THE DOCUMENT
(Unchanged: a memorandum dated 18 July 1963, from Maxwell W. Hunter II, a member of the professional staff of the National Aeronautics and Space Council, in the Executive Office of the President, to Robert F. Packard of the Office of International Scientific Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. Subject: “Thoughts on the Space Alien Race Question.” Marked “Official Use Only.” Released in PURSUE Release 01, where it appears twice, under two separate State Department file references.)
Why this one is worth your time
Every other briefing in this series has worked with a record of an observation: a sensor saw something, an aircrew saw something, a witness saw something. This one works with a document that records no observation at all. It is a 1963 staff memo, and what it records is a person thinking. It is the oldest substantive document the series has briefed, and the most unusual. It shows, in writing, how the question of alien intelligence was handled at a serious level of the US government more than sixty years ago: a sober, sometimes wry think-piece that takes the abstract question seriously and the flying-saucer claims of the day unseriously.
What the document says
On 18 July 1963 a staff member of the National Aeronautics and Space Council, the White House body that then coordinated US space policy, wrote a memo to a State Department scientific-affairs officer. Its subject was a policy question that, the memo says, “has occasionally, though rarely” arisen in discussions: what the United States should do if an alien intelligence were ever discovered in space. The memo runs to six pages. Its author, Maxwell W. Hunter II, was an aerospace engineer on the professional staff of the Council, an advisory body in the Executive Office of the President. Its recipient, Robert F. Packard, worked on international scientific affairs at the State Department. The memo refers to “BNSP Task I”, a reference to work on Basic National Security Policy, the broad policy-planning framework of the era, which is the context the author says the question had come up in.
How it describes itself. The memo does not present findings. It says, in its opening lines, that the question has arisen “occasionally, though rarely”, and that what follows is “some miscellaneous thoughts on the question”. It explicitly sets aside “the flying saucer advocates”, whose claims the author does not endorse.
Its handling marking. It is marked “Official Use Only”, the lowest sensitivity handling caveat, the same level Briefing 6 found on the UAP paragraph of the Mexico cable. “Official Use Only” is not a security classification; it is the marking for material that is merely not for public distribution.
What it argues. The author begins with the scientific consensus of 1963: that the chance of “running across an alien intelligent race in our solar system” was negligible, because the other planets were thought unable to support life. He notes that “flying saucer advocates” rejected this, and that he himself sides with neither the advocates nor the most absolute sceptics. He then describes a shift in scientific thinking: where planets around other stars had once been assumed rare, the prevailing theory by 1963 implied they should be common, and that life might arise readily on many of them. From there he separates two questions, whether life is common in the galaxy, which he treats as plausible, and whether another intelligent race exists that the US might actually encounter, which is the policy question.
The heart of the memo is a three-way classification of any such race, by the physics of its travel. A race confined to chemical rockets, the memo’s half-serious “tame chemical Martians”, would pose little challenge, and existing national policy “would be made to order”. A race with propulsion equivalent to “our best understanding of nuclear energy” could spread star to star across the galaxy over a couple of hundred thousand years, and “would not be nearly as tame”. And a race that genuinely travelled faster than light, which the memo calls “scientifically abhorrent”, would have so complete a command of physics that the only sane policy “had better be to negotiate fast”. Along the way the memo speculates about Martians finding it easier to mine the Moon than the Earth, about whether the gas seen venting from the lunar crater Alphonsus might be read as a sign of civilisation, and about Project Ozma, the first radio search for alien signals.
Its conclusion. The probability of ever finding another intelligence, the author writes, is “finite, and perhaps should not be completely ignored”. But he judges that nothing can usefully be done to prepare, because “the only body of writing on the subject available in an emergency is science fiction”, and because “no one of consequence is going to take this rubbish seriously unless it happens”. At which point, he finishes, “our policy will be determined in the traditional manner of grand panic”.
What the document does not say
That any alien intelligence existed, had been detected, or had been contacted. The memo contains no observation of any kind. It is reasoning from public scientific knowledge, not from any sighting or any evidence.
That a government programme, a cover-up, or an official US position exists. It is a single staffer’s memo, marked for limited distribution, explicitly labelled as loose thoughts, and explicitly noting that the establishment of the day dismissed the subject. Its own closing sentences say that serious people would not take the topic seriously and that no preparation was being made.
Anything beyond what one person thought. The “Official Use Only” marking records that this is an unclassified internal paper; it does not attach a finding to the document. There is no policy, no preparation, and no expectation among “anyone of consequence”, in the author’s own words, that the question merited serious attention as of 1963.
From the record
“Some miscellaneous thoughts on the question.” The memo, describing its own contents
“Tame chemical Martians.” The memo’s half-serious label for a rocket-only civilisation
“Scientifically abhorrent.” The memo, on a race that genuinely travelled faster than light
“Our policy will be determined in the traditional manner of grand panic.” The memo’s closing line
Where the case connects
This sits alongside Briefing 6 (the Mexico cable) on the lowest “Official Use Only” marking, the same handling caveat appearing here on a White House staff memo about the alien question. Briefing 1 covers the release and its tier system.
The file leaves two threads as neutral facts. The memo appears twice in PURSUE Release 01, under two different State Department file references; as Briefings 10 and 11 set out, a release is assembled by searching records, so the same document filed in two places is returned twice. And the memo itself records that, as of 1963, no policy existed and none was being built. Any later document that records a US position on the question, or the rest of the BNSP Task I work it refers to, lands in this series when it does.
Read it yourself
The memo, “Thoughts on the Space Alien Race Question”, is hosted at war.gov in PURSUE Release 01, where it appears twice under two State Department file references.
Read the file. Decide for yourself.
Related wiki entries
The wiki entries below give background on the programme and the publisher behind this briefing.
References and further reading
- Primary document: memorandum, “Thoughts on the Space Alien Race Question”, Maxwell W. Hunter II, National Aeronautics and Space Council, to Robert F. Packard, U.S. Department of State, 18 July 1963, PURSUE Release 01, hosted at war.gov
- Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters, U.S. Department of War, war.gov/ufo
- Briefing 6 in this series, on the “Official Use Only” marking and how a document’s handling caveat signals how seriously it was treated
- Briefing 1 in this series, on PURSUE Release 01 as a whole and the evidence tier system