UFO Sightings:  CIA, NSA, & Defense Intelligence Agency Files

UFO Sightings:  CIA, NSA, & Defense Intelligence Agency Files

4,888 pages of documents created or maintained and released by the CIA, NSA, and Defense Intelligence Agency. Files covering reporting of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO) and Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP). Some material was not released until 2021.

The files contain a text transcript of all computer recognizable text embedded into the graphic image of each page of each document, creating a searchable finding aid. Text searches can be done across all files in the collection.

This collection includes a full electronic text index with catalog for the entire collection of documents. This will greatly speed up text searches when used.

About the CIA's History in the Surveillance of UFO/UAP Reporting

"While Agency concern over UFOs was substantial until the early 1950s, CIA has since paid only limited and peripheral attention to the phenomena," wrote Gerald K. Haines, historian of the National Reconnaissance Office in a 1997 report.

In 2019, Gallup conducted a poll that found that 20 percent of Americans believed some UFO sightings can be attributed to alien visitation. Sixty-eight percent said that the government knows more than it is saying about UFOs. A major segment of interest of UFO buffs is a focus on the notion that the CIA has conducted secret activity involving and alien life forms.

The CIA became interested in the Air Force's investigations into reports of UFO activity. The Agency's primary concern was potential security threats by whatever the sources were causing UFO/UAP sightings. In a 15 March 1949 CIA memo with the subject "Flying Saucers", a Dr. Stone with the CIA's Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI), after reviewing the Air Force's data, particularly about the distribution of the sightings tendered the question, "Is there any midsummer madness involved? Are asteroids prominent in that season? Etc., etc."

By 1952, the Air Force concluded that all UFO reported incidents were natural phenomenon, known aircraft, mass hysteria, or hallucinations. Despite those conclusions, and his previous skepticism about earlier claims, in a July 29, 1952 memo Dr. Stone writes, “since there is a remote possibility that they may be interplanetary aircraft, it is necessary to investigate each sighting."

An increase of sightings in 1952 lead to the CIA creating a special study group within the Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI) and the Office of Current Intelligence (OCI) to review reports of UFO sightings. A 1953 U.S. Air Force report found that most all reports were of explainable and innoxious activity. The CIA then greatly reduced its surveillance of UFO reporting. Documents show that during the 1960's, 1970s and 1980s, the Agency continued a lower key interest in UFOs and UFO sightings.


Contents in this collection includes:

CIA Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90 (1997)

A 1997 article written by Gerald K. Hines, then National Reconnaissance Office historian, for the CIA's journal "Studies in Intelligence."

In the early 1990's the Agency came under increasing pressure by segments of the public and some elected officials to release additional information it may have held about UFOs. Then Director of Central Intelligence R. James Woolsey ordered a review all Agency files with subject matter covering UFOs. Hines used his access to those records to trace the CIA's interest and involvement in the study of reported UFO sightings from the late 1940s to 1990’s.

His report chronologically examined the Agency’s role in the U.S. government's investigation of UFO sightings. It covered CIA programs that contributed to reported UFO sightings, and its attempts to conceal CIA involvement in the entire UFO issue. Hines' report concludes that, while Agency concern over UFOs was substantial until the early 1950s, the CIA had since paid only limited and peripheral attention to reported UFO phenomena. 

CIA Files 

This collection catalogues CIA documented information on UFO sightings. The files date from the late 1940's to the mid 1990's. Many of the documents are CIA cables reporting what the CIA refers to as "unsubstantiated" UFO sightings. The collection includes various types of CIA documents, intra-Agency memos, monitoring of foreign press reporting on UFO sightings, reports of investigations and public perception, and how the Agency handled public inquiries about the UFO sightings.
 

CIA Files - Released in 2021

2,780 pages of documents including approximately 1,400 pages that were not cleared for release until 2020 and released in 2021. Many of the later copies released by the CIA are more legible than earlier releases. They also contain more reporting on foreign press.


CIA Files - Previous Releases

1,301 pages of documents released from earlier requests for documents from the CIA. This is the original collection of UFO/UEP related made available from freedom of information requests from the 1980's and 90's. Perfunctory examination of these documents gives the impression that most all the documents in these releases are also in the 2021 release. Having access to this collection allows researchers to see what material in the 2021 release had been previously withheld. 


NSA Files 

475 pages of files created or maintained and released by the National Security Agency (NSA).

Many of the NSA pages are difficult to read because of the method of copying the Agency chooses to use for the distributing copies of material released under the FOIA (Freedom of Information Act).

 

Highlights include: 

Files released by the National Security Agency (NSA) in response to a 1980 lawsuit seeking documents from the Agency by Citizens Against UFO Secrecy (CAUS). CAUS is a freedom of information activist group that advocates for the release of classified information regarding UFOs.

Communications Intelligence (COMINT) Reports - 241 pages of well redacted, formerly top report secret radar reports of UFO'S from the first half of the 1980's. Reports include basic information about speed, direction and altitude of the objects observed. 

DIA summary sheet and US Defense Attaché report on the sighting of a UFO in Iran on 19 September 1976. Several Department of State Telegrams reporting on UFO sightings in foreign countries. Articles from NSA journals. 


Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) Files

288 pages of DIA files mostly composed mostly of Department of Defense Intelligence Information Reports dating from 1954 to 1975. Approximately 240 pages of the files as released by the DIA contain discernable information. Approximately 50 pages are inadequately legible. Many of the reports contain firsthand accounts of UFO sightings.