Documents / Official release
This Clinton Library release of Clinton Presidential Records covers the National Security Council email folder labeled Area 51, dated September 15, 1997 to November 3, 2000. It lists withdrawn emails, most held back for national security or privacy reasons. Some emails were released. They include November 1997 talking points on the President renewing a classified information exemption for the Air Force site near Groom Lake, Nevada, under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. Other released items are news clippings about Lake Havasu grass circles and UFO requests to the NSA.
Page 1 of2 L DIA Home | What's New | Products by Type | Products by Region | Feedback | Help UFO Theorists Mining NSA Site For X-Files Spy agency flooded with requests after reports go on Web By Laura Sullivan, Sun Staff Phillips said the "conspiracies" that believers are deriving from the postings can be easily explained. Much of the latest increase in requests is a result of better technology. In the past, people interested in viewing the agency's files would have to find its address and know whom to write to, then type and mail Two years ago, the National Security Agency began posting previously classified documents on its Web site to deflect the growing number of requests each year for information about flying saucers and space aliens. But the plan backfired. Among the postings from the files of nation's most-secret spy agency is a National Enquirer article with the headline, "Take UFOs Seriously or Be Prepared for Sneak Invasion By Space Aliens." All of this is fueling speculation among believers who wonder why, for something that doesn't exist, the agency has collected a ton of records. "These documents contain the term UFO, but they are not necessarily about aliens," she said. "They just contain the term which describes an object that was flying that was unidentified" at the time. Rather than relieving suspicions that the agency is hiding information about unidentified flying objects, the result has been more people than ever demanding to see UFO documents. A record 36,000 people perused the UFO page last month. As for the Enquirer article - which one UFO enthusiast says proves that the weekly tabloid known for its alien abduction stories has been right all along - Phillips says it's more likely that it was clipped for amusement and found on someone's desk after they retired. What has piqued UFO believers' interest is not so much what the documents on the Web site say - often little or nothing between the blacked-out censored sections - but their extraordinary volume: thousands of pages of unofficial reports and antiquated radio interceptions from abroad. The NSA staff, burdened with hundreds of written requests under the Freedom of Information Act, is unamused. Staff members say the time required for the UFO requests slows down the response time for all requests. The agency hasn't kept exact numbers about UFO requests. But Pamela Phillips, chief of FOIA/Privacy Act Services, said the increase in letters asking about UFOs has been "significant," forcing the office to hire several additional staff members. Baltimore Sun August 8, 2000 UFO Theorists Mining NSA Site For X-Files \l Fx! DAfAnsp IntplliapncA Anpncv UNCLASSIFIED - FOUO
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Official release, from the nara collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 37 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.