CIA Domestic Collection Division memo (1976)
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 7
| Date | 26 April 1976 |
|---|---|
| People | John Greenewald, Gerald Haines |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 80 |
| Year | 1976 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 1976 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 6 |
In April 1976 staff of the CIA's domestic contacts office, which gathered information from American citizens and companies, wrote memos about physical evidence relating to UFOs. One, dated 16 April 1976, says that some CIA staff were monitoring the UFO phenomenon, though not on an official basis.[1][2]
The memo
The two-page memo of 16 April 1976, written by personnel of the Domestic Contacts Division to an unnamed recipient, concerns physical evidence relating to UFO phenomena that had been hand-carried to the office of the Assistant Deputy Director for Science and Technology. Most details, including that official's advice, are redacted. Its second page records the remark that some agency staff were monitoring UFO phenomena unofficially, and related correspondence encouraged keeping in touch with outside researchers.[1][2]
Release
The memo was released in redacted form in 1978, when the CIA made public several hundred pages of UFO documents after a Freedom of Information lawsuit by the group Ground Saucer Watch. In January 2019 researcher John Greenewald of The Black Vault requested a mandatory declassification review seeking a fuller release; after nearly three years the CIA told him the original, unredacted document could not be found.[1][3]
Context
The CIA's own history of its involvement with UFOs, written by historian Gerald Haines and published in 1997, acknowledges that individual analysts kept an interest in the subject in the 1970s while the agency had no official program. The testimony notes that the memo was written a year after the Church and Pike committees began investigating abuses by the CIA, FBI and NSA, a period when the agency was under intense scrutiny.[3][4]
People and topics
- Central Intelligence Agency — The U.S. foreign intelligence agency, which has followed UFO reports since the 1940s.
- Unidentified anomalous phenomena — The U.S. government's current term for unidentified objects in the air, in space and underwater.
- Unidentified flying object — An object in the sky that can't be identified; the older term for UAP.
- Ground Saucer Watch — A civilian UFO group that sued the CIA for UFO records in the 1970s.
- John Greenewald — Founder of The Black Vault FOIA archive.
- The Black Vault — John Greenewald's online archive of government documents.
- Gerald Haines — Historian who wrote the CIA's 1997 history of its role in UFO study.
- Federal Bureau of Investigation — The U.S. federal police agency, which helped check flying disc reports from 1947 to 1950.
- National Security Agency — The U.S. signals intelligence agency, which holds UFO-related intercepts.
On the Timeline
- Rumsfeld's "no need to know" remark (13 April 1975) — Hynek says Donald Rumsfeld told him he had no need to know about any secret UAP study.
- Sgt. M.S. and the Wright-Patterson general (1977) — An Air Force sergeant says a general at Wright-Patterson told him about recovered material.
See every 1976 event on the UAP Timeline →
References
- "CIA loses 1976 document detailing physical evidence relating to UFO phenomena", The Black Vault (Jan 2022) · theblackvault.com · archived copy
- CIA document C05515622 (PDF), The Black Vault · documents2.theblackvault.com · archived copy
- Gerald K. Haines, "CIA's role in the study of UFOs, 1947–90", CIA · cia.gov · archived copy
- "DCD case: UFO research", UFO Scans · ufoscans.com · archived copy
- archive.org · archive.org · archived copy
- cia.gov · cia.gov · archived copy
Further reading
- 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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