Claims of CIA funding of UFO researchers
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 9
| Main document | "The Fund for CIA Research? or Who's Disinforming Whom?", AIR Investigator's Report #1 (1993) |
|---|---|
| Attributed to | W. Todd Zechel |
| Target | Physicist Bruce Maccabee, Fund for UFO Research |
| Allegation | Secret briefings for, and a long relationship with, CIA officials |
| Main contact named | Ron Pandolfi, CIA scientific intelligence |
| Confirmed | Maccabee's briefings and lectures at the CIA, 1979 onward |
| Not shown | Any CIA payments to Maccabee or other researchers |
| Date | 15 December 1978 |
| Topics | Beings & bodies (topic), Secrecy & cover-up (topic) |
| People | Todd Zechel, Brad Sparks |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 86 |
| Year | 1978 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 1978 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 10 |
UFO researchers have long alleged that the CIA had hidden relationships with people inside the UFO community. One detailed example is a 1993 report, attributed to the researcher W. Todd Zechel, which accused the physicist Bruce Maccabee of the Fund for UFO Research of secretly briefing the CIA for years.[1] Maccabee did brief CIA staff on UFOs many times from 1979 into the 1990s, as he later described himself.[1][10] Despite the item's title, the report described briefings and a relationship, not payments, and no released document shows that the CIA funded Maccabee or other researchers.[1][2]
The 1978 document release
Zechel was a new member of the Phoenix group Ground Saucer Watch who claimed to have worked in covert government roles. In 1977 his interest in CIA records led the group, represented pro bono by the New York lawyer Peter Gersten, to file a Freedom of Information Act request and then sue the CIA.[1][4] In December 1978 the agency released about a thousand pages of UFO-related documents it had previously said did not exist, and The New York Times reported them in January 1979.[1][2][3] Gersten and Zechel went on to found Citizens Against UFO Secrecy (CAUS), which later sued the CIA over 57 documents still withheld.[4][5] The episode fed lasting suspicion of hidden CIA ties to the UFO field.[2][9]
The 1993 report
The report was titled "The Fund for CIA Research? or Who's Disinforming Whom?". It said that Maccabee, an optics specialist at a Navy laboratory and a founder of the Fund for UFO Research, had been meeting CIA officials since 1979.[1] Maccabee confirmed he had given several briefings at CIA headquarters, the latest on 28 May 1993. The subjects included the Gulf Breeze photographs, MJ-12, Roswell, UFO films and physiological effects on witnesses.[1] His main contact was said to be the CIA official Ron Pandolfi. The report said Maccabee had first approached the agency in 1979 with his analysis of the New Zealand UFO film.[1]
Maccabee's own account
Maccabee later described these contacts himself in his 2014 book The FBI–CIA–UFO Connection, largely matching the report's outline. As the researcher Keith Basterfield summarized it:[10]
- After his work on the 1978 New Zealand case, he was referred through Gordon MacDonald of the MITRE Corporation to the CIA.
- In March 1979 he presented the case to seven agency employees, one of them the physician Christopher "Kit" Green.
- Pandolfi, "a scientist and intelligence analyst in the Scientific Intelligence branch", contacted him in August 1984 about his laser work. That began "a more than fifteen year association" based partly on official interest in the laser research and partly on Pandolfi's unofficial interest in UFOs.
- Maccabee lectured at CIA headquarters on 7 July 1987 and later on Gulf Breeze.
Maccabee also said that Pandolfi gave the official reason for CIA interest as the risk that the KGB was using American citizens, including ufologists, to penetrate U.S. defense programs.[10] Neither the report nor Maccabee's account mentions payments.[1][10]
Allegations
The 1993 report accused Maccabee of removing a fellow founder, Larry Bryant, from the Fund after Pandolfi complained about a Freedom of Information request by Bryant. It also said other Fund members had not known the full extent of Maccabee's contacts.[1] It quoted the Fund's chairman, Richard Hall, as calling the connections an appearance of impropriety.[1] Bryant later kept CAUS going almost single-handedly from 1987 to 1998.[5]
Kit Green, Maccabee's first CIA contact, has also drawn suspicion from researchers over his intelligence background. He was a medical doctor and longtime CIA employee and contractor with an interest in military medicine. He later studied injured personnel with the Stanford scientist Garry Nolan, some of whom reported UAP encounters.[7][8] He is not the English performer of the same name.[6]
Assessment
The documented relationship is one of informal briefings and information exchange between a Navy physicist with UFO interests and a few CIA scientists who shared that interest.[1][10] The report described briefings and a relationship, not payments. Despite the item's title, it gave no evidence that the CIA funded Maccabee or other researchers, and no released document shows such funding.[1][2]
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.
- Unidentified flying object — An object in the sky that can't be identified; the older term for UAP.
- Todd Zechel — Researcher who co-founded Citizens Against UFO Secrecy and sued the CIA in the 1970s.
- Brad Sparks — UFO analyst known for his catalogue of Blue Book unknowns and work on the CIA lawsuit.
- Robertson Panel — Robertson Panel
- NICAP — The leading U.S. civilian UFO group of the 1950s and 1960s.
On the Timeline
- CAUS lawsuit and the CIA UFO papers (15 December 1978) — Researchers claim the CIA ran secret emergency UAP studies during sighting waves.
- Samuel Stratton and the SAC base overflights (20 December 1978) — Rep. Samuel Stratton raises concerns over unknown aircraft flying over Strategic Air Command bases.
See every 1978 event on the UAP Timeline →
Further reading
- UFO documents — CIA Reading Room · cia.gov · archived copy
References
- "The Fund for CIA Research? or Who's Disinforming Whom?", AIR Investigator's Report #1 (1993, PDF via The Paracast) · theparacast.com · archived copy
- "C.I.A. papers detail U.F.O. surveillance", New York Times (Jan 1979), via Patrick Gross · ufologie.patrickgross.org · archived copy
- 'C.I.A. papers detail U.F.O. surveillance' (NYT, 1979) — CIA reading room · cia.gov · archived copy
- Peter Gersten — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Citizens Against UFO Secrecy — Obscurantist · obscurantist.com · archived copy
- Kit Green — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Garry Nolan on UFO materials and Kit Green's patient studies (Vice interview) · exo.substack.com · archived copy
- Kit Green in Vallée's journals — Forbidden Science Dispatches · tannerfboyle.substack.com · archived copy
- abovetopsecret.com · abovetopsecret.com · archived copy
- Dr Bruce Maccabee and the CIA (Keith Basterfield, Nov 2014) · ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com
Facts in this article are drawn in part from the Wikipedia articles “Peter Gersten”, “Kit Green”, 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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