31 December, 2014

CIA takes blame for more than half of UFO sightings in late 1950s and 60s

The CIA was responsible for more than half of all UFO sightings in the late 1950s and most of the 1960s — but those weren’t little green men flying high in the sky, they were spies.

For years, the CIA secretly flew its famous U-2 spy plane at altitudes of 60,000 feet or more above countries like the Soviet Union. Since no one believed manned flight was possible at such heights, many who spotted the planes believed they were seeing UFOs. The spy agency did nothing at the time to disabuse them of the notion.

That’s one of the most intriguing takeaways in the document that the Central Intelligence Agency said was its most-read in 2014. Titled “The CIA and the U-2 Program, 1954-1974,” the document details 20 years of the agency’s now infamous spy plane. A U-2 flown by the CIA’s Francis Gary Powers, of course, was shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960.

Alongside posts revealing that pigeon-camera missions are still classified; the true story behind the story that led to the hit film “Argo;” and others that made up the CIA’s best of 2014 list, the U2 document, which detailed how large numbers of pilots mistook the secret spy planes for unidentified flying objects, topped a list providing a rare — albeit limited — view into the inner workings of an agency under fire recently for its alleged use of torture.

Over the last few days, the CIA has been tweeting out links to its top ten most-read “BestOf2014” documents. Today, it confessed that “Reports of unusual activity in the skies in the ‘50s? It was us.”
High-altitude testing of the U-2…led to an unexpected side effect — a tremendous increase in reports of unidentified flying objects,” the CIA wrote in the document, which it wrote in 1998. “In the mid-1950s, most commercial airliners flew at altitudes between 10,000 and 20,000 feet and [many] military aircraft…operated at altitudes below 40,000 feet. Consequently, once U-2s started flying at altitudes above 60,000 feet, air-traffic controllers began receiving increasing numbers of UFO reports.”

Added the document, the CIA cross-referenced UFO sightings to U-2 flight logs. “This enabled the investigators to eliminate the majority of the UFO reports,” the CIA wrote, “although they could not reveal to the letter writers the true cause of the UFO sightings.”

Link:  http://venturebeat.com/2014/12/29/cia-takes-blame-for-more-than-half-of-ufo-sightings-in-late-1950s-and-60s/

More Links Here:
UFO or CIA? Agency takes credit for '50s and '60s sightings
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/12/30/cia-spies-ufo-sightings/21058321/

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