Documents / Official release

Congressional, White House, UFO-related Constituent Correspondence, 1998

U.S. Government · 1998 · 86 pages · text from the file's own layer

This 1998 NASA file holds UFO-related letters from constituents that were forwarded by members of Congress, together with NASA's handling records. Senator Olympia Snowe forwarded letters from Maine residents, including a 12-year-old who asked for Roswell documents and listed a number of reported sightings. Senator Charles Grassley forwarded a question about astronaut UFO sightings. NASA's reply says it has no UFO program and has not withheld anything. The reply enclosed a NASA fact sheet and James Oberg's article, which explains the Gemini-4 McDivitt object as the spacecraft's own booster.

From the source: Release of 2026-06-12 Released with redactions. This collection of documents, primarily from 1998, contains draft and final correspondence from the White House and the offices of members of Congress responding to constituent inquiries about Unidentified Flying Objects, or “UFOs.” These inquiries cover a diverse range of topics, including alleged UFO sightings by NASA astronauts, questions regarding the authenticity of photos collected during U.S. missions to Mars, alleged improper withholding of information by the U.S. Government, questions regarding the appropriateness of “UFO-related” governmental spending, and calls for congressional hearings regarding the nature and existence of “UFOs.” The official responses consistently state that, circa 1998, the U.S. Government is not aware of evidence supporting the existence of extraterrestrial technology, and that NASA does not actively investigate “UFOs.” The collection includes references to materials of both confirmed and unconfirmed authenticity, as provided by constituents, as well as references to historical, scientific literature addressing specific “UFO” sighting claims.

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with four lar::e triantlular canted solar t...p.,nrb. (Conract compared lhc sight to Oul>ris from open
the strap-on lwosters of a Titau•3 hatch on G omini• t 2. ...........rocket.) F:vcu the photographs show
this when ~ludicd with real Proton-3
photographs close at hand.
A~trn:::?:.:~ Co::~::d ~:-:d th:! l.iFO
people clashed again ov~r his. next ;. .
space mission. Apollo•12. According tlO the Research Director of A.PRO, Dr. ltn
~-··.
Harder, Conrad reported that he was • f
bei11g followed by a UFO on the way .
to the moon. Conrad claims that it was
just a joke about the large panels which
enclose the lunar module during
launch but are jettisoned later in the
flight and which tumble through space
a few miles from the Apollo all the
way to the -moon. Harder says that
Conrad, under pressure from a secret
government agency, is lying.
These are Conrad's words:
"They've been after me for years
because we were followed by a UFO
on · the way to the moon. That, of
course, was untrue. The guy who came
up with it was going by our transcript
where we saw debris from our own
rocket and we were joking with the
ground crew about it. He took this out
of context. . .I called the ground and
said, 'hey, gang, we're being followed,
there's· some flashing object out there'.
Some scandal sheet took that a.,d
Fragment i n focus at range
of 3 to 5 feet-Sandler calls
it 0
unidentiflabJe'', and
Malian and Barry also use It. ra?'\
e11lo.~zx..,1..t-0, 16) ~
t.::
' .' "'.. ·:--- ... ........... .....,• ...,,.,,.,, • wcc:r::a-.• ..,,,..y;..,·,._.,_,."',,..•..__._"..,.e..•...,•....:..J.•.r"-·- ·..,.....,..___:;,,•·...___~__._________...
48
···-- . ..- . .
Blowups of Gemini-11 photos of
Proton-3. Sun glare and el<treme
magnification contribute to
bizarre appearance,
made a helluva story out of it. But it
was nothing like anything I was
connected with". Conrad has left
NASA and lives in Denver, presumably
beyond the reach of any NASA
censors. He describes a phenomenon
common to all Apollo moon flights;
the claim that he saw a UFO is also
common, but hardly as valid.
Conrad confirmed these quotations
in a letter to me dated April 12, 1976.
"I hope your paper is widely printed.·•
he added. Ref,ming to Harder's claim
of coverup, Conrad could only say: "I
think you have more than your share
of Kooks."

Cases discussed

About this file

Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 86 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.