The Birth of The CIA and Flying Saucers

There's been a lot of speculation in regards to the irony of the "birth of the CIA" (formerly, The Central Intelligence Group [CIG]) in September of 1947, coinciding with all the "flying saucer (UFO) activity" beginning (publicly speaking) in June of that year; starting with Kenneth Arnold's sighting near Mt Rainier, to the "crashed discs" in the area of Roswell, New Mexico. Some have claimed, that the sole purpose in creating the CIA was to investigate the "flying saucer" (UFO) phenomenon.

That, of course is not the case. "CIG" and then later the "CIA," were born primarily out of the realization of the importance of a "post war" intelligence gathering agency, similar to it's "war time" predecessor, the "OSS," and President Truman's frustration with being "out of the intelligence loop," as "Vice-President." In addition to the difficulty it had been for him to obtain information from the various government departments, each of which seemed "walled off" from the others.

At that time, by many accounts, he had been surprised to discover how much information relating to intelligence and national security matters had been "withheld" from him. The most dramatic evidence of how ill-informed he was came on his 12th day in office when "Secretary of War Henry Stimson" briefed him for the first time on the "Manhattan Project" (atomic bomb), about which Truman had heard only hints while serving as Vice-President and on key Senate committees. (David McCullough, Truman, Simon and Shuster, New York, 1992, pgs. 376-378.)

It is interesting to note however, that both CIG and the OSS did in fact investigate UFOs individually. The OSS investigated what US pilots had nicknamed "Foo Fighters" (UFOs trailing our aircraft during World War II), fearing that these objects could be a "new secret weapon" from either Germany or Japan. The OSS also investigated possible sightings of German V-1 and V-2 rockets before their operational use during the war. (Jacobs, UFO Controversy, p. 33.) The Central Intelligence Group, the predecessor of the CIA, also monitored reports of "ghost rockets" in Sweden in 1946. (CIG, Intelligence Report, 9 April 1947.)

The CIA's "official" position on the "investigation of UFOs" from a historical stand point is this: Although it had "monitored" UFO reports for at least three years, (49 to 52) CIA reacted to the new rash of sightings by forming a special study group within the Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI) and the Office of Current Intelligence (OCI) to review the situation. (Gerald K. Haines, National Reconnaissance Office historian, Ralph L. Clark, Acting Assistant Director, OSI, memorandum to DDI Robert Amory, Jr., 29 July 1952.)"OSI" and "OCI" were in the Directorate of Intelligence. Established in 1948, OSI served as the CIA's focal point for the analysis of foreign scientific and technological developments. In 1980, OSI was merged into the Office of Science and Weapons Research. The Office of Current Intelligence (OCI), established on 15 January 1951 was to provide all-source current intelligence to the President and the National Security Council.

Until 1952, one could conclude, "based on these statements," that the CIA had no "direct involvement" in the investigation of "flying saucers," other then a monitoring position of other agencies, i.e., the Air Force's Project SIGN (initially named Project SAUCER) to "collect, collate, evaluate, and distribute" within the government all information relating to such sightings, on the premise that UFOs might be real and of national security concern. (Jacobs, The UFO Controversy, p. 156 and Quintanilla, The Investigation of UFOs, p. 97.)

Amid mounting UFO sightings, the Air Force continued to collect and evaluate UFO data in the late 1940s under a new project, "GRUDGE", which tried to alleviate public anxiety over UFOs via a PR campaign designed to persuade the masses that UFOs constituted nothing unusual or extraordinary. UFO sightings were explained as "balloons, conventional aircraft, planets, meteors, optical illusions, solar reflections," or even "large hailstones." They recommended that the project be reduced in scope because the very existence of Air Force official interest encouraged people to believe in UFOs and contributed to a "war hysteria" atmosphere. On December 27, 1949, the Air Force announced the project's termination. (Air Force, Projects GRUDGE and BLUEBOOK Reports 1-12, National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena, Washington, DC, 1968 and Jacobs, The UFO Controversy, pgs. 50-54.)