By Charles Lear
The CIA and FBI were interested in UFOs. It’s on the record and you, the public, can see for yourselves in documents released by both organizations. What’s not entirely evident is the interest those agencies had in civilian research organizations. Did the CIA and FBI plant undercover agents among members of certain groups that had achieved a certain level of popular recognition? Were there operations to discredit prominent researchers and witnesses? Were wiretaps or surveillance devices utilized to monitor researchers and those who provided them with sensitive information? If it can be determined that individuals or groups looking into the subject of UFOs were considered a threat to national security then the answer is, “most likely.”
In 1976, a U.S. Senate Committee released a report, “Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans” documenting their findings regarding the illegal activities of U.S. intelligence agencies in the effort to keep our country safe. The investigators looked at activities from World War II on and what they found was that a key word used to justify certain practices was never precisely defined and that word was, “subversive.” By labeling any group or individual subversive, various agencies felt free to engage in subterfuge, underhandedness and dirty tricks. The subversive threat in the late 40’s and throughout the fifties and sixties was communism and, by the sixties, any ideology too far left or right of center was looked upon as possibly dangerous. Groups who were investigated and targeted ranged from the John Birch Society to the N.A.A.C.P. In 1956, the FBI began a counterintelligence program or, COINTELPRO, in order to disrupt or neutralize groups or individuals that were considered a threat to “domestic security.” According to the report, employed tactics included: inducing employers to fire targets by anonymously attacking their political beliefs, mailing anonymous letters to targets’ spouses to break up marriages, falsely identifying certain members of groups as informants, and setting one group against another with false claims of threats or slander. Members of the UFO community have reported suspicions that they too were subject to similar intelligence operations and researcher William Moore went so far as to state that he had been used by intelligence agencies as a means of passing disinformation to other researchers.
One of the earliest citizen UFO research groups was the International Flying Saucer Bureau started by Albert K. Bender. On the FBI website section called, “The Vault” in the beginning of the declassified UFO files part 12, there is a letter dated January 20, 1953 from a concerned citizen who had joined the IFSB and wanted to know if the group was “subversive in any way.” This sort of letter recurs continually throughout the files with writers inquiring about organizations such as the Aerial Phenomenon Research Group (part 12, page 116) and the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (part 16, page 101). A group that got a lot of attention, including surveillance, an interview and reprimand was the Detroit Flying Saucers Club (part 13, page 18). It was reported that one of the club members claimed to be working with the FBI and he was questioned by agents and told to stop. In a 1954 memorandum, (part 13, page 38) information given to the FBI by an “acquaintance” of Leonard Stringfield, Director of Civilian Research, Interplanetary Flying Objects, is discussed. The informant related that Stringfield had been advised by Frank Edwards (a radio host who was fired from an A.F. of L. sponsored news program for promoting his flying saucer beliefs on air due to what Stringfield believed was pressure from the Air Force) to be cautious in his research lest the Air Force step in and force him to cease publishing his newsletters. The source further revealed that Stringfield felt his phone was being tapped and that he made sensitive calls from his work phone. The memo closes with relation of the informant’s feeling that there was a “possibility” that Stringfield was using his organization as a front to “gather bits of information about a very secret U.S. Air Force Development Project [sic].”
The released F.B.I. files show there was an official acknowledgement of citizen concerns about UFO researchers but there are few details regarding the extent of the follow up. Were people who were interested in UFOs considered a possible national security threat? On page 23 of the “REPORT OF SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY PANEL ON UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS CONVENED BY OFFICE OF SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE, CIA January 14 – 18, 1953” also known as the “Robertson Report” there is this statement:
“The Panel took cognizance of the existence of such groups as the “Civilian Flying Saucer Investigators” (Los Angeles) and the “Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (Wisconsin). It was believed that such organizations should be watched because of their potentially great influence on mass thinking if widespread sightings should occur. The apparent irresponsibility and the possible use of such groups for subversive purposes should be kept in mind.”
In light of the fact that this was at the height of the McCarthyism period, such a statement likely had a big impact on the intelligence community.
