A 1952 CIA memo resurfaced on social media in late February 2026, and its contents read like something out of a thriller. The document — titled “Special Research for Artichoke” — proposes research into drugs that could be covertly slipped into food, water, cigarettes, and even vaccinations. It describes methods for inducing anxiety, depression, and compliance in targets without their knowledge.
The memo is real. It was declassified and posted to the CIA’s own Reading Room with a release date of January 21, 2025. When the Daily Mail reported on it on February 23, 2026, it went viral — arriving just days after President Trump directed federal agencies to identify and release UFO-related files.
But the ARTICHOKE memo isn’t just a story about mind control. It’s a window into what the CIA was doing — and what it was willing to do — during the same years it was actively working to make the American public stop paying attention to UFOs.
What the ARTICHOKE Memo Actually Says
Project ARTICHOKE was the CIA’s cryptonym for research into “special interrogation” methods. It grew out of Project BLUEBIRD, approved in 1950, and was renamed ARTICHOKE in August 1951. The program explored drugs, hypnosis, and psychological coercion as tools for interrogation and behavior control.
The April 24, 1952 memo and its attachment, “Suggested Fields for Special Research Relative Artichoke,” went further. It proposed developing drugs that could be administered without a target’s knowledge through everyday delivery methods:
“…could be concealed in… food, vater, coca cola, beer, liquor, cigarettes… also… vaccinations, shots…”
The document also discussed inducing long-term psychological states — not just acute reactions, but sustained anxiety or depression delivered covertly over time. Other methods proposed included gases and aerosols, sound-based effects, diet manipulation, electroshock, and even brain surgery.
This wasn’t a theoretical exercise. ARTICHOKE was an operational program. A 1975 National Security Archive memo described it as studying and using “special interrogation methods, including drugs/chemicals, hypnosis, and ‘total isolation.’” And in 1977, CIA archivists discovered eighteen cartons of BLUEBIRD/ARTICHOKE material that had never been turned over to congressional investigators.
The Robertson Panel: Debunking as Policy
Four months before ARTICHOKE’s research memo was written, UFOs had appeared on radar over Washington, D.C. on two consecutive weekends in July 1952, triggering the largest Pentagon press conference since World War II. The CIA took notice.
In September 1952, the CIA’s Office of Scientific Intelligence issued a memo warning that public concern over flying saucers could trigger mass hysteria and overwhelm air-defense communications. The agency’s response was not to investigate the phenomenon more aggressively. It was to manage the public.
On January 14, 1953, the CIA convened a group of scientists known as the Robertson Panel, chaired by physicist Howard P. Robertson. Over four days, the panel reviewed UFO evidence and delivered its recommendations:
“…debunk UFO reports and institute a policy of public education…”
“…private UFO groups… be monitored for subversive activities.”
The panel concluded UFOs were not a direct threat — but that public interest in them was. The recommended solution: an organized campaign using mass media to reduce reporting and steer public attention away from UFOs. Civilian UFO research groups were to be watched.
The CIA then worked to conceal its own sponsorship of the panel, preparing sanitized versions of the report that deleted references to the agency and to psychological-warfare applications.
The CIA Admitted It Lied About UFOs
For decades, this could be dismissed as Cold War bureaucracy. Then in 1997, the CIA published something remarkable.
Gerald K. Haines, a CIA and NRO historian, authored an internal study titled “The CIA’s Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947–90.” In it, the CIA acknowledged what had actually been happening during the late 1950s and 1960s: a significant portion of UFO sightings were caused by classified U-2 and OXCART (SR-71) spy plane flights at altitudes the public didn’t know were reachable.
“They were careful… not to reveal the true cause… to the public.”
The study estimated that over half of UFO reports from that era were attributable to these reconnaissance flights. Air Force Project Blue Book investigators knew the real explanation but gave the public cover stories — attributing sightings to weather phenomena, atmospheric effects, or simply marking them “unexplained.”
The CIA’s own historian called these public statements “misleading and deceptive.”
This is not speculation. It is a documented admission, published by the CIA itself, that the U.S. government knowingly lied to the American public about what they were seeing in the sky — for years.
The Pattern
Consider the timeline. In the span of just a few years in the early 1950s, the CIA:
- Ran Project ARTICHOKE, researching how to covertly drug and psychologically manipulate people
- Convened the Robertson Panel, which recommended an organized campaign to debunk UFO reports and monitor civilian researchers
- Concealed its sponsorship of the panel and scrubbed references to psychological warfare from the records
- Knowingly attributed UFO sightings to mundane causes while hiding the real explanation — classified aircraft
The same office — the CIA’s Office of Scientific Intelligence — was involved in both the Robertson Panel and early oversight of BLUEBIRD/ARTICHOKE before the behavior-control work transferred to security divisions.
ARTICHOKE eventually fed into MKULTRA, approved on April 13, 1953 — the same year the Robertson Panel issued its debunking recommendations. MKULTRA expanded the scope dramatically: 149 subprojects, 80 institutions including 44 universities, and 185 researchers — all conducting behavioral modification research, much of it on unwitting subjects. When it was over, DCI Richard Helms ordered the records destroyed in 1973. The bulk of what we know comes from budget documents that survived by accident and testimony forced by congressional subpoena in 1977.
What This Means Now
None of this proves the CIA was hiding extraterrestrial technology. The documented record shows something more specific: an agency that was simultaneously willing to manipulate human perception, manage what the public believed about UFOs, and destroy evidence of its own programs.
That history matters today. When the government says “we found no evidence” of anomalous phenomena, the declassified record shows that the same institutions spent decades actively ensuring the public wouldn’t take UFO reports seriously — while lying about the ones they could explain.
David Grusch testified under oath that the U.S. government runs secret UAP retrieval programs. Trump has ordered the release of UFO files. The ARTICHOKE memo is a reminder of what those files might contain — and what the agencies holding them have been willing to do.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 1950 | Project BLUEBIRD approved — CIA behavior-control umbrella |
| Aug 1951 | Renamed Project ARTICHOKE; scope expanded |
| Apr 1952 | ARTICHOKE memo proposes covert drug delivery research |
| Jul 1952 | UFOs tracked on radar over Washington, D.C. |
| Jan 1953 | Robertson Panel recommends organized UFO debunking |
| Apr 1953 | MKULTRA approved by DCI |
| 1955–60s | CIA attributes UFO sightings to U-2 flights; public given cover stories |
| 1973 | MKULTRA records destroyed on orders of DCI Helms |
| 1977 | Senate hearings publicly document MKULTRA; surviving files discovered |
| 1997 | CIA publishes admission of “misleading and deceptive” UFO statements |
| 2024 | AARO report acknowledges Robertson Panel’s debunking recommendations |
| Feb 2026 | Trump orders release of UFO files; ARTICHOKE memo resurfaces |
Sources: CIA — “The CIA’s Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947–90” · Robertson Panel Report (Black Vault) · Special Research for Artichoke, 1952 (Black Vault) · U.S. Senate MKULTRA Hearing, 1977 · Project ARTICHOKE Memo, 1975 (National Security Archive) · CIA ARTICHOKE/BLUEBIRD Materials (Internet Archive) · AARO Historical Record Report Vol. 1 · CIA Reading Room — Document 00184365 · Reuters · AP · TIME