The Robertson Panel
A CIA-convened panel of scientists that met in January 1953 and recommended debunking UFO reports to reduce public interest.
1953 CE · 38.90, -77.04 · status: official
The account
Chaired by physicist Howard P. Robertson, the panel met after the 1952 Washington sightings and reviewed Blue Book cases and two films over a few days. It found no threat to national security, but warned that a flood of reports could clog defence channels. It recommended an education programme to 'strip' UFOs of their mystery, and that civilian UFO groups be watched. The formal report is dated 17 January 1953 and signed by Robertson, Alvarez, Berkner, Goudsmit and Page; Hynek and F. C. Durant sat as associate members. On 13 March 1953 the IAC secretary sent it to the Secretary of Defense, saying the CIA did not consider saucer problems 'primarily its concern'. The longer OSI account of the meetings (16 February 1953) records the panel's proposed 'training and "debunking"' programme. It also names two groups that 'should be watched': the Civilian Flying Saucer Investigators (Los Angeles) and APRO (Wisconsin).
The sceptical view
Its defenders say the review was reasonable for its time. Critics, including later Air Force consultant J. Allen Hynek, said it spent too little time on the evidence and set decades of official dismissiveness.
Connections in the atlas
- Air Defense Command on 'fast tracks' and radar phantoms
- The Robertson Panel report
- The Robertson Panel report
- ▶ The government UFO files
- Tremonton film, Utah
- The Robertson Panel report ('Durant report')
- The CIA's 1952 flying-saucer study (Chadwell memos)
- Project Blue Book begins
- Washington D.C. flap
- Condon Report