Documents / Official release
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.
.. ~ t S(t'if. J . ,_,.....f7..~~T-. ... I ··"'""11':",~'t.jv"·.--·.'" 1 ~,,...~,-7 ! 'l 'I 1 ~ -~ j !\ I I -; ..,,'~.<~';;~:~=~::.::~~~=~: .;'( ..and below) as published with erroneous captions. "Fawc:dt list" of astronaut sightings. Geori;e t·awcett is a respected and level-headed UFO researcher in Maiden, North Carolina. But an example of his work gives a different impression: "Gemini-XII: Jim Lovell and Edwin Aldrin saw four UFOs linked in a row. Both spacemen said the objects were not stars" (quoted from The Edge of Reality, Hynek & Vallee, 1975, page 64). From the GT-12 Astronaut Debriefing, page K/3.4, Lovell relates: "During the last EVA we discarded, in addition to the ELSE (life support system), three bags. About 2, maybe 3 or possibly 4, orbits later at sunrise condition, we looked out again and saw 4 objects lined up in a ro,v and they weren't stars I know. They must have been these same things we tossed overboard." The original distortion of this entirely ordinary event, according to the Condon Report, is the responsibility of UFO wnter, John Keel, Fawcett took it and embellished it. Another of Fawcett's favorites is M~rcury-7: "Scott Carpenter reported th<1t he had what looked like a good shot of a saucer." E!sPwhere he claimed that Carp,rnter "look a photograph of a classical saucer-shaped UFO with dome tha t foll owed his capsule." ~(._ pla.t,;:, J,l In fact, the photographs s!iow an entirr.ly ordinary object: a space balloon ejected from the capsule for tracking practice. The balloon did not inflate but spun in a limp oblong sack. The flight schedule and the voice transmissions confirm this unexciting explanation-and confirm Fawcett's fantasizing. An example of the difficulty of " disproving" an "astronaut UFO sighting" is the Mercury-9 case in 1963. Well established in the UFO lore, the story claims that on the 15th orbit, over Muchea, Australia, the astronaut (Gordon Cooper) saw a green object. More than one hundred people at the trac king station saw the bogie on a radar screen (this wasn't Shot during Sky Lab Ill second manned Sky Lab Flighl 263 day of 1973-1645 Zulu Time. NASA Photo =sLJ- 118-2 140 (4 shots taken) Listed as unrden1,r.ed ob1ec t or satellite by NASA Pho to E,·aluat,on Lab ;(f.!C,;ii!P.l!'f!';H!¥,""" , - •• ~ -, . :.• : · r · , "• i!\":i;-':. ~ -. ,.. '-' - ,.• < • · :.,. • • ,, ~ . ·.rt . I t lI . t -~L liio.t.'.1io-t.~ .....:..-~ .;...~-:::....~0 .:s.::·, : :...ii .,....,._...~~~....~ @ 57 . - ·•• 3A . · •-
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.