Bien entendu, même dans et historique, qui décrit les opérations de désinformation et de dissimulation de tout ce qui traite des ovnis de la part de l'Air Force et de la CIA afin de persuader le public que "les ovnis n'ont rien d'extraordinaire", Haines lui-même continue les dissimulations, peut-être inconsciemment, en écrivant également que la CIA n'a prêté qu'un intérêt limité au phénomène depuis les annés 50.
Cette contradiction dans le rapport qui fut rédigé à la demande du Directeur de la CIA R. James Woolsey en 1997, est en elle-même une indication des relations ambigües entre la recherche du public sur les ovnis et ce que l'Agence entendait réaliser. Le rapport montre que non seulement la CIA a dissimulé ou discrédité des rapports d'observation d'ovnis, qu'elle a espionné les particuliers et les associations d'ufologies, mais qu'elle a aussi tenté de dissimuler en interne ce qu'elle savait du sujet et l'intérêt qui lui était porté.
Voici le texte intégral du rapport. Notez bien que ce rapport a été rédigé et approuvé par la CIA elle même. Ce rapport est accessible au public sur le site web officiel de la CIA. Il n'est plus secret, il a été déclassifié en 1997. Il représente la position officielle de la CIA sur le sujet.
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LE ROLE DE LA CIA DANS L'ETUDE DES OVNIS, 1947-90:
Gerald K. Haines.
Extraordinairement, 95% des Américains ont au moins entendu ou ont lu quelque chose au sujet des objets volants non identifiés (OVNIS) et 57% croient qu'ils sont réels. (1)Les anciens Présidents Carter et Reagan affirment avoir vu un OVNI. Des Ufologues (un néologisme pour les fans d'OVNIS) et des organismes privés d'OVNIS sont trouvés dans l'ensemble des Etats-Unis. Beaucoup sont convaincus que le gouvernement des USA, et en particulier la CIA, sont engagés dans une conspiration et une dissimulation massive du sujet. L'idée que la CIA a secrètement caché ses recherche sur les OVNIs est un thème récurrent chez les fanatiques d'OVNIS depuis que le phénomène moderne des OVNI a émergé vers la fin des années 40. (2)
Vers la fin de 1993, après avoir été pressé par les Ufologues de fournir les informations additionnelle de la CIA sur les OVNIS, (3) DCI R. James Woolsey a commandé un autre examen de tous les dossiers de l'agence sur les OVNIS. En utilisant des enregistrements de la CIA compilés par cette révision, cette étude trace l'intérêt et la participation de la CIA dans la polémique OVNI depuis la fin des années 40 jusqu'en 1990. Elle examine chronologiquement les efforts de l'agence de résoudre le mystère OVNI, de ses programmes qui ont eu un impact sur les observations d'OVNIS, et de ses tentatives de cacher la participation de la CIA dans l'intégralité de l'affaire des OVNIS. Ce qui émerge de cet examen est que, alors que le souci de l'agence au sujetb des OVNIS était substantiel jusqu'au début des années 50, la CIA a depuis lors seulement une attention limitée et périphérique au phénomène.
Background
L'apparition en 1947 de la confrontation de la guerre froide entre les Etats-Unis et l'Union soviétique a également été l'apparition de la première vague d'observations d'OVNIS. Le premier rapport d'une "soucoupe volante" au-dessus des Etats-Unis est effectué le 24 juin 1947, quand Kenneth Arnold, un pilote privé et homme d'affaires honorable, alors quil recherchait un avion en panne, aperçu neuf objets en forme de disque près de Mount Rainer, état de Washington, voyageant à une vitesse estimée de plus de 1.000 miles par heure. Le rapport d'Arnold a été suivi d'une pléthore d'observations additionnelles, y compris des rapports de pilotes et d'aiguilleurs du ciel militaires et civils partout aux Etats-Unis. (4) En 1948, le général Nathan Twining, de l'USAF, chef du Air Technical Service Command lance le projet SIGN (d'abord appelé project SAUCER) assemblant, évaluant, et distribuant au gouvernement toute l'information concernant de telles observations, sur les lieux ou des OVNIS pourraient être un problème de sécurité nationale. (5)
La Division technique du renseignement de l'Air Material Command (AMC) de la base de Wright (base aérienne plus tard nommée Wright-Patterson) à Dayton, Ohio, se chargea de diriger le projet SIGN et a commencé ce travail le 23 Janvier 1948. Bien que la première crainte était que les objets pourraient être des armes secrètes soviétiques, l'Armée de l'Air ait bientôt conclu que les OVNIS étaient réels mais facilement expliqués et non extraordinaire. Le rapport de l'Armée de l'Air a constata que presque toutes les observations provenaient d'une ou plusieurs de ces trois causes: l'hystérie et l'hallucination de masse, le canular, ou l'interprétation erronnée de phénomènes connus. Néanmoins, le contrôle recommanda que l'on continue é effectuer des recherches sur toutes les observations et n'a as éliminé la possibilité de phénomènes extraterrestres. (6)
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 public relations campaign designed to persuade the public 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." GRUDGE officials found no evidence in UFO sightings of advanced foreign weapons design or development, and they concluded that UFOs did not threaten US security. 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 27 December 1949, the Air Force announced the project's termination. (7)
With increased Cold War tensions, the Korean war, and continued UFO sightings, USAF Director of Intelligence Maj. Gen. Charles P. Cabell ordered a new UFO project in 1952. Project BLUE BOOK became the major Air Force effort to study the UFO phenomenon throughout the 1950s and 1960s. (8) The task of identifying and explaining UFOs continued to fall on the Air Material Command at Wright-Patterson. With a small staff, the Air Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC) tried to persuade the public that UFOs were not extraordinary.(9) Projects SIGN, GRUDGE, and BLUE BOOK set the tone for the official US Government position regarding UFOs for the next 30 years.
