Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Up close contact! Scene from Earth vs. the Flying Saucers circa 1956.
Credit: Columbia Pictures

In a December 29 tweet from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), word is that their #1 most read on their #Bestof2014 list: “Reports of unusual activity in the skies in the ‘50s? It was us.”

An attached document from 1998 is titled The CIA and the U-2 Program, 1954-1974, a document prepared by the CIA’s history staff within the Center for the Study of Intelligence (see below for link).

High-flying U-2 spy plane stirred up UFO reports.
Courtesy: National Security Archive

That paper notes that “high altitude testing of the U-2 soon led to an unexpected side effect – a tremendous increase in reports of unidentified flying objects (UFOs).”

Specifically, in the mid-1950’s, most commercial airliners flew at altitudes between 10,000 and 20,000 feet. But once U-2s started flying at much higher altitudes – above 60,000 feet—“air traffic controllers began receiving increasing numbers of UFO reports,” the report explains.

Airline pilots also wrote letters to the Air Force Unit at Wright Air Development Command in Dayton, a group charged with investigating the UFO phenomena.

“This, in turn, led to the Air Force’s Operation BLUE BOOK. Based at Wright-Patterson, the operation collected all reports of UFO sightings.”

BLUE BOOK officials regularly called on the CIA to help investigators eliminate the majority of the UFO reports, “although they could not reveal to the letter writers the true cause of the UFO sightings.”

A-12 aircraft, one of several types of vehicles developed under the OXCART program.
Credit: CIA

To read the full CIA document, go to:

http://t.co/BKr81M5OUN

BTW: There’s a fascinating account of the use of Area 51  by the CIA, the U.S. Air Force and others, using that infamous area to test super-secret aircraft.

Dwight Jon Zimmerman is the author of Area 51: The Graphic History of America’s Most Secret Military Installation, published by Zenith Press. Zimmerman and artist Greg Scott have put together an informative account, available at:

http://www.qbookshop.com/products/210843/9780760346648/Area-51.html

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