CIA UFO records collection
🏛️ Central Intelligence Agency
The CIA’s online reading-room collection of declassified UFO material: memos, panel papers and reports from the late 1940s onward. Roughly 900 pages first came out in 1978 after a Freedom of Information lawsuit.
Key points
- Includes papers connected to the 1953 Robertson Panel.
- Shows the agency’s main interest was whether sightings hid Soviet technology or could be exploited to cause panic.
- Documents are scanned and searchable in the CIA reading room.
Why it matters
It is the primary source for how U.S. intelligence thought about UFOs during the early Cold War.
Read it yourself
The summary above is ours, written in plain English. Always check the original: the official files on this page go straight to the source, and each one has a backup copy saved by the Internet Archive in case the government page moves.
Central Intelligence Agency. (1978). CIA UFO records collection. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/collection/ufos-fact-or-fictionRelated records
FBI Vault: the Bureau’s UFO files
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The FBI’s public collection of its records on “flying discs” and unidentified flying objects, released under the Freedom of Information Act and posted in the FBI Vault reading room.
CASE 17708 (CLOSED) and DR. Leon Davidson
CIA
This 1958 CIA memorandum discussing a phone conversation with Dr. Leon Davidson regarding concerns about a destroyed "space message and its transmitter." A redacted version of this memorandum has been available on CIA's public website.
Unknown Flying Objects Observed Over Budapest
CIA
This is a 1957 CIA Information Report regarding UFO sightings over Budapest. A more redacted version of this report has been available on CIA's public website.
Report of Unusual Flying Object Sightings and Attendant Scientific Activity
CIA
This 1956 CIA Information Report describes flying object sightings reported by a Budapest-based sub-source, including a sketch showing the objects' suspected formation and flight path between Budapest and Moscow. A more redacted version of this report has been available on CIA's public website.