Memorandum for Assistant Director/Scientific Intelligence regarding Flying Saucers

This memorandum, dated 26 March 1956, was authored by Robert Amory, Jr., the Deputy Director of Intelligence, and addressed to the Assistant Director of Scientific Intelligence. The document concerns the subject of 'Flying Saucers.' Amory references an article from the 17 March 1956 issue of the French magazine 'MATCH,' which detailed a sighting of a 'mysterieux objet celeste' (mysterious celestial object). This sighting was reportedly documented via a radar photograph and confirmed by the visual observation of a pilot from a scheduled airline. Amory poses two questions to the recipient: whether the agency is maintaining contact with the Air Force regarding these phenomena, and whether the agency should concern itself with foreign sightings of this nature. Furthermore, Amory notes that Mars will reach its closest point to Earth in the coming year. He argues that because of this, the agency has a responsibility to monitor the subject, if only to provide the front office with the necessary information to refute more 'spectacular' published reports.