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.
'sen~Jlinnal l'll••'l~h for fii:t illnal "far.t"
writ,•r Fi ·1n;_ !~d·: ;wl;: hr. had two
hundrrri pcn out of ti1e spat•e program for
SP.Ven yrars. and t;ilks freely about
Ur us lo reporters, to the Columbia
"UFO recording''., to ~.·Jike Douglas,
to friends and associates. Somehow he
knows nothing abou t, "his" space
UFO-and he has no reason to be
silent. His space UFO never existed.
Confronted by this evidence,
Fawcett (letter of May 10, 1976)
insists that " I sincerP.ly believe some of
the ashonaut sightings are bonafide,
based on some of my sources of
information." John Keel, too, recalls
(letter of .March 26, 1976) that "ex
NASA engineers have told me all kinds
of fascinating UFO tales.. . " Always
these writers fall back on "secret
reports" and "private information"
when their published reports and open
articles disintegrate in the face of the
truth.
On October 18, 1973, the famous
Mansfie!d, Ohio UFO sighting
occurred, for which Captain Lawrence
Coyne and his h elicopter crew later
were to receive the 'Best UFO Case of
the Year" award (and check) from a
weekly tabloid's 'blue-ribbon panel' of
UFO experts. A few months later,
Coyne said he was told by the pa11el
chairman, J . Allen Hynek, (the
respected head of the Center for UFO
Studies) that Skylab astronauts had
photographed the same UFO from
space. (Hynek ultimately denied this.)
A reputable ma~azine, " Army
ReserYe" published the story with an
intriguing photograph it had received
from NASA and which it labeled
"NASA: Skylab", clt>arly indic;1ting
that this was the as tronaut photograph
which had b1Jzzed Coy ne.
It would h a\'e been a neat trick for
the Skylab astronauts to have photo•
graphed anything on OC'tobcr 18th,
since they weren't even on board the
space station. The prerious crew h ad
returned to E:irth a 111011th bl'fore and
their relie f crP.w was not schl'ouled to
blast o ff for ano!h l•r thrre weeks. The
photogr:iph prin!t·d in the magazine
warly labl'll·rl 1m its backsidl• as
tentrcury-
7 morl' than tPn years before. It t-pl,{q_
r.ji•rlt•d fC'.lrn hi, spac·1·cr:ifl in a11
.1ttc111pt to g1·1 \·isual tr.ic:kin~! pr:1c:tic1?
(!Lis photo is o ften referred to ;is the
"cl.issical domed UFO" sht>lJ. UFO
researchers anri ma::azine edilors had
dearly not made e\·en a minimum of
effort to verify thew transparrn t
errors and mistakes. but instead 1nssed
011 the false data to the public.
Thou~ands more were decei\·rd.
La te i11 197'.l, a str;in~e objr,;t did
aμpt'a r in Skrlab sμ,11:t' photograph~.
Takl'n on Conrad's Skylab flight i11
June, lhe object was not 11oliced b\·
UFO researchr1s but by go\'ernm.:n·t
photo :111alysts. pl,t._ '33
Rather than ·•swi?ep the lJFO under
the rug", the officials look the other
t.ick: it might be a myste rious So,·iet
Satellite and could lie of great value to
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33
..UFO.. 1ee,n fro,n Skvlot,.:?. The '!tongatcd ou,"c t i1 actually an a ,rstrio
.
'" the 8r~:il,a" 1ur,91.i,. ElllMgomo"t of NASA photo SL2-16-109.
.. ! ..
show,•d a limp balloon Ca rp<'nter had ')..\ "'a'';" !
58 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.