In January 1979, The New York Times reported that despite repeated, feverish denials, the CIA had indeed investigated the UFO phenomenon: "CIA Papers Detail UFO Surveillance" screamed the headline. The report is said to have so upset the then CIA director, Stansfield Turner, that he reportedly asked his staff: "Are we in UFOs?"
The answer was yes - since the late 1940s, apparently. But exactly how, what, when, why and who remained layered in mystery, leaving grist for the conspiracy mill.
But this year a raft of newly unclassified CIA documents revealed that the remote possibility of alien invasion elicited greater fear than the threat of a Soviet nuclear attack.
More interesting still, the CIA documents show that despite decades of repeated public denials, behind the scenes there raged a series of inter-agency feuds that involved the highest levels of the US government.
The subject of UFOs - and dabbling in psychological warfare techniques - not only focused the attention of the US government elite for 50 years, but of some of the greatest scientific and military minds of the era.
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