Air Force Manual 190-4

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Contents 4
Air Force Manual 190-4
Illustration of official papers and files
Illustration: official papers and files. An artist's impression drawn for this site, not a photograph of the event.
Date1 May 1956
TopicsSecrecy & cover-up (topic), Congress & law (topic)
PeopleWilliam Coleman
TestimonyShellenberger testimony, p. 57
Year1956 in UFO history
Timeline1956 on the UAP Timeline
Sources3

Air Force Manual 190-4 — A former Air Force spokesman says a manual governed all official statements about UFOs.

Air Force Manual 190-4, issued on 1 May 1956, set out Air Force information policy, including how public statements and publications had to be cleared for security and policy before release. Such manuals were standard tools for managing what the military told the public.

According to former Air Force spokesman Maj. William Coleman, as reported by NICAP in the early 1960s, the manual was used to review UFO-related material, including a 1960 book on UFOs that the Air Force had approved. Coleman later produced UFO-related media projects of his own and, in the 1970s, worked on the TV series Project U.F.O.

The manual's existence is documented in government catalogues. What is less clear is how it specifically applied to UFOs, which is known mainly from NICAP's reporting. Critics of Air Force policy cite it as part of a system, along with AFR 200-2 and JANAP 146, that controlled what the public could learn about sightings.

People and topics

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On the Timeline

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Illustration: a jet meeting an unknown object. An artist's impression drawn for this site, not a photograph of the event.

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References

Further reading

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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