The CIA and the UFO Mythos

Of course I don't propose that we don't have a truly anomalous mystery in the ufo phenomenon, but I do propose that many a ufologist's most prized cases are lame ducks that have wasted resources, created a mythology, and led to wild gooses chases. Until Ufology grows up and addresses the issue as a whole we're playing with a stacked deck.

It's important for any serious researcher or student of ufology to understand, REALLY understand, that the Intelligence Agencies have played us for fools at times. Sometimes, ahem, in the interest of National Security and even, it seems, sometimes for fun.

First, let's look at national security purposes:

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)
www.smithsonianconference.org...

Here's an excerpt from a declassified CIA doc that requires a little stamina to get through, but contains some nuggets such as:

CIA, under its assigned responsibilities, and in cooperation with the psychological strategy board, immediately investigate possible offensive or defensive utilization of the phenomena for psychological warfare purposes both for and against the United States, advising those agencies charged with U.S. internal security of any pertinent findings affecting their areas of responsibility. www.deeppoliticsforum.com...

Then we have the so-called Pentacle Memo:

Among other things, this document contains confirmation that Battelle Memorial Institute was working on UFO project(s) at the time of the Robertson Panel, (January 1953), and apparently could exercise some amount of control over the handling of the subject matter. 
www.cufon.org...

Therefore, we recommend that a controlled experiment be set up by which reliable physical data can be obtained. A tentative preliminary plan by which the experiment could be designed and carried out is discussed in the following paragraphs.

Assuming that, from our analysis, several definite areas productive of reports can be selected, we recommend that one or two of theses areas be set up as experimental areas. This area, or areas, should have observation posts with complete visual skywatch, with radar and photographic coverage, plus all other instruments necessary or helpful in obtaining positive and reliable data on everything in the air over the area. A very complete record of the weather should also be kept during the time of the experiment.

Coverage should be so complete that any object in the air could be tracked, and information as to its altitude, velocity, size, shape, color, time of day, etc. could be recorded. All balloon releases or known balloon paths, aircraft flights, and flights of rockets in the test area should be known to those in charge of the experiment. Many different types of aerial activity should be secretly and purposefully scheduled within the area.
www.philipcoppens.com...

This [Pentacle Memo] was the report that was also at the core of [Dr.] Leon Davidson’s enquiries and which made him conclude that the US government were using UFOs as part of a psychological warfare exercise…

...But Davidson pointed out that as early as 1945, mechanical countermeasures against radar had become publicly known – and used. It was known that these could cause blips on the radar screen, resulting in incorrect range, speed, or heading. This was called Electronic Countermeasures and Davidson believed this method of counterintelligence was used to present the myth that “UFOs” existed.

Davidson drew the infamous equation: ECM+CIA=UFO, suggesting that the CIA were creating ECM signals on radars, so that people would believe in the presence of UFOs, as they confirmed eyewitness accounts of anomalous objects in the sky. Furthermore, the anomalous blips were a perfect mechanism to distort the true capabilities of any new aircraft that was being test-flown – occasional sightings of which were passed off as UFOs too.
www.philipcoppens.com...

Dr. Leon Davidson

ECM + CIA = UFO-or-How to Cause a Radar Sighting by Dr. Leon Davidson

(CONTINUED...)

Remember that besides national security I said the intelligence operandi sometimes hoaxed for the heck of it? The following letter was written in response to the Disclosure Project and, I think, contains some bombshells of truth.

an Open Letter to CSETI from Jim Oberg circa 1997

…I believe there is a far more valuable body of "secrets" that will help understand the decades of UFO phenomena that the world has experienced. This deals with government-related activities which directly or indirectly led to public perceptions that UFOs might be real when they weren't.

Sometimes these actions were carefully orchestrated in advance, sometimes they were localized impromptu ad hoc damage- limitation tactics. But from my own experience, they seem to have played a tremendous and widely unappreciated role in inciting and enflaming public interests in UFOs while deflecting public attention from real highly-classified government activities. 

