Beginning in 1940, the British designated as "Ultra" the material being recovered from the German Enigma machine. (Winterbotham, The Ultra Spy, p. 202.) Later, the term was applied to "all intelligence recovered from cryptanalysis, regardless of its national origin.... Thus ULTRA came to include the American MAGIC, the U.S. designation for intercepts of Japanese diplomatic communications." Sexton, Signals Intelligence in World War II, p. xxiii.
See Gilman McDonald [CDR/USNR (Ret.)], "About ULTRA: Fact and Fiction," Intelligencer 14, no. 2 (Winter/Spring 2005): 113-117 (with editorial additions, 117-120), for the argument that the term ULTRA was simply a security classification or label applied to the U.S. Top Secret or above the British Most Secret.
Ultra
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