Weird Western Maryland

  In late July 1976, U.S. Army soldiers stationed in the mountainous heart of Western Maryland -- now-defunct Fort Ritchie, near Cascade in Washington County -- looked overhead and saw some very strange things in the night sky. Moreover, those objects triggered some urgent, high-level Pentagon communications. We know all this from a memo signed by a brigadier general in the predawn hours of July 30, on the letterhead of the National Military Command Center in Washington. The text follows. 30 July 1976 0545 EDT MEMORANDUM FOR RECORD Subject: Reports of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) 1.       At approximately 0345 EDT, the ANMCC called to indicate they had received several reports of UFO’s in the vicinity of Fort Ritchie. The following events summarize the reports (times are approximate). a.        0130 – Civilians reported a UFO sighting near Mt. Airy, Md. This information was obtained via a call from the N...

Cumberland's Western Maryland Railway station, built in 1913 . You never know what you'll unearth in the Central Intelligence Agency's Electronic Reading Room. Click here , for example, to reach a PDF of a 30 November 1948 memo from the CIA general counsel's office authorizing payment for a "negotiated settlement of tort claim" filed by the Western Maryland Railway. The memo references an 8 November 1948 conversation between the counsel and a "Mr. Aaron" and says the payment was approved by the "EXEC for A&M," probably meaning -- if other memos in the Reading Room are any guide -- the Executive for Administration & Management. Totally not the spies, in other words, but the spies' accountants and admins. Their Moneypennys. Apparently on a need-to-know basis is the name of the memo's author (redacted), whether "Mr. Aaron" is a railway official or a CIA colleague, what dollar amount was agreed upon and, most intrigui...