I'm referring to situations where government representatives -- officials, military officers, any employees -- used "UFO" as a convenient camouflage for other official classified activities (such as retrieval of crashed aircraft or nuclear weapons or other objects), or used artificial "UFO stories" (in oral, written, photographic, film, etc.) form as "tracers" in studying the function of security safeguards and personnel psychological responses, or used "UFO" as an excuse (either intended or accidental) to cover-up improper, forbidden, or diplomatically delicate activities (such as aviation incidents involving dangerous accidental or deliberate close passes or intercepts of civilian airliners, or overseas excursions of agents on intelligence missions where deflection of local perceptions was useful, or to conceal from the country of origin the possession of foreign military hardware), or played pranks and jokes on intended or accidental targets, or any other activity that the government -- or any part of it -- wanted to keep hidden, knowing that having it thought of as "UFO-related" would consign it to the never-never- land of myth and nuttiness, thus keeping mainstream media attention to a minimum. And it's worked!! 

Please include such "UFO secrets" in your list of disclosure demands, and ask that any government personnel involved in the use (or misuse and abuse) of such practices be immune from any government prosecution for the actions which led them to take such measures.

Once such immunity is verifiably granted, I have my own list of people who have privately talked to me over the years and who were involved in government activities leading to a number of well-known "UFO cases", which can be released and which can help understand where and how much of today's UFO mythology originated. 

This is a serious proposal deserving of serious consideration, and promises immensely fruitful results.
www.bibliotecapleyades.net...

I find aspects of the third paragraph extremely interesting...

There's a lot to digest there and if you sped through it, it might be worth going over again. Just reading, "…or used artificial "UFO stories" (in oral, written, photographic, film, etc.) form as "tracers" in studying the function of security safeguards and personnel psychological responses…" makes me wonder what "famous" photographs from the past might fall into this category?

I'm really hoping that this particular item will sink in and stimulate some discussion...and discovery.

(CONTINUED...)

Now I'm not saying that the CIA and Air Force and Naval Intelligence apparatus don't believe that there is an anomalous phenomenon, I'm just suggesting that they've used it for their own purposes and rather than cover up, they propagate their own mythology for myriad purposes.

I would further proffer that maybe, just maybe, one of those myriad purposes would include covering up their own ignorance. It's a lot more psychologically powerful for your enemies to believe that you have crashed craft and the knowledge that would come with it than to admit that after 60+ years of interest you still didn't know jack.

That the early UFO organizations were infiltrated by the CIA is a fairly well-known fact.

Further evidence of CIA influence in NICAP developed during the period
immediately before NICAP's decline. On December 3, 1969, Donald Keyhoe
was ousted as NICAP's Director during a Board meeting. Who led the
effort to remove Keyhoe? The Chairman of the Board, Col. Joesph Bryan,
former Chief of the CIA's Psychological Warfare Staff (1947-1953). And
who replaced Keyhoe? John Acuff, who was the head of the Society of
Photographic Scientists and Engineers (SPSE), a frequent target of
Russian spying attempts and a group that had many members involved in
Defense Department intelligence units, including the CIA.

His management of NICAP was financially "tight' (in the cheap sense) and
totally inept in a research sense. Criticism of government UFO policy
was gone, and NICAP merely served as a sighting collection center.
Acuff's management drove loyal NICAP Board members away and ultmately
led to Acuff's downfall in 1978.

Who replaced Acuff? None other than Alan Hall, a retired CIA employee,
who accepted the position after a number of other CIA employees were
offered the job. Support for Hall from the NICAP Board came from
Charles Lombard, an aide to Senator Goldwater and former CIA covert
employee.

NICAP eventually became so ineffective that it was dissolved, and the
group's UFO files were absorbed by the Center for UFO Studies in
Evanston, Illinois.

There certainly seems to be a pattern behind NICAP's destruction. Is it
a coincidence that so many ex-CIA people became deeply involved in the
operation of NICAP? It is possible that the CIA wanted to influence
NICAP activities for several reasons:

1) To gather intelligence through NICAP's investigators network.

2) To identify and plug leaks from government soures (NICAP was
renowned for receiving military-oriented reports).

3) To monitor other hostile intelligence agencies (NICAP received
several overtures from the Soviet KGB).
ufoupdateslist.com...

What becomes a little more obscure is the CIA's possible manipulation of the contactee movement.

