Within UFO Timeline
Chadwell on Air Force briefing On 2 December 1952, a memo from H Marshall Chadwell, Assistant Director of OSI, for CIA’s DCI Walter Bedell Smith entitled “Unidentified Flying Objects” details a further Air Force briefing for CIA on 25 Nove...
On this page
- Web Resources
- Book References
- Other Material
Page outline Jump by section

Chadwell on Air Force briefing
On 2 December 1952, a memo from H Marshall Chadwell, Assistant Director of OSI, for CIA’s DCI Walter Bedell Smith entitled “Unidentified Flying Objects” details a further Air Force briefing for CIA on 25 November 1952, stating that “at this time, the reports of incidents convince us that there is something going on that must have immediate attention. … Sightings of unexplained objects at great altitudes and traveling at high speeds in the vicinity of major U.S. defense installations are of such nature that they are not attributable to natural phenomena or known types of aerial vehicles.”.
Chadwell further stated ‘OSI is proceeding to the establishment of a consulting group of sufficient competence and stature to review this matter and convince the responsible authorities in the community that immediate research and development on this subject must be undertaken’. Chadwell attached a draft memorandum to the National Security Council.
Sections below
Web Resources
Text of relevant document included in CUFON CIA ufo-related document sampler in Part 1 (of 2 Parts). Available online at: http://www.cufon.org/cufon/cia-52-1.htm
There is a rapid turnover of UFO material on the Internet. Many links to material on UFO websites quickly become out of date. Therefore, instead of giving many links to specific webpages I have instead focused on providing tables of references to discussion of UFO incidents, personalities and other matters in various books. Those tables of references to discussion in books can be sorted by author, length and date. I hope these tools are useful.
Book References
Complete text, and partial image, included by Hall, Richard in his “Uninvited Guests” (1988) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 336-337 (in Appendix B) of the Aurora Press paperback edition.
The table below includes references to relevant discussions in UFO/SETI books noted by Isaac Koi during a review of approximately 963 UFO/SETI books during the period 2003-2006 (with a few later additions). The table can be sorted by author, date and length of discussion by clicking on the relevant word in the top line of the table.
Many of the tables of references on this website are considerably longer than the references to books found on most other UFO websites. Indeed, some are probably the longest that have been collated in relation to some events and personalities. I hope that these tables are found to be a useful contribution to UFOlogy.
For discussion see the following:
|
Year |
Discussion by:
|
No. of Pages |
|
Dolan, Richard M. in his “UFOs and the National Security State: Volume 1: 1941-1973” (2000) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 190-191 (in Chapter 4) of the Keyhole softcover edition, at page 121 of the 2002 revised Hampton Road softcover edition. |
2 |
|
|
Good, Timothy in his “Above Top Secret” (1987) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 330-331 (in Chapter 14) of the Sidgwick & Jackson hardback edition (with the same page numbering in the Guild Publishing hardback edition and the Grafton paperback edition). |
2 |
|
|
Good, Timothy in his “Beyond Top Secret” (1996) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at page 403 (in Chapter 16) of the Sidgwick & Jackson hardback edition (with the same page numbering in the Pan paperback edition). |
1 |
|
|
Haines, Gerald K (National Reconnaissance Office historian) at footnote 25 in his study entitled “A Die-Hard Issue : CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90” in “Studies in Intelligence”, Issue 1997 Vol. 1, No. 1 (the text of the study is available online on various websites, including the CIA’s |
1 | |
|
Klass, Philip, with lenghy extract, in his “UFOs – The Public Deceived” (1983) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at page 27 (in Chapter 3) of the Prometheus softback edition. |
1 |
|
|
Maccabee, Bruce in his “UFO-FBI Connection” (2000) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at pages 252-253 (in Chapter 21) of the Llewellyn softcover edition. |
2 |
|
|
Peebles, Curtis, with extract from memo, in his “Watch the Skies!” (1994) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at page 81 of the Smithsonian hardback edition, pages 98-99 of the Berkley paperback edition (Chapter 6, “The Robertson Panel” – in part of the section entitled “The Robertson Panel”). |
1 |
|
|
Shawcross, Tim in his “The Roswell File” (1997) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at page 207 (in Chapter 14) of the Bloomsbury softcover edition. |
1 |
|
|
Wright, Susan in her “UFO Headquarters” (1998) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at page 47 (in Chapter 3) of the St Martin’s Press softcover edition. |
1 |
Other Material
Please use the comments section below to share references to any particularly interesting relevant articles.
Topic Tree
Follow this branch
Parent topic
UFO TimelineRelated pages 13
- 1952.0921 North Sea sighting
- 1952.0924 Chadwell recommends NSC attention
- 1952.1002 Chadwell memo
- 1952.1010 Presque Isle, Maine incident
- 1952.1011 American Optical Society symposium
- 1952.1017 Oloron "angel hair" incident
- 1952.1021 RAF Meteor sighting
- 1952.1204 Intelligence Advisory Committee
- +5 more in sidebar