The Brookings Report

The Brookings Institution is a policy think tank in Washington DC, founded in 1916 as the Institute for Government Research. The institution must have produced thousands of reports in its lifetime, but the report that is so often misrepresented by NASA haters and conspiracy theorists is the 1960 paper Proposed Studies on the Implications of Peaceful Space Activities for Human Affairs.

Origin
The report was commissioned by NASA in November 1959, not long after the agency's creation by the Eisenhower administration. NASA was interested in hearing the opinions of a wide range of intellectuals on long-term goals of the exploration of space, and the likely impact of NASA activities on human affairs in general.

Formally, the contract originated with John A. Johnson, Chairman of NASA's committee on long-range studies, pursuant to Section 102(c) of the Space Act of 1958. That section reads, in part:

The director of the study was Brookings staff member Donald N. Michael, under the general supervision of James M. Mitchell, director of Public Affairs. Monthly two-day conferences were held, involving some 200 eggheads from industry and academe. Another 50 or so were invited to review the draft. Seven specific Brookings staffers were cited as co-authors of record.

The report was submitted to NASA on 30 November 1960, read into the record of the Committee on Science and Astronautics of the US House of Representatives on 24 March 1961, and presented to the full House on 18 April.

Warnings
In the most interesting section of the report, the authors contemplated the possibility that contact might be made with extraterrestrial intelligence, and they warned that this might not be an unmitigated cause for celebration.

However, they looked on the bright side as well:

Did Brookings tell NASA to STFU about ETs if evidence were ever found?
No.

How did the rumor get started?
NASA haters repeat ad nauseam the mantra that NASA has already discovered evidence of extraterrestrial civilization, at least on the Moon and the planet Mars, and possibly elsewhere in the solar system. On poorly-designed web sites and in very poorly-researched books, they point to what are called "anomalies," and loudly accuse NASA of covering up the evidence. It does not seem to bother them that the "evidence" for a NASA cover-up is derived from NASA itself.

Historically, a question they found difficult to answer was "Why would NASA wish to suppress news that would cause its budget to increase dramatically, as the US Government pulled out all the stops to ensure that it would be the representative of world civilization in dealings with ET?" In 1993 the former museum curator Richard Hoagland came up with a plausible answer. Assisted by Don Ecker and Lee Clinton, he dug up the then-obscure Brookings Report and triumphantly pointed to the following passage:

Note that the text gives exactly equal weight to the expressions "presented to" and "withheld from." Note that this text merely recommends a research effort, and does not itself express any opinion on the matter. Note that no such research was ever in fact funded or carried out. Surely, a man would need to be very dishonest to cite this report as evidence that NASA was directed to cover up ET evidence.

And yet, we have this, from authors Richard Hoagland and Mike Bara:

Appearing in the cable TV show Ancient Aliens (S4E5, The NASA Connection), Mike Bara said this:

Writing in UFO Digest, editor Robert Morningstar gave his interpretation:

These quite incorrect opinions appear to find ready and uncritical acceptance in such arenas as overnight radio shows and amateur "internet radio". They have now become an embedded part of the credo of the woo community.