UFO REPORTS THROTTLED BY CIA, PHYSICIST SAYS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000500070005-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 6, 2004
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: October 9, 1966
• Content Type: NSPR

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LOS A1V'CBLES TIMES
Approved For Release /0:91t69;IA-RDP7
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CIA, Physkst
Arizona Researcher Charges Agency Has
Ordered Air Force to Debunk Stories
TUCSON (M-The U.S.
Central Intelligence Agen-
cy has ordered the Air
Force to debunk stories on
unidentified f l y i n g ob-
jects, a University of Ari-
zor a physicist charges.
Dr. James E. McDonald,
senior physicist at the UA
.Institute of Atmospheric
Physics, said the hush-
hush policy has throttled
any scientific investiga-
tion of the objects.
He said there is reason
This, he said, i.. the rule
that makes it a crime pu-
nishable by up to 10 years
in prison and a S10,000
fine for any air base offici
al to give out such infor-
"It all has to go - to
Wright-Patterson w h e r e'
it's buried," McDonald :
may carry- ~~. ~.
jects y personMcDonald said the ob-
servers, outer space on recon- servers, for the most part,
naissance missions over are too reliable to be
the earth. brushed off so lightly. He'
He made his comments, cited the case last April 17
in a talk to scientists in the where sheriff's deputies
department of meteorolo- from Ravenna, Ohio, pur
gy. 1 sued' "a luminous object"
Discovers Order at 100 m.p.h. to Conway,
McDonald, also an advi-. Pa.
ser on the Navy's Storm Joined by Policemen
Fury pan e 1, said he The distance was nearly
reached the extraterrestial 100 miles, McDonald said,
theory reluctantly after and they were joined by
years of research on the '
UFO problem. two police officers from,
While doing. research at - nearby communities after
Wright-P a t tie r s o n Air t h e y heard their radio
Force Base in Ohio, where transmissions.
the Air Force filed its "The Air Force had its
flying saucer'reports, Mc- l explanation
said, "after McDr-;
Donald said he discovered m i idn u t e said, telephopho a four
the CIA order-with the' m telephone inter-
notation that its role not view with the deputies
be disclosed; which started out With the';
McDonald said the order .% question iNow, what about?
was attached to a book of ,that mirage you saw?"'
UFO investigations com M c D o n a l d ,said pun
piled by scientists and d r e d s of reports never
called the Robertson Re- reach the general public
.port. Completed in 1953, because of the debunking.
some, of, the report was de- Policy. He said the silent
classified a short time la- treatment was begun after
ter. the rash of sightings in'
But McDonald noted 1952 which reached a peak
that onl 'th f that summer.
r
t
ee o i
s our
J
sections were declassified
and when' he tried to fol-
low up his original re-
search' by seeking photos-
tatie copies, it was sudden-
ly reclassified
signed the order to de-
bunk UFO sightings. The
official explanation, Mc-
Donald said, was that such'
reports were clogging in- ?
telligence channels.
"I don't feel it's so much`'
a cover-up," McDonald
said. "But the truth is,that
there's been no real scien-
tific investigation of these
reports.
"People who make them
are exposed to ridicule'
and accused of seeing mir-
International Geot)hy
sits Year scientists on an
'Arctic expedition'noted Si-'
milar phenomena, he said.'
The blockade to scien
tists and others who at-
He said a. CIA agent tempt an investigation,
5 a i d McDonald, is Air
named, Philip G.Strong,
Force regulation 200-2.
Approved For Release 2004/02/10 : CIA-RDP75