I've read that during the Project Blue Book era, the CIA was worried the Soviets might fuel rumors of UFOs, so that civilian observations of Soviet aircraft wou

I've read that during the Project Blue Book era, the CIA was worried the Soviets might fuel rumors of UFOs, so that civilian observations of Soviet aircraft would get chalked up to aliens by a gullible public, and reports of unusual activity would be discredited. I don't have the citation on hand but the declassified PBB files are available on the Internet Archive.