Robertson Panel

The Robertson Panel was a group of five scientists convened by the Office of Scientific Intelligence of the Central Intelligence Agency to review Air Technical Intelligence Center files on unidentified flying objects. It met in January 1953, reported that the sightings showed no direct physical threat to national security, and recommended that the national security agencies "strip the Unidentified Flying Objects of the special status they have been given and the aura of mystery they have unfortunately acquired."¹

Origin in the Office of Scientific Intelligence

In the summer of 1952 the Office of Scientific Intelligence and the Office of Current Intelligence formed a study group on the flying saucer reports. Edward Tauss, acting chief of the Office's Weapons and Equipment Division, reported that most sightings could be easily explained, recommended continued monitoring in coordination with the Air Technical Intelligence Center, and urged that the Agency conceal its interest from the press and public, "in view of their probable alarmist tendencies" to read it as confirmation. Robert Amory, the Deputy Director for Intelligence, passed the matter to the Office's Physics and Electronics Division on the concerns of the Director of Central Intelligence, Walter Bedell Smith, who according to a memorandum of 20 August 1952 summarized by Gerald K. Haines of the Agency's history staff wanted to know whether the Air Force investigation was sufficiently objective, thought there was "only one chance in 10,000" that the phenomenon posed a threat but that "even that chance could not be taken," and asked what use could be made of the phenomenon in psychological warfare. The study group's members searched the Soviet press, found no flying saucer reports, and concluded that the absence resulted from Soviet Government policy.²

The Durant memorandum lists an "O/SI Study Group of August 1952" of Philip G. Strong, a colleague named Eng and Frederick C. Durant, which led to the briefing of the Director, an Air Technical Intelligence Center briefing on 21 November, consideration by the Intelligence Advisory Committee on 4 December, and a visit to the Center by Chadwell, H. P. Robertson and Durant.¹ The Intelligence Advisory Committee, according to Haines, agreed that the Director should "enlist the services of selected scientists to review and appraise the available evidence in the light of pertinent scientific theories" and draft a National Security Council Intelligence Directive on the subject.²

H. Marshall Chadwell, Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence, sent the Director a memorandum on unidentified flying objects that the Agency's reading-room copy catalogs under the date 9 December 1952 (Haines cites a Chadwell memorandum of 2 December). It states that on 20 August the Director had directed preparation of a National Security Council directive; that the problem was "largely a research and development problem" which the Deputy Director for Intelligence tried to start through the Research and Development Board, whose chairman, Dr. Whitman, reported on about 6 November that inquiries in the Air Staff had not disclosed "undue concern" and that the matter had been referred to the Air Defense Command; and that after an Air Technical Intelligence Center briefing on 25 November "the reports of incidents convince us that there is something going on that must have immediate attention." It continues: "Sightings of unexplained objects at great altitudes and travelling at high speeds in the vicinity of major U.S. defense installations are of such nature that they are not attributable to natural phenomena or known types of aerial vehicles." The memorandum states that the Office was proceeding to establish "a consulting group of sufficient competence and stature to review this matter and convince the responsible authorities in the community that immediate research and development on this subject must be undertaken." It attached a draft memorandum from the Director to the National Security Council, which put the number of official reports received since 1947 at approximately 2000 and proposed a program of intelligence and research on "instant positive identification" of the objects, and a draft directive providing that the effort be coordinated with the military services, the Research and Development Board and the Psychological Strategy Board.³

Chadwell and Robertson put the panel together, and Chadwell wrote the Director on 9 January 1953 on consultants for the panel.²⁴ Strong recorded a meeting about an external research project with Julius A. Stratton, provost of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Max Millikan, director of MIT's Center for International Studies.²⁴

Membership

The panel members signed the report with these affiliations: Lloyd Berkner, Associated Universities, Inc.; Robertson, chairman, California Institute of Technology; Samuel Goudsmit, Brookhaven National Laboratories; Luis Alvarez, University of California; and Thornton Page, Johns Hopkins University. The roster lists Page's office as the Office of Research Operations. J. Allen Hynek (Ohio State University, astronomy) and Frederick C. Durant (Arthur D. Little, Inc., rockets and guided missiles) appear as associate members.⁵⁶

