FOIAWEAR — FLYING SAUCERS / The 1953 Debunking Panel Tee

FOIAWEAR / ARCHIVE SERIES 044 — FLYING SAUCERS

In January 1953 a panel of scientists sat down with seventy-five flying saucer cases. Its recommendation, in the document's own words, had “two major aims: training and ‘debunking’.”

The released file is headed “SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY PANEL ON UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS” and dated 14–17 January 1953. Under “Evidence Examined” it lists “Seventy-five case histories of sightings: 1951–1952”, “selected by ATIC as those best documented.”

The panel's first finding is the one that stays with you:

“The Panel Members were impressed with the lack of sound data in the great majority of case histories.”

Among the case histories discussed in detail were Bellefontaine, Ohio (1 August 1952); Tremonton, Utah (2 July 1952); Great Falls, Montana (15 August 1950); Yaak, Montana (1 September 1952); the Washington, D.C. area (19 July 1952); Haneda A.F.B., Japan (5 August 1952); Port Huron, Michigan (29 July 1952); and Presque Isle, Maine (10 October 1952).

The panel concluded that “reasonable explanations could be suggested for most sightings” and that “by deduction and scientific method it could be induced (given additional data) that other cases might be explained in a similar manner.” It also noted the limits of the evidence itself — “the brevity of some sightings (e.g., 2–3 seconds) and the inability of the witnesses to express themselves clearly (semantics)” meant “conclusive explanations could not be expected for every case reported.”

On the question everyone actually wanted answered, the file is blunt: “The Panel concluded unanimously that there was no evidence of a direct threat to national security in the objects sighted.” Instances of “Foo Fighters” were cited, and the panel referenced the writings of Charles Fort to show that “strange things in the sky” had been recorded for hundreds of years.

What came next was a communications plan. The panel's educational program — aimed at reducing the strong psychological reaction that public interest in flying saucers produced — would be accomplished “by mass media such as television, motion pictures, and popular articles”, built on “actual case histories which had been puzzling at first but later explained.”

By 1 December 1953 a memorandum to the Assistant Director, Scientific Intelligence, reported where the work had landed: responsibility had been “reduced to maintaining awareness of the activities of other agencies (notably the USAF) in the unidentified flying objects business and to maintenance of files.” The same memo records that the consultants who reviewed the subject during 1953 recommended that UFOs be stripped of their aura of mystery and that policies on intelligence, training and public education be prepared. Its reading list is a map of the era: Project GRUDGE, Project BLUE BOOK, ATIC status and progress reports, and contract work supporting ATIC.

The artwork is a mid-century instrument plate: a radar scope with range rings, a sweep line and three blips, with a flight of discs banking above it in phosphor green, amber, steel blue and cream. The panel's three case sites run beneath it, and the finding is set under the artwork verbatim: “LACK OF SOUND DATA”.

Offered in twelve garment colours, printed as two different plates rather than one image lightened. On the dark garments (Black, Espresso, Graphite, Navy, Pepper) the scope lights up phosphor green, like an instrument screen. On the light garments (White, Ivory, Butter, Chalky Mint, Light Green, Blossom, Chambray) the same diagram is printed as a three-ink screen plate drawn for pale cloth — heavy charcoal-black line work and cross-hatching, flat phosphor green with the range rings knocked straight out to the shirt, and one red blip.

The QR code on the front opens the released document itself — Comments and Suggestions of UFO Panel, the Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects, 14–17 January 1953: https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/0000015458

Note: quotations above are taken verbatim from the released documents, with redactions and OCR damage not reproduced; where a passage is damaged it is paraphrased rather than quoted. Dates and case names are as they appear in the file. This is not an official publication and is not affiliated with any government or agency.

Garment: Comfort Colors 1717 garment-dyed t-shirt. Heavyweight 6.1 oz/yd² (206.8 g/m²), 100% ring-spun US cotton, pre-shrunk, relaxed fit, double-needle stitched with no side seams and a sewn-in label. Sizes S–4XL. Printed on the front at 300 DPI; plain back. The main artwork prints at 10 × 10 in and the QR at 1.8 × 1.8 in.

Care: machine wash cold, inside out, with like colours. Tumble dry low. Do not iron directly on the printed area.

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