. The CIA
officer explained that there was no super agency involved and that Air
Force policy was not to disclose who was doing what. While seeming to
accept this argument, Davidson nevertheless pressed for disclosure of
the recording message and the source. The officer agreed to see what
he could do. (59) After
checking with Headquarters, the CIA officer phoned Davidson to report
that a thorough check had been made and, because the signal was of known
US origin, the tape and the notes made at the time had been destroyed
to conserve file space. (60)
Incensed
over what he perceived was a runaround, Davidson told the CIA officer
that "he and his agency, whichever it was, were acting like Jimmy Hoffa
and the Teamster Union in destroying records which might indict them." (61)
Believing that any more contact with Davidson would only encourage
more speculation, the Contact Division washed its hands of the issue
by reporting to the DCI and to ATIC that it would not respond to or
try to contact Davidson again. (62) Thus,
a minor, rather bizarre incident, handled poorly by both CIA and the
Air Force, turned into a major flap that added fuel to the growing mystery
surrounding UFOs and CIA's role in their investigation.
Another
minor flap a few months later added to the growing questions surrounding
the Agency's true role with regard to flying saucers. CIA's concern
over secrecy again made matters worse. In 1958, Major Keyhoe charged
that the Agency was deliberately asking eyewitnesses of UFOs not to
make their sightings public. (63)
The incident
stemmed from a November 1957 request from OSI to the CD to obtain from
Ralph C. Mayher, a photographer for KYW-TV in Cleveland, Ohio, certain
photographs he took in 1952 of an unidentified flying object. Harry
Real, a CD officer, contacted Mayher and obtained copies of the photographs
for analysis. On 12 December 1957, John Hazen, another CD officer, returned
the five photographs of the alleged UFO to Mayher without comment. Mayher
asked Hazen for the Agency's evaluation of the photos, explaining that
he was trying to organize a TV program to brief the public on UFOs.
He wanted to mention on the show that a US intelligence organization
had viewed the photographs and thought them of interest. Although he
advised Mayher not to take this approach, Hazen stated that Mayher was
a US citizen and would have to make his own decision as to what to do. (64)
Keyhoe
later contacted Mayher, who told him his story of CIA and the photographs.
Keyhoe then asked the Agency to confirm Hazen's employment in writing,
in an effort to expose CIA's role in UFO investigations. The Agency
refused, despite the fact that CD field representatives were normally
overt and carried credentials identifying their Agency association.
DCI Dulles's aide, John S. Earman, merely sent Keyhoe a noncommittal
letter noting that, because UFOs were of primary concern to the Department
of the Air Force, the Agency had referred his letter to the Air Force
for an appropriate response. Like the response to Davidson, the Agency
reply to Keyhoe only fueled the speculation that the Agency was deeply
involved in UFO sightings. Pressure for release of CIA information on
UFOs continued to grow. (65)
Although
CIA had a declining interest in UFO cases, it continued to monitor UFO
sightings. Agency officials felt the need to keep informed on UFOs if
only to alert the DCI to the more sensational UFO reports and flaps. (66)
The 1960s:
Declining CIA Involvement and Mounting Controversy
In the
early 1960s, Keyhoe, Davidson, and other UFOlogists maintained their
assault on the Agency for release of UFO information. Davidson now claimed
that CIA "was solely responsible for creating the Flying Saucer furor
as a tool for cold war psychological warfare since 1951." Despite calls
for Congressional hearings and the release of all materials relating
to UFOs, little changed. (67)
In 1964,
however, following high-level White House discussions on what to do
if an alien intelligence was discovered in space and a new outbreak
of UFO reports and sightings, DCI John McCone asked for an updated CIA
evaluation of UFOs. Responding to McCone's request, OSI asked the CD
to obtain various recent samples and reports of UFO sightings from NICAP.
With Keyhoe, one of the founders, no longer active in the organization,
CIA officers met with Richard H. Hall, the acting director. Hall gave
the officers samples from the NICAP database on the most recent sightings. (68)
After OSI
officers had reviewed the material, Donald F. Chamberlain, OSI Assistant
Director, assured McCone that little had changed since the early 1950s.