Robertson served from 1950 to 1952 as research director of the Weapons Systems Evaluation Group in the office of the Secretary of Defense and from 1954 to 1956 as scientific advisor to the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. Goudsmit had been scientific chief of the Alsos Mission. Alvarez had worked on microwave radar at the MIT Radiation Laboratory and then under J. Robert Oppenheimer at Los Alamos. Berkner had been executive secretary of the Research and Development Board of the Department of Defense, special assistant to the Secretary of State in 1949, a rear admiral in the Naval Reserve, and from 1951 to 1960 active in managing Associated Universities, Inc., the operator of Brookhaven. Page had done research at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory during the war.⁷ Durant, a past president of the American Rocket Society, was on contract with the Office of Scientific Intelligence.⁸

The interviewees were Brigadier General William N. Garland, commanding general of the Air Technical Intelligence Center; Chadwell; Ralph L. Clark, Deputy Assistant Director; Strong, chief of the Operations Staff; Stephen T. Possony, acting chief of the Special Studies Group, Directorate of Intelligence, U.S. Air Force; Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, chief of the Aerial Phenomena Branch; Dewey Fournet of the Ethyl Corporation; and Lieutenant R. S. Neasham and Harry Woo of the Navy Photo Interpretation Laboratory at Anacostia.⁶

Sessions of January 14 to 17, 1953

The memorandum is headed "January 14-18, 1953." Its first meeting is dated "Wednesday, 14 January" and its eighth and final meeting is a Saturday afternoon, which makes the date 17 January; the attached lists and the Agency's later history also give 14 to 17 January.⁹ Present at the first meeting were Robertson, Alvarez, Page, Goudsmit, Strong, Lieutenant Colonel Frederick C. E. Oder, David B. Stevenson and Durant; Berkner was absent until Friday afternoon.¹⁰ Strong enumerated what the Office regarded as potential dangers. The Panel saw motion pictures of sightings at Tremonton, Utah (2 July 1952) and Great Falls, Montana (15 August 1950), and in the afternoon Neasham and Woo presented the U.S. Navy laboratory's analysis. Ruppelt spoke for about forty minutes on Air Technical Intelligence Center methods. Hynek, Fournet, Captain Harry B. Smith and Possony attended that session.¹¹

On Thursday Ruppelt and Hynek attended both sessions. The memorandum records that "the Project STORK support at Battelle Memorial Institute, Columbus, was described by Dr. Hynek." Oder briefed Project Twinkle, the camera-watch project of the Air Force Meteorological Research Center at Cambridge, Massachusetts. At 1615 Garland joined and gave three personal opinions: more use of Air Force intelligence officers in follow-up, "vigorous effort" to declassify reports, and a larger Air Technical Intelligence Center section for the subject. On Friday Hynek read a prepared paper and Fournet gave a briefing on his fifteen months as Washington project officer; Hynek attended the Friday afternoon session. On Saturday morning Chadwell reported that he had shown the rough draft to the Director of Intelligence of the Air Force "whose reaction was favorable."¹

The list of evidence presented included seventy-five case histories of 1951 and 1952 selected by the Air Technical Intelligence Center as the best documented, the status and progress reports of Project Grudge and Project Blue Book, the progress reports of Project Stork, described as the code name for the Battelle Memorial Institute contract work supporting the Center, reports on Project Twinkle and Project Pounce (a proposal of Kirtland Air Force Base), a draft manual on making a flying object report, charts of unexplained 1952 sightings by location and of balloon launching sites, and "Intelligence Reports Relating to U.S.S.R. Interest in U.S. Sightings."¹²

