Story highlights
- CIA shares investigations into UFOs
- Cases range from 1940s to 1950s
The Central Intelligence Agency posted documents of reported Unidentified Flying Objects that range in date from the late 1940s to the 1950s. While playing off the hype of the TV show reboot "The X-Files," the CIA broke down the cases into two categories, whether you side with Agent Mulder or Agent Scully.
Gillian Anderson as Dana Scully and David Duchovny as Fox Mulder in the Fox series "The X-Files."
For believers in alien life, and those who want to channel your inner Mulder, one case you can choose to investigate is the case of a flying saucer in Germany in 1952.
Air Force UFO files land on the Internet
According to CIA reports, an eyewitness told investigators that an object "resembling a huge flying pan" landed in a forest clearing in the Soviet zone of Germany in 1952. The eyewitness said once he was closer to the area where it landed, he saw two men dressed in shiny metallic clothing. The men were stooped over looking at a large object but were spooked by the eyewitness. The mysterious men jumped into the large flying pan object and it spun out into the sky.
This photo was taken in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on October 20, 1960.
"The whole object then began to rise slowly from the ground and rotate like a top," the eyewitness told the CIA.
The man told a judge he thought he was dreaming but said there was a circular imprint on the ground where the object had landed.
If that case intrigues you, there are four more listed on the CIA blog post.
But if you are more of a skeptic like Scully, and believe there is a simple explanation for flying saucer sightings, then the documents from the scientific advisory panel on UFOs in 1953 will help you prove your case.
According to the documents, panel members met to discuss the lack of sound data and reasonable explanations in a handful of sightings from 1952. The panel concluded unanimously that there was no evidence of direct threat to national security by the object sightings. Some of the explanations for the "flying saucers" and "balls of light" were determined to be from military aircraft, light reflected from ice crystals, birds and bright sunlight rays.
To investigate the other cases or to learn how to investigate your own, visit the CIA blog.