Early CIA Concerns, 1947-52
CIA closely monitored the Air Force effort, aware of the mounting number of sightings and increasingly concerned that UFOs might pose a potential security threat. (10) Given the distribution of the sightings, CIA officials in 1952 questioned whether they might reflect "midsummer madness.''(11) Agency officials accepted the Air Force's conclusions about UFO reports, although they concluded that "since there is a remote possibility that they may be interplanetary aircraft, it is necessary to investigate each sighting." (12)
A massive buildup of sightings over the United States in 1952, especially in July, alarmed the Truman administration. On 19 and 20 July, radar scopes at Washington National Airport and Andrews Air Force Base tracked mysterious blips. On 27 July, the blips reappeared. The Air Force scrambled interceptor aircraft to investigate, but they found nothing. The incidents, however, caused headlines across the country. The White House wanted to know what was happening, and the Air Force quickly offered the explanation that the radar blips might be the result of "temperature inversions." Later, a Civil Aeronautics Administration investigation confirmed that such radar blips were quite common and were caused by temperature inversions. (13)
Although it had monitored UFO reports for at least three years, 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. (14) Edward Tauss, acting chief of OSI's Weapons and Equipment Division, reported for the group that most UFO sightings could be easily explained. Nevertheless, he recommended that the Agency continue monitoring the problem, in coordination with ATIC. He also urged that CIA conceal its interest from the media and the public, "in view of their probable alarmist tendencies" to accept such interest as confirming the existence of UFOs.(15)
Upon receiving the report, Deputy Director for Intelligence (DDI) Robert Amory, Jr. assigned responsibility for the UFO investigations to OSI's Physics and Electronics Division, with A. Ray Gordon as the officer in charge. (16) Each branch in the division was to contribute to the investigation, and Gordon was to coordinate closely with ATIC. Amory, who asked the group to focus on the national security implications of UFOs, was relaying DCI Walter Bedell Smith's concerns. (17) Smith wanted to know whether or not the Air Force investigation of flying saucers was sufficiently objective and how much more money and manpower would be necessary to determine the cause of the small percentage of unexplained flying saucers. Smith believed "there was only one chance in 10,000 that the phenomenon posed a threat to the security of the country, but even that chance could not be taken." According to Smith, it was CIA's responsibility by statute to coordinate the intelligence effort required to solve the problem. Smith also wanted to know what use could be made of the UFO phenomenon in connection with US psychological warfare efforts. (18)
Led by Gordon, the CIA Study Group met with Air Force officials at Wright-Patterson and reviewed their data and findings. The Air Force claimed that 90 percent of the reported sightings were easily accounted for. The other 10 percent were characterized as "a number of incredible reports from credible observers." The Air Force rejected the theories that the sightings involved US or Soviet secret weapons development or that they involved "men from Mars"; there was no evidence to support these concepts. The Air Force briefers sought to explain these UFO reports as the misinterpretation of known objects or little understood natural phenomena. (19) Air Force and CIA officials agreed that outside knowledge of Agency interest in UFOs would make the problem more serious. (20) This concealment of CIA interest contributed greatly to later charges of a CIA conspiracy and coverup.
Amateur photographs of alleged UFOs
The CIA Study Group also searched the Soviet press for UFO reports, but found none, causing the group to conclude that the absence of reports had to have been the result of deliberate Soviet Government policy. The group also envisioned the USSR's possible use of UFOs as a psychological warfare tool. In addition, they worried that, if the US air warning system should be deliberately overloaded by UFO sightings, the Soviets might gain a surprise advantage in any nuclear attack. (21)
Because of the tense Cold War situation and increased Soviet capabilities, the CIA Study Group saw serious national security concerns in the flying saucer situation. The group believed that the Soviets could use UFO reports to touch off mass hysteria and panic in the United States. The group also believed that the Soviets might use UFO sightings to overload the US air warning system so that it could not distinguish real targets from phantom UFOs. H. Marshall Chadwell, Assistant Director of OSI, added that he considered the problem of such importance "that it should be brought to the attention of the National Security Council, in order that a communitywide coordinated effort towards it solution may be initiated." (22)
Chadwell briefed DCI Smith on the subject of UFOs in December 1952. He urged action because he was convinced that "something was going on that must have immediate attention" and that "sightings of unexplained objects at great altitudes and traveling at high speeds in the vicinity of major US defense installations are of such nature that they are not attributable to natural phenomena or known types of aerial vehicles." He drafted a memorandum from the DCI to the National Security Council (NSC) and a proposed NSC Directive establishing the investigation of UFOs as a priority project throughout the intelligence and the defense research and development community. (23) Chadwell also urged Smith to establish an external research project of top-level scientists to study the problem of UFOs. (24)After this briefing, Smith directed DDI Amory to prepare a NSC Intelligence Directive (NSCID) for submission to the NSC on the need to continue the investigation of UFOs and to coordinate such investigations with the Air Force.(25)
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