CIA Memorandum for Record: British Activity in the Field of "Unidentified Flying Objects," December 1952

Source file: CIA-UAP-014_British_Activity_in_the_Field_of_Unidentified_Flying_Objects.pdf Originating agency: Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Scientific Intelligence Document type: Memorandum for Record Signed by: H. Marshall Chadwell, Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence Classification: SECRET — Security Information (Approved for Release 2026 under Section 1842 of the NDAA FY2024) Date: 18 December 1952 Page count: 2 (both read) VIRIN: 260508-O-D0360-1091 PURSUE Release: 3

Summary

This is a two-page declassified SECRET Memorandum for Record dated 18 December 1952, signed by H. Marshall Chadwell, Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence at the CIA. The memo was written three days after a British messenger arrived and briefed the CIA on British UFO activities. The primary subject is R. V. Jones — at the time the head of Britain's scientific intelligence — and his oversight of a British standing committee on flying saucers.

The memo reports that the committee had concluded the observed objects were not enemy aircraft and that none had overflown Britain. More significantly, it reports that approximately ten to twelve days before the memo was written (i.e., around 6-8 December 1952), a striking sighting of a "perfect flying saucer" occurred at an unnamed Yorkshire RAF field, witnessed simultaneously by senior RAF officials in London who had been invited to observe, as well as RAF pilots. The press coverage that followed was, according to Jones, disturbing because he considered management of public opinion to be within his responsibilities.

A second page — apparently excerpted from a related CIA assessment document — outlines three categories of national-security risk posed by UFO sightings: disruption of early-warning systems, the possibility of enemy-induced mass hysteria, and overloading of emergency communications channels. A handwritten marginal note adds that Brigadier General Air Marshal Maxwell (RDB) ADC "is cognizant of this potential danger and does express concern."

Research Article

The British UFO committee and R. V. Jones

Reginald Victor Jones (R. V. Jones) was Britain's foremost scientific intelligence officer during and after the Second World War — the man responsible for detecting and countering German radar and navigation systems. By December 1952 he was in a senior role in British scientific intelligence and had, according to the memo, inherited oversight of a standing committee on flying saucers that had been established approximately sixteen months earlier, around mid-1951.

The committee's working conclusion, as relayed by the British messenger to the CIA, was twofold: the observations were not enemy aircraft, and none of the objects had flown over British territory. This placed the British assessment in alignment with the dominant early-1950s American military judgment, even as individual sightings continued to accumulate.

The Yorkshire incident

The memo's most significant passage concerns an event that had just occurred:

"The activity has been quiet and normal up to about ten to twelve days ago, at which time the Yorkshire incident took place. In some RAF field, there was some sort of demonstration to which high officials of the RAF in London had been invited. During the show, a 'perfect flying saucer' was seen by these officials as well as RAF pilots. So many people saw it that many articles appeared in the public press."

The memo does not name the specific RAF field or identify any of the witnesses. The use of the phrase "some sort of demonstration" is ambiguous — it could refer to an airshow, a test flight, or another organized event. The witnesses were senior RAF officials who had traveled from London specifically to attend, plus RAF pilots at the field. The objects appeared spontaneously, apparently without being part of the demonstration. The sighting was widely witnessed and reached the British press.

Jones reportedly found the press coverage troubling: "he realizes that the creation of the correction of public opinion is a part of his responsibilities." This reflects the British government's concern — shared by the CIA at the same period — that uncontrolled public belief in flying saucers carried strategic risks.

Historical cross-references

Jones reminded the CIA contact of the Swedish "ghost rockets" incident, noting it was "presumably the one in 1946." The 1946 Swedish ghost rocket wave was an extensive series of unexplained aerial phenomenon reports across Scandinavia, investigated by both Swedish and Allied authorities but never definitively explained. Jones also mentioned a scientific paper on the origin of meteorites published in the French Academy of Sciences between 1760 and 1780 by Chladni — the German physicist Ernst Chladni, whose 1794 work on iron masses from the sky established the scientific basis for understanding meteorites. Jones's citation of Chladni suggests he was exploring naturalistic explanations for the sightings.

The CIA contact informed Jones of American interest in the subject at that time, and specifically mentioned the Tremonton film — footage taken in May 1952 by a US Navy warrant officer near Tremonton, Utah, showing a group of bright objects maneuvering in the sky. Jones was told it was possible he would write to request a copy.

National-security risk framework

The second page of the document contains text from what appears to be a related CIA assessment (the page header is cut off in the released version). It articulates three categories of risk posed by UFO reports to national defense:

1. "The difficulty and delay in positive identification which could weaken the early warning system in alerting defense in the event of commencement of hostilities."
2. "The possibility of mass hysteria which might be purposely induced by an enemy at a critical time by faked reports."
3. "The possibility that the emergency communications systems to command headquarters might be seriously overloaded at a critical time by such reports."

The text notes that these problems were to be brought to the attention of the Federal Civil Defense Administration and the Interdepartmental Committee on Internal Security (for mass hysteria) and to the Joint Communications and Electronics Committee (for communications overloading). A handwritten annotation identifies Brigadier General Air Marshal Maxwell of the Research and Development Board as being aware of and concerned by these risks.

Significance

This memorandum is a significant document in the history of government UFO investigation. It establishes that by late 1952, the British had already created a formal standing committee, that this committee was under R. V. Jones's direction, and that a dramatic multi-witness sighting had just occurred at an RAF base that was prominent enough to reach the press. It also captures the CIA's parallel concern with national-security implications of the UFO phenomenon — not the objects themselves, but the social and communications risks their reports created. The document is one of the clearest contemporaneous records of CIA-British intelligence coordination on the flying-saucer question during the early Cold War.

Key People

Locations

Incidents

Notable Quotes

"The activity has been quiet and normal up to about ten to twelve days ago, at which time the Yorkshire incident took place. In some RAF field, there was some sort of demonstration to which high officials of the RAF in London had been invited. During the show, a 'perfect flying saucer' was seen by these officials as well as RAF pilots. So many people saw it that many articles appeared in the public press." — page 1

"This is disturbing to Jones because he realizes that the creation of the correction of public opinion is a part of his responsibilities." — page 1

"While there is no indication that these objects represent a direct threat to the national defense, there are certain potential dangers which are related to these sightings." — page 2

"The possibility of mass hysteria which might be purposely induced by an enemy at a critical time by faked reports." — page 2