Project AQUILINE, the CIA's small spy drone
A Top Secret CIA plan of about 1968 to put AQUILINE, a small unarmed reconnaissance drone, into service, flight-tested at Area 51.
1968 CE · 37.23, -115.81 · status: official
The account
The paper (BYE-9322-68, released in 2020) records that the Office of Special Activities had worked with the Office of Research and Development on AQUILINE from November 1967 to December 1968. It planned flight tests in FY1970, using 7 test vehicles at Area 51, 'an ideal facility'. Operations were to follow with mobile ground-control units, rising to 12 vehicles a year and 24 missions. The goal was 'almost completely surreptitious penetration' of denied areas for photo and infrared imagery, at low political risk because the craft was 'very small and having no armament'. It shows that secret, unusual small aircraft flew from Nevada in the late 1960s, a context for UFO reports near test ranges.
The sceptical view
The paper says nothing about UFOs; any link to particular sightings is an inference.