During this same period, people claiming to have been in contact with extraterrestrials were gaining popular attention. People such as George Adamski and George Van Tassel, collectively referred to as “contactees” were lecturing and passing along messages from our “space brothers” pleading that we give up our atomic weapons and learn to live peaceably. The idea that they were tools for Russian propaganda was seriously considered and there are over 300 pages of released files on Van Tassel alone. Van Tassel was first brought to the F.B.I.’s attention by a letter with a Los Angeles Times letterhead written by a reporter. The writer mentions one of the speakers scheduled for a convention being held by Van Tassel on his property at Giant Rock, in Yucca Valley, California had been questioned about his ties with communists. After more letters were received where writers expressed concern that Van Tassel himself might be a communist, agents were sent to Giant Rock to interview Van Tassel. With Van Tassel being absent they interviewed his wife and returned later to interview him. Both of them told the agents, on the record, that George had been awakened at 2:00 AM in August of 1953, by a man from space who took him to a landed saucer with three other space men in it. There he was told that we were using too much metal and that it was interfering with their “radio frequencies” and “thought transfers.” Van Tassel claimed to have been receiving continual thought transfers and this was the basis on which he founded “The College of Universal Wisdom”. He put out a bi-monthly publication “The Proceedings of the College of Universal Wisdom” and held gatherings on his property at Giant Rock, which included an airstrip he maintained that was certified as an emergency landing strip by the Civil Aeronautics Authority. Van Tassel offered his full cooperation as a patriot to the F.B.I. and it was noted that he’d offered his help to the Bureau in 1940 to uncover “sabotage or espionage” at the Douglas Aircraft factory where he was employed as a mechanic. Letters continued to come into the F.B.I. expressing concern for his “communistic” messages and, on April 17, 1960 an undercover agent attended a lecture by Van Tassel at Phipps Auditorium in Denver, Colorado and issued a full report on its content. In a letter dated 4/14/65 from the Los Angeles office to the Miami office the writer states that because of Van Tassel’s “mental condition” no further inquiries into Van Tassel by either office were needed. There are other F.B.I. files on contactees including 286 pages on Adamski containing similar subversion concerns that can be found at The Black Vault site.
The C.I.A. has also posted declassified documents on their website. Most of the documents show an interest in UFO reports but almost none deal with researchers. A memo dated May 16, 1958 contains details of a meeting concerning efforts by Leon Davidson (who convinced a Congressional Committee to allow him to publish the Air Force’s Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14) and Donald Keyhoe (Director of N.I.C.A.P.) to get the Scientific Advisory Panel Report on Unidentified Flying Objects fully declassified. Because of national security concerns, steps were recommended to avoid this including showing the report to Vice Admiral R.H. Hillenkoeter, USN (Ret.) who was on N.I.C.A.P.’s board of governors and that he would understand the need for secrecy and “take appropriate actions.” Keyhoe’s book, “Flying Saucers From outer Space” was reviewed for “possible security violations according to a Dec. 8, 1953 memo written by P.G. Strong. Strong concludes that there was no security breach and that any further investigation would “only serve to focus attention on an obvious bit of sensational science ‘fiction’.” A letter to Coral Lorenzen of the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization was written to inform her that a letter and “enclosure” she had sent to the C.I.A. was referred to the Air Force and there is a Jan. 25, 1965 memo concerning information procured from Richard Hall (Acting Director of N.I.C.A.P. due to Donald Keyhoe’s waning participation) which was requested by the “OSI” (Office of Scientific Intelligence?) preparing a report on UFOs. Keyhoe’s name is given as “William Kehoe” and it is mentioned that he and Hall felt that the Air Force was downgrading sightings to lower press coverage and intimidating witnesses to sign false statements.
The released files show an early period of intense interest by both the C.I.A. and F.B.I. in UFO reports up to the sixties (which is fascinating in and of itself) but little information can be gleaned about their surveillance of researchers. That both organizations were comfortable with posting files concerning UFO reports may be a sign that they know as much as we do. Whether that is true or not, however likely it may be that members of the UFO community have had their rights as American citizens violated, it will take more than an armchair perusal of released intelligence documents to prove it.