There was still no evidence that UFOs were a threat to the security
of the United States or that they were of "foreign origin." Chamberlain
told McCone that OSI still monitored UFO reports, including the official
Air Force investigation, Project BLUE BOOK. (69)
At the
same time that CIA was conducting this latest internal review of UFOs,
public pressure forced the Air Force to establish a special ad hoc committee
to review BLUE BOOK. Chaired by Dr. Brian O'Brien, a member of the Air
Force Scientific Advisory Board, the panel included Carl Sagan, the
famous astronomer from Cornell University. Its report offered nothing
new. It declared that UFOs did not threaten the national security and
that it could find "no UFO case which represented technological or scientific
advances outside of a terrestrial framework." The committee did recommend
that UFOs be studied intensively, with a leading university acting as
a coordinator for the project, to settle the issue conclusively. (70)
The House
Armed Services Committee also held brief hearings on UFOs in 1966 that
produced similar results. Secretary of the Air Force Harold Brown assured
the committee that most sightings were easily explained and that there
was no evidence that "strangers from outer space" had been visiting
Earth. He told the committee members, however, that the Air Force would
keep an open mind and continue to investigate all UFO reports. (71)
Following
the report of its O'Brien Committee, the House hearings on UFOs, and
Dr. Robertson's disclosure on a CBS Reports program that CIA
indeed had been involved in UFO analysis, the Air Force in July 1966
again approached the Agency for declassification of the entire Robertson
panel report of 1953 and the full Durant report on the Robertson panel
deliberations and findings. The Agency again refused to budge. Karl
H. Weber, Deputy Director of OSI, wrote 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." Weber noted that there was already
a sanitized version available to the public. (72) Weber's
response was rather shortsighted and ill considered. It only drew more
attention to the 13-year-old Robertson panel report and CIA's role in
the investigation of UFOs. The science editor of The Saturday Review
drew nationwide attention to the CIA's role in investigating UFOs
when he published an article criticizing the "sanitized version" of
the 1953 Robertson panel report and called for release of the entire
document. (73)
Unknown
to CIA officials, Dr. James E. McDonald, a noted atmospheric physicist
from the University of Arizona, had already seen the Durant report on
the Robertson panel proceedings at Wright-Patterson on 6 June 1966.
When McDonald returned to Wright-Patterson on 30 June to copy the report,
however, the Air Force refused to let him see it again, stating that
it was a CIA classified document. Emerging as a UFO authority, McDonald
publicly claimed that the CIA was behind the Air Force secrecy policies
and coverup. He demanded the release of the full Robertson panel report
and the Durant report. (74)
Bowing
to public pressure and the recommendation of its own O'Brien Committee,
the Air Force announced in August 1966 that it was seeking a contract
with a leading university to undertake a program of intensive investigations
of UFO sightings. The new program was designed to blunt continuing charges
that the US Government had concealed what it knew about UFOs. On 7 October,
the University of Colorado accepted a $325,000 contract with the Air
Force for an 18-month study of flying saucers. Dr. Edward U. Condon,
a physicist at Colorado and a former Director of the National Bureau
of Standards, agreed to head the program. Pronouncing himself an "agnostic"
on the subject of UFOs, Condon observed that he had an open mind on
the question and thought that possible extraterritorial origins were
"improbable but not impossible." (75) Brig.
Gen. Edward Giller, USAF, and Dr. Thomas Ratchford from the Air Force
Research and Development Office became the Air Force coordinators for
the project.
In February
1967, Giller contacted Arthur C. Lundahl, Director of CIA's National
Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC), and proposed an informal
liaison through which NPIC could provide the Condon Committee with technical
advice and services in examining photographs of alleged UFOs. Lundahl
and DDI R. Jack Smith approved the arrangement as a way of "preserving
a window" on the new effort. They wanted the CIA and NPIC to maintain
a low profile, however, and to take no part in writing any conclusions
for the committee. No work done for the committee by NPIC was to be
formally acknowledged. (76)
Ratchford
next requested that Condon and his committee be allowed to visit NPIC
to discuss the technical aspects of the problem and to view the special
equipment NPIC had for photoanalysis. On 20 February 1967, Condon and
four members of his committee visited NPIC. Lundahl emphasized to the
group that any NPIC work to assist the committee must not be identified
as CIA work. Moreover, work performed by NPIC would be strictly of a
technical nature. After receiving these guidelines, the group heard
a series of briefings on the services and equipment not available elsewhere
that CIA had used in its analysis of some UFO photography furnished
by Ratchford. Condon and his committee were impressed. (77)
Condon
and the same group met again in May 1967 at NPIC to hear an analysis
of UFO photographs taken at Zanesville, Ohio. The analysis debunked
that sighting. The committee was again impressed with the technical
work performed, and Condon remarked that for the first time a scientific
analysis of a UFO would stand up to investigation. (78) The
group also discussed the committee's plans to call on US citizens for
additional photographs and to issue guidelines for taking useful UFO
photographs. In addition, CIA officials agreed that the Condon Committee
could release the full Durant report with only minor deletions.
In April
1969, Condon and his committee released their report on UFOs. The report
concluded that little, if anything, had come from the study of UFOs
in the past 21 years and that further extensive study of UFO sightings
was unwarranted. It also recommended that the Air Force special unit,
Project BLUE BOOK, be discontinued. It did not mention CIA participation
in the Condon committee's investigation. (79) A
special panel established by the National Academy of Sciences reviewed
the Condon report and concurred with its conclusion that "no high priority
in UFO investigations is warranted by data of the past two decades."
It concluded its review by declaring, "On the basis of present knowledge,
the least likely explanation of UFOs is the hypothesis of extraterrestrial
visitations by intelligent beings." Following the recommendations of
the Condon Committee and the National Academy of Sciences, the Secretary
of the Air Force, Robert C. Seamans, Jr., announced on 17 December 1969
the termination of BLUE BOOK. (80)