Memorandum for the Record: Responsibility for "Unidentified Flying Objects"

This Memorandum for the Record, dated 9 February 1956, outlines the administrative procedures adopted by the OSI Division regarding the handling of Unidentified Flying Objects (U.F.O.s). The document references two prior directives: an AD/SI Memorandum from 9 January 1956 concerning non-conventional air vehicles and Special Report 14 from ATIC regarding Project Blue Book. The OSI Division formally assumed responsibility for these matters and established a systematic workflow for processing incoming reports. Under these new procedures, raw reports were to be maintained in the ASD. Reports containing information relevant to foreign weapons research or fundamental science were to be forwarded to the Fundamental Sciences Area for review. Any reports deemed not to fit these criteria were to be destroyed. Additionally, the Division mandated the maintenance of a chronological file for all OSI correspondence and finished intelligence reports produced by the United States intelligence community. The memorandum concludes with a recommendation that all raw intelligence and obsolete finished reports on U.F.O.s currently held in the Electronic Division be destroyed to prevent the accumulation of data that experience had shown to be of no use to the OSI mission.