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.
“Cooper”6 pages
. .... ........:.. ....... . rn;lit:1ry i11t1·lli~cncc. /\ prompt and about 20 feet long a mile away or 2000 feet long a hundred milrs away. j r. A careful investigation revealed the surprising answer. the UFO was actually thousands of feet in length, but its altitude was zero! lt was an airstrip in the Brazilian jungles! Further checking showed that the objected appeared at the same spot in Skylab photos taken months later; the airfield was also found on an inter national aviation chart. Recent UFO books and articles h:ive resurrected the X-15 rocket plane sightings of fifteen years ago. This has .., prompted the NASA Headquarters Public Affairs Office to reissue a photograph taken by a belly camera of the spacecraft at an altitude of about 60 miles (photo 76-H-139). v\o:\-'!. 34 Published reports speak of "fleets of UFOs" at a range of 30 feet from the X:15. But even a casual reader with any familiarity with spacecraft systems will recognize the effect for what it was: "fireflies". This is a phenomenon seen by many Mercury, Vostok, and later spacemen, as flecks of paint chipped off the spacecraft. On the X-15, it was flecks of ice clinging to the liquid oxygen tanks. The pilot clearly describes the pieces as being close-in, small, tumbling, and drifting along with his vehicle through the vacuum. Considering these cases as I have described them (and there arc other lesser ones which [ have also investi gated to a successful conclusion), what can we now say about authors who present such evidence of :, "astronaut UFOs"? While speaking f ominously about a NASA coverup and of secret agencies which muzzle space• men, these same researchers list such quotations as: J ohn Young: '.'Odds are UFOs exist" . Edgar '.\-litchell: "\Ve all k'now UFOs are real". Eugene Ceman: "I believe UFOs belong to someone else and that they arc fro m some other civilization". Cordo n Cooper: " [ brlieve that UFOs, under i11telligcnt con trol , have ,;-..... _. - .· . .. . ' :·. - . ·...." -,/ .. ,... .... : . . ' . .... ·•. F lake of ice floating off of the X-15 rocket plane. Somo i nvcsti g:,1or~ call thi• a " large UFO". NASA photo 76 -H-139. 59
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.