CIA memo on Civilian Saucer Investigation
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 9
| Date | 9 February 1953 |
|---|---|
| From | Chief, Contact Division, Office of Operations, CIA |
| To | Assistant for Operations, Office of Scientific Intelligence (attn. Hayden Channing) |
| Subject | "California Committee for Saucer Investigation", i.e. Civilian Saucer Investigation (CSI), Los Angeles |
| Informant | Dr. Walther Riedel, Peenemünde rocket designer, then at North American Aviation |
| Notable content | CSI's case figures; a planned "hoax" to test public reporting |
| Availability | CIA online reading room |
| People | Walter Riedel |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 48 |
| Year | 1953 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 1953 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 9 |
A CIA memo dated 9 February 1953, from the chief of the agency's Contact Division to Hayden Channing of the Office of Scientific Intelligence, reports what the German rocket scientist Walther Riedel said about a Los Angeles civilian group, Civilian Saucer Investigation (CSI), of which he was a member.[1][2] The memo, titled "California Committee for Saucer Investigation", describes CSI's methods and figures, and Riedel's statement that the group planned to stage a deliberate "hoax" over Los Angeles to test public reporting.[1] It was written within weeks of the CIA-sponsored Robertson Panel, which recommended that private UFO groups such as the one in Los Angeles be monitored.[6]
Civilian Saucer Investigation
CSI was a short-lived Los Angeles group founded in the early 1950s.[3] On 29 May 1951 three technical writers at North American Aviation, Edward J. Sullivan, Werner Eicher and Victor Black, reported seeing glowing, meteor-like objects making right-angle turns, and they joined with Riedel to form the group.[3] CSI was featured in Time in March 1952 and in Life's April 1952 article "Have We Visitors From Space?". It published four issues of the CSI Quarterly Bulletin between 1952 and 1954.[3][7] Edward Ruppelt of Project Blue Book attended a CSI meeting in Los Angeles on 1 April 1952, where he first learned what Life would publish.[7] In October 1952 Black published "The Flying Saucer Hoax" in American Mercury, claiming that he and his friends had invented their sighting as a joke. CSI then dissolved, and its files went to NICAP.[3] The researcher Jan Aldrich of the Sign Historical Group has written its history.[4]
Walther Riedel
The memo calls Riedel the former chief designer at the German experimental rocket center at Peenemünde, a "paperclip" scientist in the United States for some years.[1] He was then a project engineer in the aerophysics (guided missiles) department of North American Aviation. The memo's author found him "a competent scientist, especially knowledgeable on rocket matters", and "a balanced person, not given to fixations".[1] This was Walther Johannes Riedel (1903–1974), who directed liquid-fuel rocket development at Peenemünde and was chief of design on the V-2 in 1942. He came to the United States under Operation Paperclip and worked for North American Aviation at Downey, California.[8] He should not be confused with Walter "Papa" Riedel, head of Peenemünde's design office, who emigrated to Britain.[9] Riedel told Life in 1952 that he was "completely convinced that they have an out-of-world basis". He also analyzed George Adamski's saucer photographs and found them faked.[8] He later returned to West Germany and died in Hamburg in 1974.[8]
CSI's work
A member of the CIA's Los Angeles office heard Riedel describe CSI's activities.[1] According to the memo:[1]
- CSI had received some 1,570 letters reporting sightings. About 75 percent were eliminated quickly as not worth following up, and most of the remaining quarter were discarded after further investigation.
- About 25 sightings were judged "reliable", in the sense that no known explanation existed, and most were forwarded to Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio.
- The group made careful calculations of physical plausibility, such as lines of sight, and privately investigated witnesses at home to establish their reliability.
The writer was impressed by the "exhaustiveness" of the work, citing Riedel's account of a sighting by a TWA crew.[1] The memo also notes CSI's interest in Soviet reactions to sightings reported in Pravda. It mentions a December 1952 paper, "Rockets Behind the Iron Curtain", by George P. Sutton, also of North American's aerophysics department and associated with CSI.[1]
The planned "hoax"
Riedel said CSI was so serious that it planned to stage a deliberate "hoax" over the Los Angeles area. The aim was to test how many people would report a clearly visible aerial phenomenon and how much their accounts would vary, as a baseline for judging future sightings.[1] The memo suggests that sightings over Malibu reported in Los Angeles papers on 30 January 1953 "could possibly be this hoax".[1] Part of the following text is blacked out.[1] The memo ends by noting that "NAA" had politely and perhaps indirectly suggested Riedel withdraw from official CSI membership.[1] The earlier version of this article took NAA to mean North American Aviation. The transcription glosses it as the National Aeronautical Association.[1] One account says the CIA's interview of Riedel followed his denunciation in 1953 by his fellow North American employee Victor Black.[8]
Significance
The memo is genuine and is in the CIA's online reading room.[2][5] It shows the CIA gathering information about civilian UFO groups at the same time as the Robertson Panel, reporting in early 1953 "at the height of McCarthyism", recommended that "such private UFO groups as the Civilian Flying Saucer Investigators in Los Angeles and the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization in Wisconsin be monitored for subversive activities".[6] Strictly, the memo records what an informant said in conversation, not direct surveillance of the group's meetings.[1][3]
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.
- Walter Riedel — German rocket engineer from Peenemünde who was a member of the Civilian Saucer Investigation group.
- Civilian Saucer Investigation — A Los Angeles UFO research group of the early 1950s.
- Operation Paperclip — The postwar U.S. program that brought German scientists to America.
- U.S. Air Force — The U.S. military service that ran the official UFO projects from 1947 to 1969.
- Wright-Patterson Air Force Base — The Ohio air base that housed Project Blue Book and is linked to the Hangar 18 legend.
- Unidentified flying object — An object in the sky that can't be identified; the older term for UAP.
- Robertson Panel — Robertson Panel
On the Timeline
- Albert Chop and the Tremonton film release (9 February 1953) — Air Force spokesman Albert Chop claims the CIA killed a press release and ordered a debunking campaign.
- Ed Balocco's night chase near Edenton (1953) (19 February 1953) — A Marine pilot scrambled near North Carolina reports a disc with red lights coming within 350 feet.
See every 1953 event on the UAP Timeline →
Further reading
- UFO documents — CIA Reading Room · cia.gov · archived copy
References
- "CIA memo on Civilian Saucer Investigation, 9 Feb 1953", Project 1947 · project1947.com · archived copy
- "California Committee for Saucer Investigation", CIA reading room · cia.gov · archived copy
- Civilian Saucer Investigation — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Civilian Saucer Investigation history — Sign Historical Group · project1947.com · archived copy
- project1947.com · project1947.com · archived copy
- Gerald K. Haines, "CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947–90" (CIA, 1997) · cia.gov
- Have We Visitors From Space? · en.wikipedia.org
- Walther Johannes Riedel · en.wikipedia.org
- Walter Riedel · en.wikipedia.org
Facts in this article are drawn in part from the Wikipedia articles “Civilian Saucer Investigation”, “Have We Visitors From Space?”, “Walther Johannes Riedel”, “Walter Riedel”, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.
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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