George Adamski

Adamski UFO Photo

In "Unidentified Fascist Observatories", John Judge asserts that Adamski was an asset of the CIA, who in his lecture tours throughout the 50's and 60's dispersed disinfo on behalf of the Company.www.conspiracyarchive.com...

Allen Dulles, CIA

The Pied Pipers of the CIA
...In short, Menger’s story was a CIA experiment to see how easily and whom specifically could be fooled into believing anything...

...More significantly, it is now known that Adamski was the same: he was not only encouraged in his work, but actively supported and assisted, by the CIA.

This became known – though not widely reported when scientists attempting to investigate Adamski's claims (in an effort to discredit him and stop him in his tracks) were warned off by CIA Director Allen Dulles in person. And research has shown that during tours of Europe and Australia to promote his “message”, Adamski travelled on a passport furnished by the CIA. www.philipcoppens.com...

(Flying Saucer Review 1960 Credit: Kandinsky)

Finally, there is the tale of Howard Menger, author of the book From Outer Space to You. As the late and renowned Fortean authority John Keel noted in letters to the UFO researcher Gray Barker and Saucer Smear editor Jim Moseley, Menger termed his book “fiction-fact” and implied that the Pentagon had asked him to participate in an experiment to test the public’s reaction to extra-terrestrial contact…
mysteriousuniverse.org...

(CONTINUED...)

So how much of the information ufology has taken into it's very heart is pure mythology? Hard to say, but until we take that aspect seriously we will always be subject to chasing fairy tales.

What the Double-Cross experts had invented was the practical political applications of the Strange Loop. In logic or cybernetics, a Strange Loop is a set of propositions that, while valid at each point, is so constructed that it leads to an unresolvable paradox. The Double-Cross people drove the Germans bonkers by inventing disinformation systems that, if believed, were deceptive, but if doubted led to a second disinformation system.

They enjoyed this work so much that, at times, they invented Triple Loops...

These Strange Loops functioned especially well because the Double-Cross experts had early on fed the Germans the primordial Strange Loop. "Most of your agents are working for us and feeding your Strange Loops."

Many German agents, it later turned out, had managed to collect quite a bit of accurate information about the Normandy invasion, but many others turned in equally plausible information about a fictitious Norwegian invasion; and all of them were under suspicion, anyway. German Intelligence might as well have made its decisions by tossing a coin in the air."
--Robert Anton Wilson
www.skilluminati.com...

Further Reading:
Weapons of Mass Deception

The Alien Overlords

RAND, Superstition and Psychological Warfare

Follow the Magic Thread

Just for Fun:
Professor Blue & the UFO Mythos

just thought you should know it was hard to get on this thread as I had to click on a single period in a drunken stupor

Originally posted by lobotomizemecapin
just thought you should know it was hard to get on this thread as I had to click on a single period in a drunken stupor

Even in a sober coffeed up state, I wasn't going to try to aim at that little dot. My screen is only 2 x 3 inches big.

Good that there was a last post to click on.
Now I will scroll up and read the lengthy op.
It looks like much more work went into that, than the title.


**yay! There's a title now.

Thank you so much, Gut, for this excellent thread. You are such an exceptional assett to ATS. Man, I hope this thread doesn't die out-of-sight-out-of-mind really quick, but I'll bet ya all my money, it will.

I brought up awhile back, the facts of Betty and Barney Hill's 'friends' being involved with CIA psychological warfare, Air Force intelligence, and the JFK assassination.

I have pondered my own bad treatment of me and my military case, by Ufo people over the years, and some who I have known to be CIA themselves.

And yet there truly is a real and anomalous ufo phenomenon, as I have seen those myself, but still, what are they?

I will share this thread to my FaceBook page. I use FaceBook to spread awakening.

Pics or this thread doesn't exist

Too tired at mo to read ALL your posts (04:14 am, have to sleep now) but how do we know your evidence is real?
Just like people make silly fake videos, so too can the intelligence agency's make fake documents. If thats already been mentioned my appologies zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

reply to post by The GUT


'll go no further than take exception with the very first quote you offer given below:


"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)
www.smithsonianconference.org..."

