Not only has the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency admitted its role in trying
to "correct" public opinion about UFOs over the last half century, it now
believes the policy caused "major problems" in dealing with the public.
In an internal report entitled "CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90,"
agency historian Gerald K. Haines portrayed the CIA as consistently and
deliberately working to suppress reports of unidentified aerial phenomena since
modern UFO sightings began with the Kenneth Arnold case of 1947.
Still, even in a paper filled with covert attempts on the part of both the CIA
and the Air Force to "persuade the public that UFOs were not extraordinary,"
Haines himself continued the suppressive policy, perhaps unconsciously, by
writing that the CIA "paid only limited and peripheral attention to the
phenomena" since the early 1950s.
This tension in the report, written at the request of CIA Director R. James
Woolsey in 1997, is a telling reflection of the government agency's troubled
broader relationship with UFO sightings and literature. Haines' history is
studded with depictions of the CIA not only repressing UFO reports and
reviewing recommendations that agents monitor UFO clubs for subversive
activities, [emphasis added] but also trying to hide its own interest in the matter.
Indeed, the struggle to "carefully restrict" and "forbid" any public awareness
of CIA involvement in UFO investigations eclipses the actual investigations as
the major thrust of the agency's UFO efforts. Even though the agency had
accepted the Air Force's conclusion that there was only "a remote possibility"
that UFOs were interplanetary aircraft as early as 1952, investigations of the
"massive buildup of sightings" went on, just in case.
Concealment of CIA interest
However, after 1953, when negative findings from a civilian panel motivated the
CIA to "put the entire issue of UFOs on the back burner" entirely, Haines said
the agency became almost exclusively concerned with covering up its own
involvement in the world of unidentified flying objects.
This aggressive policy of public non-involvement was important to the CIA for
many reasons. First, a number of agency officials and study groups over the
years urged the CIA to "conceal its interest" because such attention would seem
to officially sanction to the existence of UFOs. Although the agency itself,
like the Air Force, believed the chance of flying saucers posing a direct
threat was minimal, the fear that even unfounded public belief in the
phenomenon, if encouraged by government interest, could be enough to "touch off
mass hysteria and panic."
Particularly in the 1950s, the Cold War heightened this somewhat obsessive
concern with hiding any evidence of the CIA's involvement, said Haines.
Although the agency's UFO study group did not see any security threat emerging
directly out of flying saucers themselves, even if they actually existed, the
CIA was deeply worried by the possibility that Soviet agents could use UFOs as
"a possible psychological warfare tool" or cloak a more Earthly attack with
fake UFO reports.
Tantalizingly, Haines also noted that at least one CIA Director, Walter Bedell
Smith, "wanted to know what use could be made of the UFO phenomenon in
connection with US psychological warfare efforts." The report does not mention
whether the agency followed up on this opportunity to manipulate UFO reports in
a more sophisticated manner for its own purposes.
As the 1950s wore on, the CIA became even less interested in UFOs in themselves
and more concerned with covering up its own early involvement with the
phenomenon. In 1955, only the possibility that the Soviets would eventually
develop a flying saucer of their own kept the investigations from ending
completely.
Meanwhile, ironically, the CIA had built its own "unidentified flying object,"
the U-2 surveillance aircraft, and sightings of these planes needed to be kept
out of the media. According to Haines, Air Force investigators were "careful
not to reveal the true cause" of U-2 sightings. However, having no other means
of explaining the encounters, it is likely the field agents were forced either
to lie or retreat into a suspicious silence.
The return of the repressed
Haines argues that this suspicious silence was not a good strategy for the
agency, but the established need for secrecy left the CIA with little choice
while fervor over the government's role in "covering up" UFO information grew.
Even though the agency itself "had a declining interest in UFO cases" by the
late 1950s, it was still spending considerable resources looking out for "the
more sensational UFO reports and flaps" [emphasis added]in order to suppress them.
Ultimately, this policy backfired by highlighting the CIA's role in
investigation -- or the ominous cover-up thereof -- only to "add fuel to the
growing mystery surrounding UFOs." UFO researchers blamed the agency for
starting the UFO flap of the 1950s for psychological warfare purposes, and the
idea proved so persuasive that even CIA Director Stansfield Turner asked his
staff whether the agency was "in UFOs" after reading a 1979 New York Times
article.
At the end, Haines concluded, the tactics of silence and repression were a
failure. "The UFO issue probably will not go away soon, no matter what the
agency does or says. The belief that we are not alone in the universe is too
emotionally appealing and the distrust of our government is too pervasive to
make the issue amenable to traditional scientific studies of rational
explanation and evidence."
Indeed, much of that "distrust" was the CIA's own doing, and the benefits
appear to have been limited. Despite the agency's best efforts to keep UFO
reports out of the media, according to Haines, "an extraordinary 95 percent of
all Americans have at least heard or read something about UFOs, and 57 percent
believe they are real."
