My Teenage Composition About UFOs Remained Concealed In CIA Files For Almost 35 Years

Living Rent-Free at the CIA

Many years have passed since I actively pursued the UFO issue, so as a bystander I applaud the efforts of researchers who strain their eyes and miss dinner as they endlessly pore through old government files and tattered private documents. I believe the last time I delved heavily into an inquiry of consequence occurred in the eighties when the late Bob Warth of the Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained (SITU, now long defunct) talked me into exploring documents at a university library for some project whose end-game was best known to himself. In the seventies I spent considerable time in

By Robert Barrow The UFO Chronicles 10-18-19

Rochester, NY where I researched files at Kodak and the George Eastman House for a firm involved with the production of Kodak's centennial edition of Studio Light, a favorite of professional photographers.

With that behind me, it's fair to say that my lack of hands-on involvement with UFO inquiries these days causes me to miss a lot. Yes, I have occasionally run into some minor thing I wrote or was written about me in old files released by private concerns or government agencies, but I tend to happen upon such soon-forgotten things by chance.

Therefore, it was no surprise, yet intriguing, when I stumbled upon something on the Internet last week that made me blink twice, or better make that three times. Apparently, it has been out there since release by the CIA -- yeah, that CIA -- in 2003 with its own government file number.

As a teenager in the sixties I wrote plenty of letters to editors of numerous newspapers and magazines regarding UFOs, and most of them were printed. A particular newspaper letter, typed out in January of 1967, listed important UFO reports from the previous year, and we all know that 1966 was a stunning year for interesting UFO cases.

Thing is, it seems my comments referencing the CIA perked up official eyes somewhere because the entirety of the letter ended up in CIA files.

I've only included a small portion of the newspaper piece here, but as you can see there is a small underlining where I mentioned the CIA. Apparently, somebody making this mark determined the letter-to-the-editor appropriate for filing in the Spook House. For almost 35 years, my teenage composition about UFOs remained concealed in CIA files for reasons best known to the person or persons who made the decision to throw it into the pile.

Why? Simply because it mentions the CIA? Because UFOs in 1966 were of considerable concern officially? A reference to the (not specified at that time) Robertson Panel report? And if one wishes to file away a letter of this nature from a homegrown writer, why not at the FBI? Was I considered a global crackpot? International terrorist? National security threat? Merely a curiosity? Was I Billy the Kid? John Dillinger? Clyde Barrow (sorry, no relation)? Half human and half dog? Was it clipped from the newspaper and just squirreled away for "later," much like when your grandma cut out pie recipes for pies she never baked?

Really, I don't comprehend the total picture here because everything I wrote was public knowledge by that time. I'm betting there was increased high-level government concern about UFOs, particularly after 1966 flooded the nation with disturbing sighting reports, so maybe everything in print was fair game. Still. . .

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. I do so compassionately hope, as somebody in Officialdom was running breathlessly across the floor in 1967 with scissors all sharpened up and poised to clip a newspaper op-ed letter, intended for either the creation or augmentation of a darling little WATCH-FILE NAMED IN MY HONOR, that they didn't trip over the sports page and sustain an injury.

Of course, a potential complication now is the CIA trolling the Internet, finding this blog page and supplementing the old file with (sigh. . .) a new entry. If only they had stuck with the front page in 1967 and read no further. Argh!

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See Also:

The CIA's Secret Counterintelligence Project

The CIA's Infiltration of NICAP (The National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena)?

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Congress, UFOs, NICAP and The CIA

REPORT YOUR UFO EXPERIENCE

UFO Believers Part II

By Frank Warren
The UFO Chronicles
© 2006-2009

     For those of us that have been around long enough to watch the transition of the media “reporting” the news to the “editorializing” of it, and some would say as of late the “propagation” of it—many of us realize the power the medium wields which publishes this information. I often have said that “the greatest power on the earth is the media, and that the most powerful people, are those that hold the reins.”

Most military historians can cite the use of, and agree upon the importance of “propaganda” and its sister “censorship.” The layperson may find it surprising that the “powers-that-be” used those very tools from the very introduction (in a public way) to the “UFO phenomenon.”

When UFOs were reported off the coast in 1941 which set off “two alarms” and initiated a “blackout,” in the aftermath the “War Department” over turned “eye witness accounts” of their “Generals in place” and said the actions were “only tests.” Similarly, in February of 1942 it happened again, the powers-that-be discounted the declarations of thousands of witnesses, and gave an “explanation” of jittery war nerves.

As the war progressed and pilots were reporting what they nicknamed, ”Foo Fighters ,” (UFOs trailing our aircraft) a silence order was quickly put into effect. After the war in 1946, the Swedish officials exorcised “censorship” with the media in regards to what would be called Ghost Rockets.

Following the death (in 1947) of two “official UFO investigators” (Brown & Davidson) of the Army’s CIC (Counter Intelligence Corps) in a fiery airplane crash, after meeting “flying saucer witness” Kenneth Arnold the military “put a muzzle on the media” for weeks.

In 1953, a group was put together by the CIA called “The Robertson Panel,” led by its namesake H. P. Robertson, a noted physicist from the California Institute of Technology. The panel consisted of a distinguished group of non-military scientists to study the UFO issue. It included Samuel A. Goudsmit, a nuclear physicist from the Brookhaven National Laboratories; Luis Alvarez, a high-energy physicist; Thornton Page, the deputy director of the Johns Hopkins Operations Research Office and an expert on radar and electronics; and Lloyd Berkner, a director of the Brookhaven National Laboratories and a specialist in geophysics.

Following a very “brief investigation” the panel concluded that the manipulation of information to the public was paramount. The panel recommended to the “National Security Council” that UFO reports be debunked and a policy of public education instituted to reassure the masses of the lack of evidence behind UFOs. It suggested using the media, advertising, business clubs, schools, and even the Disney corporation to get the message across.

The Air Force terminated its (overt) investigation (Project Blue Book) of UFOs in 1969 with the completion of the “Condon Report.” The common consensus amongst Ufologists is that “Blue Book” was at the least a “weak attempt” at investigating the phenomenon, and at most, an “internal cog” of the “debunking process.”

Which brings us back to recent times; back to the media using terms like believe, believers, enthusiasts etc., in regards to reporting the UFO phenomenon. (Noted Ufologist Richard Hall in How to debunk UFOs and Discredit UFO Proponents, writes, “Always refer to them as UFO believers or ETH believers, implying that their position is faith-based.”) Some believe that there exists a conspiracy today executed by those whom hold the reins to what Americans read, see or hear regarding the news, specifically in relation to UFO reports.

Whether the latter is true or not, is open for debate; however, in my view, the past actions of the powers-that-be certainly have had a “psycho-sociological effect” on society, as well as the media and this phenomenon has crossed generations.

Imagine if you will a news report about the “Empire State Building,” with a reporter stating, “Empire State Building believers” gathered today . . . or “Washington Monument believers” stated today . . .. Doesn’t make sense does it. Associating the verb “believers” with a “factual” thing is nonsensical—period! The irony of course is that the term “UFO” was borne by the very agency that was most fervent in its attempts to discredit it.

See Also:

UFO Believers (Part 1)

UFO Ignorance
- Part 1 -

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