Documents / FOIA release
This is a July 27, 2021 FOIA response from NASA's Office of Communications to John Greenewald, Jr. It covers records from Leslie Kean's lawsuit against NASA seeking Kecksburg documents. NASA released 207 pages in full, 7 in part and withheld 31, noting that most of the lawsuit case files had been destroyed under records retention rules. The enclosures include court declarations, a 2003 appeal decision ordering a broader search, a 2019 FOIA response, and Stan Gordon's account of the missing NASA fragology files.
“Cooper”2 pages
J:lC PUELIC IffAI RS F",'7I3-483-aS76! , Jan ~ X'ILI P. 13 ; , l ' , Records Center, I submitted the check and w en mnny months went by WIth no response. I left a message at NASA HClldqllAncrs in Ja&uary of 1996. Withjn a few daya I received a response. A letter dated January 22, 1996 st~tcs "We received your check ... for the retrieval of the two box.es that may have conthine4 documents you were seekinglfrom the Federal Records Center. I have been infonn~ by tbe program office that the Retkr<1s Center infonned them that those: boxes were ~cstrOyed prior to t6eir request:' I was disturbed to learn afthe destruction of lis fruormation. Even ifoo information on Kccksburg existed in these files. other imporlant historical records related to the J American and Soviet space program may bavb a15'0 been lost. I !1jQuesled that an , investigation be conducted intO tbe destrUcticfn of·the NASA FraAology ri~e rccords, In an AprtJ 15, 19961etter. NASA explained to &c: how its f'O L~ process worked . As part ofi this procen, the FOJA office asked the program office to bave the documenls retrie\led from the WashIngton National Records Cent.er. "I~ was al this point in the process of your I'equcst tbat lhu program office was informed~hftt Ibe records bad been destroyed," the letter stated. ~ ! . Accordini 10 the leller. after I had asked faT an inquiry into the reported destruction of the records, the Washington National Reeord~ Center a.ttempted ag!lln to locate the records. But after searching tbey still were Dot able to locate the file3. The leller staled ''''They (the National Records Ccnter) do not know if the records were destroyed or hJve just been misplaced." A letter from the Washington National Records Center to the NASA l'lcadquArtel'$ Records Manager dated March 28, 1996 stated "our records in catc tbal tbe boxes werc identified as miSSing in 1987 and have DOl been located since that date." NASA had no explanation for lhe notation on the: docwnen! staling Lb:n the records wcre still at Ihe Washington National Records Center in 1994, In other comspondence, NASA indicated that it could only "surmise this notation was in error ." Since then, searches have been conducted at numerous NASA iJ~ stallalions for rcc.ords concerning the NASA Fragology Files, No other references 10 the files have surfaced 50 far. I This appears to be a new terminology that otb"er re"SearChers and I hAd not encountered before. How the NASA Fragology Files relal~ to Project MOONDUST and possibly to r""port ""n l.J'FO (l r ... hc !I i" op.. n. rol' .p~cul .. tion.~ It n\8)' b. only coincidoncc, but it i", intercsting to oote that 1987 was the year that ! bod~ the first Kecksburg oyewitness who reportcd seeing the object on the ground came f(lfWard, lind therefore public interest in the case dramatically incrcased. This is also ~e year the files rcp~rtedl Y dis,ppeared . • The question remains today: where are the NASA Fr3gology Files and Wb3t important information might they contain? Stan Gordon Jun., 2003 2 / RIP
FOIA release, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 223 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.