Quote:1997--The CIA and Spy Planes


In a report published at about the same time as the Air Force's "crash dummy" revelation, the Central Intelligence Agency tried to write off thousands of UFO reports as mistaken observations of secret spy planes. It ended up writing fiction.

The first demonstrably incorrect statement was that there had been a major increase in UFO reports immediately following the first test flight of the prototype U-2 spy plane in August 1955. A simple count of cases in the files of Project Blue Book (which the CIA admits it used) shows that there had actually been a major decrease.

Then the CIA claimed that half of almost 9,000 UFO sightings made between mid-1955 and late1969 had been mistaken observations of U-2 and later SR-71 spy planes. Since those airplanes cruise too high to be seen from the ground (at more than 70,000 feet), this could not be the case. Moreover, one of the hallmarks of UFO descriptions in that period was their spectacular maneuvers, including right-angle turns at high speed. Both the U-2 and the SR-71 are among the least maneuverable airplanes used by the U.S. military.

Thirdly, the CIA claimed it had conspired with the staff of the Air Force's Project Blue Book to conceal the alleged sightings of spy planes by having them falsely labeled as obscure types of atmospheric phenomena. Had this been the case, several thousand UFO reports for 1955 - 1969 in the permanent files of Project Blue Book would be blamed on ice crystals, temperature inversions, and so on. But the actual total is barely three dozen.

Why the CIA would invent such an easily disproved story is unknown.

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Quote:In 1997, Haines claimed that the CIA used UFO reports as cover for spy planes such as the U-2, and that the Air Force knowingly went along with this deception. Always ready to accept CIA material, the `New York Times' ingested the story - hook, line, and sinker. And thus another bogus claim became historical fact.

There are many problems with the claim. First, the CIA is never a credible source about its own history. After all, it is in business to deceive. Second, spy plane flights were too few in number to account for many UFO reports and they were carried out in areas far from public view. Third, the black U-2 and A-12 "Oxcart" flew at very high altitudes and were difficult to detect both visually and (in the case of the A-12) on radar. Fourth, UFO reports of the era bear little if any resemblance to the flight characteristics of high-altitude spy planes.

But most fatally, Lt. Col. (Ret.) Robert Friend, head of the Air Force's Project Blue Book from 1958 to 1963, later said there is absolutely no truth to the CIA's claims. Not only was Haines wrong about an agreement between the CIA and Air Force but Friend said he never received a single UFO report that he thought could be attributed to a spy plane.

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Quote:Space.com

The CIA tweet has sparked its own UFO flap: Several analysts dispute the CIA assertion that U-2 flights really caused upward of half of UFO sightings.

"One thing this CIA UFO claim has accomplished: It has united UFO skeptics and proponents in proclaiming it untrue," Robert Sheaffer, author and well-known UFO cynic, wrote in a blog post last week. "We might agree on little else, except that this claim is nonsense."

Sheaffer explains that the Project Blue Book files are now public records, allowing anyone to verify when and where sightings were reported.

"The bottom line is: There is absolutely no correlation between the times and places of UFO reports and U-2 flights," he wrote.

A similar view about the CIA assertion is held by UFO photo analyst Bruce Maccabee, who analyzed the data and concluded that the CIA's explanation is "preposterous."

The statistics "do not bear out the claim that there was a large increase in sightings by any segment of the population, pilots and air traffic controllers included, once the U-2 aircraft started flying," Maccabee wrote in a recent blog post.

Sheaffer also argues that the CIA's claim that the U-2 flights led to the creation of Project Blue Book does not hold water, "because Blue Book predates the U-2 flights by several years. Other Air Force projects to investigate 'flying saucer' sightings were created several years earlier still."

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Quote:Earlier this week, the CIA announced "Sixties UFOs? J/K, it was us. LOL!" Adding insult to injury, Steve Inskeep at NPR Joins The Comics, unironically taking the CIA's report at face value, something which pseudoskeptics accuse woo-peddlers of doing, rather than engaging in hard hitting journalism..

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Quote:In 1997 the CIA published an article that describes its involvement in the history of UFO phenomena. (The article is published in the unclassified version of "Studies in Intelligence," a twice-yearly CIA journal. It is available at the CIA website.) According to historian and author Jerry Haines, the CIA believed that when the U-2 high altitude spy plane began flying in early August, 1955, "commercial pilots and air traffic controllers began reporting a large increase in UFO sightings." 

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Quote:The spin doctors at the CIA recently trotted out, once again, the long-ago discredited claim that secret flights of its U-2 reconnaissance aircraft led to a massive increase in UFO reports in the U.S.—something the agency says it welcomed, because the misidentifications masked the true nature of the aerial craft being observed, thereby helping to maintain the covert program’s cover.