The Tremonton and Great Falls films

The Navy laboratory had spent about 1,000 man-hours, at Air Force request, on plots of the 1,600-frame Kodachrome film of Tremonton and concluded that the objects were not birds, balloons or aircraft but "self-luminous." The Panel rejected the conclusion for eleven stated reasons, among them the analysis of duplicate rather than original film, faulty light-intensity data and unremoved hand jitter, and judged the Tremonton objects probably birds after viewing a short film of seagulls in sunlight. It judged the Great Falls objects probably reflections from aircraft known to have been in the area. The Panel added that tests with polyethylene "pillow" balloons and with ornithologists would probably lead to "creditable explanations of value in an educational or training program."¹

Findings and recommendations

Tab A, signed by the five members, states that the evidence "shows no indication that these phenomena constitute a direct physical threat to national security" and that there is "no residuum of cases which indicates phenomena which are attributable to foreign artifacts capable of hostile acts" and "no evidence that the phenomena indicates a need for the revision of current scientific concepts." It states that "continued emphasis on the reporting of these phenomena does, in these perilous times, result in a threat to the orderly functioning of the protective organs of the body politic," citing "the clogging of channels of communication by irrelevant reports," "continued false alarms" and "the cultivation of a morbid national psychology in which skillful hostile propaganda could induce hysterical behavior." It recommends an integrated program "designed to reassure the public of the total lack of evidence of inimical forces behind the phenomenon" and to train personnel to recognize and reject false indications.¹³

Comments recorded in the Durant memorandum

The Panel's remarks "inappropriate for inclusion in the formal report" were recorded in Part II of Durant's memorandum of 16 February 1953 to the Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence.¹

On extraterrestrial artifacts, the memorandum records that no Panel member was "loath to accept that this earth might be visited by extraterrestrial intelligent beings of some sort, some day" but that none found evidence relating the sightings to space travelers. Fournet, who as an aeronautical engineer and Blue Book project officer had eliminated each known cause in many cases and was left with "extra-terrestrial," was not followed because his cases were "raw, unevaluated reports." Goudsmit and others held that artifacts, if they existed, would be a subject for natural science; Robertson did not concur and thought they would be "of immediate and great concern not only to the U.S. but to all countries." Page held the existence of intelligent beings elsewhere than on the earth "extremely unlikely."¹

On geography, an Air Technical Intelligence Center map of unexplained 1952 sightings "showed clusters in certain strategic areas such as Los Alamos," which the memorandum says might be explained by 24-hour watchful guard and awareness of security measures there; it adds that there had been no sightings near other sensitive Atomic Energy establishments, and that the Panel "could find no ready explanation for these clusters." Of two cosmic-ray counter episodes (Palomar Mountain, October 1949, and the Los Alamos "Bird Watchers Association," August 1950 to January 1951), the Panel rejected the implication that radioactive effects were correlated with the objects, Alvarez having pointed out that the recorded data of the second were instrumental effects.¹

On reporting channels, the Panel regarded the Air Force reporting system as having been encouraged by popular articles and public pressure, and the "mass receipt of low-grade reports" as "possibly dangerous in having a military service foster public concern." It listed related dangers: misidentification of actual enemy artifacts, overloading of emergency channels (Berkner's "noise to signal ratio" analogy) and "mass hysteria and greater vulnerability to possible enemy psychological warfare."¹

The educational program

The memorandum describes a program with "two major aims: training and 'debunking.'" Training would cover pilots, radar operators, control tower operators and Ground Observer Corps personnel. The "debunking" aim "would result in reduction in public interest in 'flying saucers'" through "mass media such as television, motion pictures, and popular articles," using case histories "which had been puzzling at first but later explained," on the model of conjuring tricks, to "reduce the current gullibility of the public and consequently their susceptibility to clever hostile propaganda." The memorandum adds that "the general absence of Russian propaganda based on a subject with so many obvious possibilities for exploitation might indicate a possible Russian official policy."¹

