Gun-camera films sent to the CIA claim
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 5
| Date | 1962 |
|---|---|
| Topics | Beings & bodies (topic), Government programs (topic) |
| People | Richard Hall |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 65 |
| Year | 1962 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 1962 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 4 |
Gun-camera films sent to the CIA claim — Researcher Richard Hall says jet gun-camera UAP films were routinely sent to the CIA.
Richard Hall was assistant director of NICAP in the 1960s and one of the most careful civilian UFO researchers of his era. In his book Uninvited Guests (1988), he wrote that a former head of Project Blue Book told him gun-camera film taken by jet fighters during encounters with unknown objects was routinely sent to the CIA's National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC), rather than being analysed by Blue Book.
NPIC, created in 1961, was the CIA-run centre that analysed spy-plane and satellite photos, and it famously identified Soviet missiles in Cuba in 1962. Declassified CIA records confirm that NPIC analysed some UFO photographs and films for the Air Force and others, including in the 1960s.
What hasn't been confirmed is a routine pipeline of gun-camera film from fighter intercepts. If it existed, it would mean the best photographic evidence bypassed the Air Force's public UFO office, which is one reason the claim is often cited in arguments that Blue Book wasn't the whole story.
In the testimony
The testimony cites: (p99-101).
People and topics
- Richard Hall — NICAP assistant director and author of Uninvited Guests.
- Unidentified anomalous phenomena — The U.S. government's current term for unidentified objects in the air, in space and underwater.
- Central Intelligence Agency — The U.S. foreign intelligence agency, which has followed UFO reports since the 1940s.
- NICAP — The leading U.S. civilian UFO group of the 1950s and 1960s.
- Unidentified flying object — An object in the sky that can't be identified; the older term for UAP.
- Project Blue Book — The Air Force's public UFO investigation from 1952 until its closure in December 1969.
- National Photographic Interpretation Center — The CIA-run center that analysed spy-plane and satellite images.
- U.S. Air Force — The U.S. military service that ran the official UFO projects from 1947 to 1969.
On the Timeline
- Moon Dust, Blue Fly and UFO draft policy (1961) (13 November 1961) — An Air Force draft policy names intelligence teams for Projects Moon Dust, Blue Fly and 'UFO'.
- Navy reserve pilot's Wright-Patterson saucer claim (1962) (1962) — A Navy reserve pilot says he saw a saucer at Wright-Patterson in 1962.
See every 1962 event on the UAP Timeline →
References
- Richard H. Hall — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- NPIC photo analysis of UFO imagery — CIA reading room · cia.gov · archived copy
- Formerly secret memo on Air Force UFO photo analysis — MuckRock · muckrock.com · archived copy
- amazon.com · amazon.com · archived copy
Further reading
- Project Blue Book — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Project Blue Book records — National Archives · archives.gov · archived copy
- Project Blue Book files — The Black Vault · theblackvault.com · archived copy
- UFO documents — CIA Reading Room · cia.gov · archived copy
This page was last edited on 29 October 2026. Articles are written in our own words from the sources listed under References; disputed claims are attributed to the people who made them.
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