Alleged CIA report on recovered disc technology (1949)
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 4
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| Date | 17 August 1949 |
|---|---|
| Topics | Crashes & retrievals (topic), Secrecy & cover-up (topic), Government programs (topic) |
| People | Ryan Wood, Harry S. Truman |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 41 |
| Year | 1949 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 1949 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 4 |
Alleged CIA report on recovered disc technology (1949) — An alleged CIA report names a secret Defense Department program for exploiting recovered disc technology.
This headline refers to a document presented as a CIA report from 1949 describing a secret Defense Department program to exploit technology from recovered discs, including a power plant. It belongs to the "Majestic" set of documents circulated anonymously from the 1990s onward, especially through researchers Robert and Ryan Wood's majesticdocuments.com.
The document has never appeared in any official CIA release. Its date varies across copies (1947, 1949 and 1950 have all been cited), and its claims, including a meeting with President Truman at Blair House, are unverified. Researchers who have studied the wider MJ-12 set, including the FBI in 1988, have judged the core papers to be fabrications.
The genuine CIA record on UFOs from this period is much more mundane. Released files show the agency monitoring reports and, in the early 1950s, convening the Robertson Panel. In 2014 the CIA itself noted that its high-altitude U-2 and A-12 spy planes, first flown in the mid-1950s, accounted for many later sightings.
People and topics
- Central Intelligence Agency — The U.S. foreign intelligence agency, which has followed UFO reports since the 1940s.
- MJ-12 — Disputed documents describing a secret committee managing crashed saucers.
- Ryan Wood — Researcher who published the Majestic documents with his father Robert Wood.
- Harry S. Truman — 33rd U.S. president (1945–53), in office during the first flying disc wave and the start of official UFO studies.
- Federal Bureau of Investigation — The U.S. federal police agency, which helped check flying disc reports from 1947 to 1950.
- 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 Collins metal samples claim (1949) — Scientist Albert Collins claims he studied strange recovered metal samples that the Army later took away.
- Hebgen Lake disc report (1949) (17 August 1949) — An Air Force base reports an informant's account of seven discs and two crashed ones; a lake search finds nothing.
See every 1949 event on the UAP Timeline →
References
- Scan and summary of the alleged ULATT report — UFOScans · ufoscans.com · archived copy
- Early CIA UFO documents (genuine releases) — Patrick Gross · ufology.patrickgross.org · archived copy
- CIA takes blame for most UFO sightings decades ago — KUER/NPR · kuer.org · archived copy
- majesticdocuments.com · majesticdocuments.com · archived copy
Further reading
- UFO documents — CIA Reading Room · cia.gov · archived copy
- Harry S. Truman — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · 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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