Suggested participants were psychologists, including Hadley Cantril of Princeton, Don Marquis of the University of Michigan and Leo Roston; "someone familiar with mass communications techniques, perhaps an advertising expert"; the radio and television host Arthur Godfrey as "possibly a valuable channel of communication"; the Navy's Special Devices Center at Sands Point, Long Island, on Berkner's suggestion; the Jam Handy Company, a maker of Second World War training films; and the animated cartoons of "Walt Disney, Inc.," the studio of Walt Disney. Hynek suggested amateur astronomers "to spread the gospel." The Panel proposed that the program run for "a minimum of one and one-half to two years" and recorded that some expansion of the Air Technical Intelligence Center would be required. Ruppelt "unofficially" proposed a staff of four analyst officers, four officer investigators, a briefing officer, an air defense liaison officer, a weather and balloon officer, an astronomical consultant and a group leader, which drew "generally favorable comment."¹

On "Unofficial Investigating Groups," the memorandum states that the "Civilian Flying Saucer Investigators" of Los Angeles and the "Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (Wisconsin)" "should be watched because of their potentially great influence on mass thinking if widespread sightings should occur," and that "the apparent irresponsibility and the possible use of such groups for subversive purposes should be kept in mind." The Panel predicted that sightings would increase that summer.¹

Jennie Zeidman, Hynek's assistant at Ohio State, wrote in 1991 that after the sessions Hynek told her: "They're not going to have a scientific investigation. For some strange reason they voted it down. They didn't even take a decent look at the data, and they decided to discredit them."¹⁴

Distribution and sponsorship

The report went to the Intelligence Advisory Committee, the Secretary of Defense, the director of the Federal Civil Defense Administration and the chairman of the National Security Resources Board. Strong and Durant briefed the Office of National Estimates. The Agency dropped its effort to draft a National Security Council directive on unidentified flying objects, and, according to Haines, "any mention of CIA sponsorship of the panel was forbidden." Chadwell transferred monitoring in May 1953 to the Physics and Electronics Division, whose chief, Todos M. Odarenko, proposed treating the project as inactive and, in 1955, terminating it.²¹⁵

Contacts after the sessions

A note from Ruppelt to Hynek of 11 February 1953, among the Blue Book cables in Hynek's "Project Henry" files, states that Durant had called asking for the pencilled notes Hynek had promised him on a contact with the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization. A note of 13 July 1953 from Lieutenant Robert M. Olsson states: "we sent five of our best unsolved reports to Dr. Robinson [Dr. Robertson] on the West Coast" (Luke Air Force Base, Continental Divide, Port Austin and others). Jan Aldrich of Project 1947 added in a bracketed comment that Robertson was briefed on Blue Book again in 1957 at the Air Technical Intelligence Center and that Durant arranged for the Condon Committee to obtain copies of the Montana and Utah films and corresponded with Condon about official investigations in Norway.¹⁶

Disclosure, 1956 to 1966

In 1956 Ruppelt's book disclosed the existence of the Panel, and civilian groups pressed for the report. The Air Force asked the Agency for permission to declassify; Strong refused to disclose Agency sponsorship. On 20 December 1957 Strong wrote to Berkner, Page, Robertson, Goudsmit and Alvarez and sent a memorandum to Major James F. Byrne of Air Force intelligence on declassification, and the Agency prepared a sanitized version that deleted references to the Agency and to psychological warfare. Berkner (20 November 1957) and Page (4 December 1957) had written to Strong, and the Agency's history states that the panel members "were also reluctant to have their association with the Agency released."²¹⁷

On 8 March 1958 Donald Keyhoe of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena told Mike Wallace on CBS that the Agency sponsored the Panel, and Keyhoe and the chemical engineer Leon Davidson wrote to the Agency; Davidson also wrote to Berkner and Goudsmit. Agency officers, according to the history, worried that Keyhoe "had the ear of" Hillenkoetter, who served on the committee's board of governors, and discussed having the General Counsel, Lawrence R. Houston, show him the report. Hillenkoetter resigned from the committee in 1962.²¹⁷