A CIA-originated tweet on December 29, 2014, read, “Reports of unusual activity in the skies in the ‘50s? It was us.” The sender then claimed that “half” of UFO reports in the 1950s and ‘60s were due to sightings of the U-2.

Of course, no explanation was offered as to how a secret fixed-wing aircraft, appearing as a mere speck in the sky as it flew at 60,000 feet above the earth, could possibly account for the tens of thousands of UFO reports during that two-decade period involving sightings of saucers, globes, triangles and cylinders that maneuvered and hovered near the ground, stopped car engines, scared livestock and left landing gear marks in the dirt.

No matter. The elite media and small town news organizations alike uncritically picked-up and circulated the agency’s latest UFO-related slight-of-hand, apparently unaware that the CIA’s “admission” has no factual basis and was completely debunked years ago by UFO researchers utilizing credible sighting databases and statistical analysis..


CIA Falsely Claims U-2 Spy Plane Flights Greatly Increased UFO Reports: The Agency’s Actual UFO Secrets are Far More Interesting

(06-08-2024, 02:00 AM)Karl12 Wrote: Don't know what UFOs actually are mate but looks like the CIA claims are complete hogwash.

Certainly would not be the first time they've attempted to hoodwink the public over this subject.

Compiled these articles a while back but didn't realize the majority of the source links would be deleted lol.

Here's another relevant one:

(06-08-2024, 01:52 PM)jaded Wrote: Think by fixating on the U-2 only & specifically is where the wheels come off the bus. The CIA said "Unusual things in the sky are ours"" nothing more.

(06-08-2024, 01:52 PM)jaded Wrote: WE jumped off into UFO's (non-terrestrial craft) as the source

(06-10-2024, 05:54 AM)Karl12 Wrote: Respectfully disagree there mate - when CIA Director Woolsey asked Chief Historian Gerald K Haines write the official history of the 'CIA involvement with the subject of UFOs' he made some very specific claims (and also some extremely curious omissions).

Bruce passed away recently but you can read all about the details involving the U2 / OXCART (SR-71 or Blackbird) projects here - don't know how long his site will be up but didn't want to just copy and paste everything as there are lots of data sets and statistics.

Also, if you want to know what the CIA were actually saying about the UFO subject during those years then this is a relevant book as it focuses solely on the internal reaction to it from military and intelligence communities.
Am not that fond of the ETH as an explanation for UFO origin myself mate (despite constant mainstream promotion) and quite a few researchers I respect don't think UFOs are extra solar aliens either.

Thought this video was a good one as it posits that to assume UFOs are aliens is 'inherently contradictory, presumptuous and unscientific'.

Quote:NewsClipping

C.I.A. memo of Aug. 1, 1952, recommends continued agency surveillance of "flying saucers," saying, "it is strongly urged, however, that no indication of C.I.A. interest or concern reach the press or public.

(06-12-2024, 11:51 PM)jaded Wrote: The IC community has to be thrilled beyond belief!!

Quote:It also notes that Kirkpatrick was a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) asset from 2005-2010.

Kirkpatrick likely holds the highest security clearances obtainable. He began his career in Defense and Intelligence-related science and technology immediately out of graduate school. He is the very definition of a “science spook”. He is a technical intelligence operative that is schooled in disinformation, misinformation, and misdirection. He has cultivated an air of dismissiveness about UFOs/UAPs. This is shown in the AARO public report on the phenomena issued under Kirkpatrick that was roundly criticized for its misrepresentations and omissions of data, cases, and sightings. These misrepresentations are no doubt purposeful, and Kirkpatrick, given his background, is skilled at shaping information.


As noted in a March 15 piece by Marik von Rennenkampff on “The Hill” website, speaking about the March 8th congressionally-mandated AARO historical review of US government involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (and specifically about Kirkpatrick’s assessment of the Battelle UFO study results):




“AARO’s review misrepresents the most exhaustive, comprehensive historical analysis of UFO incidents, conducted on behalf of the Air Force by the Battelle Memorial Institute in the early 1950s. According to AARO, the resulting report found that “all cases that had enough data were resolved and explainable. But this is not what Battelle’s analysis found at all, and AARO’s misrepresentation of its conclusions speaks volumes. According to the Battelle analysis, as the quality of UFO reports improved, so too did the number with “unknown” explanations. Of the UFO cases considered “Excellent” and with sufficient data to draw a conclusion, 33 percent were categorized as having “unknown” origin.”

 

Kirkpatrick is at best being disingenuous when characterizing the Battelle study. At worst, he is purposely lying about the meaning of the results in order to minimize their importance and for other ulterior reasons.