Civilian Saucer Investigation
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🏢 Organization
Contents 5
| Type | Organization |
|---|---|
| On the Timeline | 2 events, 1953–1970 |
Civilian Saucer Investigation (CSI, sometimes CSI-LA) was a short-lived civilian UFO research group based in Los Angeles in the early 1950s, notable as one of the first such groups in the United States and for the hoax that brought it down.[1][2]
Founding
The group grew out of a sighting on 29 May 1951, when three technical writers at North American Aviation — Edward J. Sullivan, Werner Eicher and Victor Black — reported glowing, meteor-like objects making right-angle turns in the sky. They joined rocket scientist Walther Riedel to form the group.[1]
Activities
CSI attracted national attention: Time magazine featured it in March 1952, and Life mentioned it in its influential April 1952 article "Have We Visitors From Space?". It published four issues of the CSI Quarterly Bulletin between 1952 and 1954.[1][3]
The hoax and the end
In October 1952 Victor Black published an article, "The Flying Saucer Hoax", in American Mercury, saying that he and his friends had invented the original sighting as a joke. The group soon dissolved, and its files passed to the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP). It should not be confused with Civilian Saucer Intelligence, a similar group in New York.[1][2]
On the UAP Timeline
- CIA memo on Civilian Saucer Investigation (9 February 1953) — A CIA officer admits monitoring a public UAP meeting in Los Angeles.
- Project Skylite (5 April 1970) — McDonnell Douglas papers describe Project Skylite, a failed effort to copy UAP behavior.
References
- Civilian Saucer Investigation — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Jan L. Aldrich, "CSI — Civilian Saucer Investigation", Project 1947 · project1947.com · archived copy
- "Science: More Saucers", Time (3 Mar 1952) · content.time.com · 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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