The U-2 flew too high to be seen by the naked eye. So who reported those flights? The same is said about the SR-71 flights. Ben Rich in his Skunk Works details how the SR-71 upset NORAD radar folks such that they would tell them in advance that we would dbe lofting a fast craft through their areas. And those were not visible by the naked eye either. So who make those reports and worked out the statistics? Both planes were products of the CIA.

You accept the "facts" and figures of a pro-government facility such as the Smithsonian????????

This minor taking you to task at the start of your argument completely incaptiates it entirely. There are no major UFO cases built upon such supposed sightings.

How about we stick to the experiences of real people, inpromptu photograps of UFOs, abduction cases, etc? In other words, learn the history of UFO before you start telling us how the myth of the UFOs really came to be. Don't preach to the choir.

MOD EDIT

Excessive quote - no additional input.

Originally posted by The GUT
Of course I don't propose that we don't have a truly anomalous mystery in the ufo phenomenon, but I do propose that many a ufologist's most prized cases are lame ducks that have wasted resources, created a mythology, and led to wild gooses chases. Until Ufology grows up and addresses the issue as a whole we're playing with a stacked deck.

I personally don't think the individuals who witnessed aliens dragging a cow across a pasture in the 1970s was a fabrication or myth.

In fact, if anybody had enough care to look into a couple of cases from somebody they would understand the truth that nobody has enough care about anybody to do so - care about the truth from people.

Don't we love the truth? Oh probably not because it gives us a good hard steady slap in the face.

Originally posted by Saucerwench
Thank you so much, Gut, for this excellent thread. You are such an exceptional assett to ATS. Man, I hope this thread doesn't die out-of-sight-out-of-mind really quick, but I'll bet ya all my money, it will.

I brought up awhile back, the facts of Betty and Barney Hill's 'friends' being involved with CIA psychological warfare, Air Force intelligence, and the JFK assassination.

I have pondered my own bad treatment of me and my military case, by Ufo people over the years, and some who I have known to be CIA themselves.

Glad to see you aboard, Saucerwrench.

Yeah, Betty & Barney deserve another look that's for sure. Thanks for getting the word out.

However, the circumstances surrounding the Hills' experience reveal a very sinister story. It is clear that the Hills were being monitored by USAF Intelligence before the encounter took place, through Major James MacDonald, who had befriended them some time earlier. Betty Hill wrote to Donald Keyhoe who, despite the fact that he received over a hundred letters a day, homed in on this initially unremarkable case. (At that stage, the Hills remembered only the UFO sighting, not the abduction.) Within 24 hours, Keyhoe had arranged for the Hills to be visited by top-level scientists, including C.D. Jackson, who had previously (definitely not coincidentally) worked on psychological warfare techniques for President Eisenhower.

Stretching coincidence far beyond breaking point, Jackson already knew Major MacDonald, with whom he next interviewed the Hills.
Most importantly, it was Jackson who drew the Hills' attention to their missing time period; until he did so, the couple had not realised that their memories of that fateful night were incomplete. It was

Jackson who suggested hypnotic regression as a means of unlocking it. It was Jackson who then arranged for one of the Army's top psychiatric experts to undertake the regression (as if a civilian expert was not available?), under which the full story of the joint abduction “emerged”. However, as many researchers have since demonstrated, a careful review of the timings actually shows that there was no missing time at all.
The Pied Pipers of the CIA

Originally posted by Aliensun
reply to post by The GUT

 

'll go no further than take exception with the very first quote you offer...

...This minor taking you to task at the start of your argument completely incaptiates it entirely. There are no major UFO cases built upon such supposed sightings.

How about we stick to the experiences of real people, inpromptu photograps of UFOs, abduction cases, etc? In other words, learn the history of UFO before you start telling us how the myth of the UFOs really came to be. Don't preach to the choir.

Maybe you & Greyer didn't read all I wrote. I'm a believer, of sorts, though I lean to some form of the Interdimensional Hypothesis.

My point is that folk who ignore this very real aspect do a disservice to ufology and are in danger of wasting resources chasing wild geese.

I prefer to understand, to the best of my ability, all the factors surrounding the subject.

