(Central
Intelligence Agency, Washington,
D.C.)
Quote from the article:
“Hector Quintanilla, the last chief officer of the US
Air Force’s famous UFO investigation program, Project BLUE BOOK, was in charge
of the Zamora
case. His team was convinced that Zamora
was telling the truth, and despite an extremely thorough investigation, they
were unable to locate the object or its origins. In an article for Studies in
Intelligence called, ‘The Investigation of UFO’s,’ Quintanilla says that the Zamora sighting is ‘the
best-documented case on record.’ It remains unsolved.
Project BLUE BOOK was based at Wright-Patterson Air
Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. Between 1947 and 1969, the Air Force
recorded 12,618 sightings of strange phenomena — 701 of which remain ‘unidentified’
like the Zamora
case. Although the CIA was not directly affiliated with Project BLUE BOOK, the
Agency did play a large role in investigating UFOs in the late 1940s and early
1950s, which led to the creation of several studies, panels, and programs.
Former CIA Chief Historian, Gerald K. Haines, wrote an in-depth article looking
at the Agency’s role in studying the UFO phenomenon for Studies in
Intelligence. In his article, ‘CIA’s Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90,’ Haines says that ‘while
the Agency’s concern over UFOs was substantial until the early 1950s, CIA has
since paid only limited and peripheral attention to the phenomena.’
With over 20 years of investigations, from the late
1940s until Project BLUE BOOK’s termination in 1969, the CIA and USAF have
learned a thing or two about how to investigate a UFO sighting. While most
government officials and scientists now dismiss flying saucer reports as a
quaint relic of the 1950s and 1960s, there’s still a lot that can be learned
from the history and methodology of ‘flying saucer intelligence.’ ”
