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From: Stig Agermose <wanderer@post8.tele.dk> Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 06:54:07 GMT Fwd Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 11:05:48 -0500 Subject: New CIA Info On 'U-2s, UFOs And Operation Blue The quote is a headline on p. 72 of the book, 'The CIA And The U-2 Program, 1954-1974', which is marked 'Secret' but just has been declassified and released on CIA's site. The information found on the page mentioned and the one following it will remind many of the CIA report which was published in August last year and authored by Gerald K. Haines. But although much of the information is identical, new and unknown pieces can be found. For those who would like to compare, Haines' report is available on CIA's site at: http://www.odci.gov/csi/studies/97unclas/ufo.html Before bringing the new material I would like to include the e-mail which put me on the track. After that I'll quote from the pages mentioned. Note: CIA's 'Center for the Study of Intelligence' is at http://www.odci.gov/csi The e-mail can be found at http://www.ufomind.com/military/aircraft/skunkworks/mailing/msg01548.shtml ******* Skunk Works Mailing List No Title Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1998 10:04:12 -0500 From: Joe Donoghue The book, 'The CIA And The U-2 Program, 1954-1974', has been posted on the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence web site: http://www.odci.gov/csi/books/U2/index.htm Their 'What's New' page says "July 14, 1998" but it was not there yesterday. Appears to have all the same blacked-out areas as the book presented at the conference. It has been scanned in so you have to load it a page at a time. Joe Donoghue ******* The pages are at: http://www.odci.gov/csi/books/U2/gifs/00000086.gif and http://www.odci.gov/csi/books/U2/gifs/00000087.gif *** U-2s, UFOs, AND OPERATION BLUE BOOK High-altitude testing of the U-2 soon led to an unexpected side effect - a tremendous increase in reports of unidentified flying objects (UFOs). In the mid-1950s, most commercial airliners flew at altitudes between 10,000 and 20,000 feet and military aircraft like the B-47s and B-57s operated at altitudes below 40,000 feet. Consequently, once U-2s started flying at altitudes above 60,000 feet, air-traffic controllers began receiving increasing numbers of UFO reports. Such reports were most prevalent in the early evening hours from pilots of airliners flying from east to west. When the sun dropped below the horizon of an airliner flying at 20,000 feet, the plane was in darkness. But, if a U-2 was airborne in the vicinity of the airliner at the same time, its horizon from an altitude of 60,000 feet was considerably more distant, and, being so high in the sky, its silver wings would catch and reflect the rays of the sun and appear to the airliner pilot, 40,000 feet below, to be fiery objects. Even during daylight hours, the silver bodies of the high-flying U-2s could catch the sun and cause reflections or glints that could be seen at lower altitudes and even on the ground. At this time, no one believed manned flight was possible above 60,000 feet, so no one expected to see an object so high in the sky. Not only did the airline pilots report their sightings to air-traffic controllers, but they and ground-based observers also wrote letters to the Air Force unit at Wright Air Development Command in Dayton charged with investigating such phenomena. This, in turn, led to to the Air Force's Operation BLUE BOOK. Based at Wright-Patterson, the operation collected all reports of UFO sightings. Air Force investigators then attempted to explain such sightings by linking them to natural phenomena. BLUE BOOK investigators regularly called on the Agency's Project Staff in Washington to check reported UFO sightings against U-2 flight logs. This enabled the investigators to eliminate the majority of UFO reports, although they could not reveal to the letter writers the true cause of the UFO sightings. U-2 and later OXCART flights accounted for more than one-half of all UFO reports during the late 1950s and most of the 1960s." *** The following synopsis of 'The CIA And The U-2 Program, 1954-1974' can be found at http://www.odci.gov/csi/books/U2/synop.htm Stig ******* UNCLASSIFIED Synopsis The CIA and the U-2 Program, 1954-1974 *** This volume presents to scholars and the public the CIA's newly declassified internal history of the U-2 program. The original study, written by Gregory W. Pedlow and Donald E. Welzenbach for the CIA History Staff in the 1980s, was published in 1992 under the title 'The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance: The U-2 and OXCART Programs, 1954-1974'. Sections of that study on the U-2 program have been included here to mark the occasion of the September 1998 conference 'The U-2: A Revolution in Intelligence'. The entire study is being reviewed under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act. The product of a remarkable collaboration between the Central Intelligence Agency, the United States Air Force, Lockheed Corporation, and other suppliers, the U-2 collected intelligence that revolutionized American intelligence analysis of the Soviet threat. Although the U-2 has been one of America's best known intelligence achievements, significant aspects of the U-2's story have remained unknown outside the US Government. This volume tells much of that story in a clear and engaging manner, providing a fuller context for understanding some of the most dangerous moments of the Cold War. The U-2 stands as a monument to the many ways in which intelligence has upheld the security of the United States and furthered the possibilities for peace around the world. UNCLASSIFIED ***
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