There's one huge flaw with the whole "it was actually mostly the CIA", the phenomenon actually started in Europe, on a regular basis, during WW2 and whilst I am sure some sightings can be put down to misidentified "human technology" the claims for the U2 are frankly risible. The truth is you couldn't have a more aircraft looking object, it's like something from the First World War rather than anything "space age" in its' appearance

As I've posted elsewhere, the SR 71 is nowt but a Bristol 188 knock off in just about every way and yet, even though the Bristol flew a few times, over pretty densely populated areas by comparison to US test areas, so far, I cannot find one UFO report linked to it and yet, the 188 looked way more "out there" when it was tested in the early 60s.

Going back to the U2, to the best of my knowledge it flew to and from only about a dozen bases, world wide and its' whole reason for existing, was to achieve as high an altitude as quickly as possible and stay there. That means the window for any sort of genuine visual on it flying were relatively tiny and confined to a tiny corridor of the Earth's surface and yet, they can't, or won't give details of a single actual report of a UFO directly linked to the U2.

Again, I see a huge problem with the, it was us buzzing aircraft, so be nice to us if we admit it cos there's these blokes who will tell you it was them however we can;t tell you who they are? Well excuse me however, I could give you a dozen tales as nebulous as that where people say exactly the opposite and they'd have the exact same totally unaccountable dubious source.

in fact what these reports from the CIA do seem to establish as a fact is that which many non Americans suspect. The CIA thinks, the USA equals the whole of the world it's a proven fact that in June 1947 it was the British who invented the "weather balloon" explanation and then shared that document with the American intelligence services just a few weeks before Roswell. Where's the CIA memo admitting that? That would at least establish a decent base line for the rest of the claims and yet, it's absence speaks volumes to me.

As for the "Black flag ops", I can totally believe that however, again it's long on speculation, completely bereft of documentation or witnesses There is, after 50 years, no logical reason whatsoever to hold back evidence if they have it, that it's just another "official " talking head saying believe us, when they've spent 70 years lying on a daily basis why should anyone believe a word they claim "officially" without exact and full details of how and when?

Let's be honest, the CIA did far far worse things, MK Ultra, toppling the elected government of Iran, supplying weapons to Dictators etc and yet we know chapter and verse, pretty much, what went on however, when it comes to UFOs there's this sudden shyness to actually just fess up and be done with it. Personally , I can;t see what can be worse about "flying close to a civilian jet" than, arming someone like Batista and actually training them in terror methods so they could slaughter their own population.

So for me, a huge credibility gap in that which has tantalisingly been dangled in public view.

Originally posted by FireMoon
So for me, a huge credibility gap in that which has tantalisingly been dangled in public view.

Has it occurred to you that you might be a victim of whatever ufo meme the intelligence agencies--Brit & American--might be selling?

It's always good to have as much information as possible and consider the possibility of disinfo.

Let me reiterate one more time for everyone:

I believe the ufo phenomenon has an anomalous basis. The point here is HOW & WHY have the waters been muddied by the intel agencies?

reply to post by The GUT


What I'm saying is GUT, when you have an established firm base in truth for the weather balloon explanation for UFOs and the very date it was shared with US intelligence you'd start there as a basis for the rest of your presentation. if you do that, you can lie through your teeth the rest of the time and a huge swathe of people will believe it because that introduction is provably true. That the Brits invented the "weather balloon" explanation surely must be , within the appropriate circles, as legendary as the "Led Zep snapper fish story" within road crews. That it doesn't even rate a mention says to me, the person who gave this chat knows "not a lot" about UFOs at all.

Geez, people are so emotionally invested in clinging to what --Ufology-- has inculcated into them.

Dudes, Gut is only trying to FYI to always keep in mind the close association of psyops to ufo-dum over the decades. It's -significant- . Do we know what that means? Not really, but it's significant, and it's there.

Why are other ufo followers so tense? If there's anyone who has a right to be tense, it's me, you all would not believe what Outer Limits I have gone through.

reply to post by Saucerwench


Hang on, the very same people willing to buy this hook line and sinker were often the very same people who flat out refused to believe the CIA indulged in any other "Psy ops" until they were forced to release the papers on it. The facts are, unlike pumping bacteria into the subway and tracking it, where there is specific evidence, there isn't a single piece of actual paper being offered here just a lot of "rumour" about something nowhere near as controversial.

reply to post by FireMoon


What about all the Aviary people?