The CIA released an admission that it was responsible for the majority of the reports of Unidentified Flying Objects during America’s Cold War with Russia. “It was us,” the agency posted on social media, along with a declassified document from the 1990s.

The heavily-redacted 272-page report, entitled ‘The CIA and the U-2 Program, 1954-1974,’ describes various aspects of the CIA’s top secret U-2 program, which was used for high-altitude spy missions over Russian airspace.

Earth vs. the Flying S... Best Price: $63.99 Buy New $89.95 (as of 09:56 UTC - Details) The CIA’s 1998 report goes on to reveal how the deployment of the U-2 aircraft — with its revolutionary, breakthrough capabilities — practically single-handedly fueled the hysteria over UFOs during the Cold War. It reads:

High altitude testing of the U-2 soon led to an unexpected side effect — a tremendous increase in reports of unidentified flying objects (UFOs). In the mid-1950s, most commercial airliners flew at altitudes between 10,000 and 20,000 feet and military aircraft like the B-47s and B-57s operated at altitudes below 40,000 feet. Consequently, once U-2s started flying at altitudes above 60,000 feet, air-traffic controllers began receiving increasing numbers of UFO reports. Close Encounters/Starman Best Price: $7.37 Buy New $9.49 (as of 03:55 UTC - Details)

Such reports were most prevalent in the early morning hours from pilots of airliners flying from east to west. When the sun dropped below the horizon of an airliner flying at 20,000 feet, the plane was in darkness. But, if a U-2 was airborne in the vicinity of the airliner at the time, its horizon from an altitude of 60,000 feet was considerably more distant, and, being so high in the sky, its silver wings would catch and reflect the rays of the sun and appear to the airliner pilot, 40,000 feet below, to be fiery objects. Even during daylight hours, the silver bodies of the high-flying U-2s could catch the sun and cause reflections or glints that could be seen at lover altitudes and even on the ground. At this time, no one believed manned flight was possible above 60,000 feet, so no one expected to see an object so high in the sky.

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