On 22 September 1958 Keyhoe wrote to the Agency as the committee's director that he had been aware since January 1953 that the Agency had assembled a group of scientists to examine the evidence; that an investigator for the McClellan subcommittee on Government Operations had told him the Air Force said the report was not an Air Force document and that it proved to be the Agency's, with a classified summary sent to the investigator; and that the Air Force, which had officially denied the existence of the document, then admitted it and released a summary with no mention of the Agency. He asked for declassification and for an interview with an Agency official, and wrote that Vice Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter, formerly director of the Agency and a board member, and all the members of the board would, if questioned, say that they disagree with the secrecy. A routing slip dated 30 September 1958 records that the Air Force's Major Lawrence J. Tacker had received a letter of the same date and would answer both along the lines that the Air Force was "the only agency qualified to speak on unidentified flying objects," and that "the remaining portions of the report are not only Secret but do not deal with unidentified flying objects"; the writer adds, "Both the above statements are true."¹⁸

Haines wrote that the Air Force again asked in July 1966 for declassification of the Panel report and the Durant report, after the House Armed Services Committee hearings and "Dr. Robertson's disclosure on a CBS Reports program that CIA indeed had been involved in UFO analysis"; the Condon Report, printed in 1968, refers to Robertson as "the late Prof. H. P. Robertson."²⁷ On 15 August 1966 the Office of Scientific Intelligence's deputy director, Karl H. Weber, wrote to the Air Force that "We are most anxious that further publicity not be given to the information that the panel was sponsored by the CIA." James E. McDonald of the University of Arizona had read the Durant report at Wright-Patterson on 6 June 1966 and was refused a second look on 30 June as it was an Agency document. The science editor of the Saturday Review, John Lear, criticized the sanitized version on 3 September 1966.²¹⁷

Publication in the Condon Report

The report was declassified in the summer of 1966 and printed as Appendix U of the Condon Committee's Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects, with some names deleted; the Condon Report states that the record is "still partially classified to the extent that the names of some of the members are deleted."⁷ The editors of the online edition restored deletions, which they marked in braces, from a copy they obtained from the Parascope site and checked against a National Archives copy. The deleted items included the names of Alvarez, Chadwell, Strong, Oder, Stevenson, Neasham, Woo, Hynek, Fournet, Smith, Possony and Garland, the words "Office of Scientific Intelligence," the "Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence," "Battelle Memorial Institute" and the Intelligence Advisory Committee, and one tab.¹¹⁹ Haines wrote that in 1967 Agency officials agreed that the Condon Committee could release the full Durant report "with only minor deletions."²

The Condon Report described the Panel as five scientists "who had distinguished themselves in physics research and in their contributions to military research during and after World War II," said that a group of this competence could review the subject in a week, stated that "no official steps were ever taken to put into effect the training and 'debunking' recommendations," and held that "the word debunking means to take the bunk out of a subject."⁷²⁰

Later references

The Scientific Advisory Board committee under Brian O'Brien that reviewed Project Blue Book in 1966 gave "particular attention" to the Panel report. An Air Force action memorandum of 20 October 1969 recommending termination of Blue Book quoted the Panel's finding of no direct physical threat and added that "in spite of this finding, the Air Force continued to maintain a special reporting system."²¹²²

In 1975 William Spaulding of Ground Saucer Watch asked the Agency for the Panel report; a privacy coordinator, Gene Wilson, replied that "at no time prior to the formation of the Robertson Panel and subsequent to the issuance of the panel's report has CIA engaged in the study of the UFO phenomena." Ground Saucer Watch sued under the Freedom of Information Act in September 1977; a search produced 355 documents of about 900 pages, of which the Agency released all but 57 on 14 December 1978, and a court dismissed the suit in May 1980. Haines wrote that the Agency's Deputy Director for Administration told Director Stansfield Turner there had been "no organized Agency effort to do research in connection with UFO phenomena nor has there been an organized effort to collect intelligence on UFOs since the 1950s."²