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Official reports, hearing transcripts, case files and releases: the paper behind the cases. 2,872 documents, 2,610 mirrored with their text, 53,529 pages indexed, so a search reads inside them and lands on the page.
New in the library The PURSUE files The Department of War's UAP release, mirrored in full: the videos, recordings and images, each beside its case file.Documents1,049 records · page 18
This CIA FOIA release, dated December 5, 2004, holds correspondence from Larry W. Bryant, an independent writer who asked for a records-search fee waiver while researching the "McCarthy Saga" involving John J. McCarthy. It includes Bryant's September 18, 2004 appeal of CIA FOIA manager Scott Koch's denial, which had placed him in the commercial requester category. It also includes his notice that attorney Mark S. Zaid would file suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. One page was denied.
This CIA file holds a transcript of the Joe Pyne Show broadcast of December 23, 1966. The CIA approved it for release in January 2005. On the show, Dr. Frank Strangers talks about lie detector tests and describes writing to the Central Intelligence Agency for UFO information for his book. He quotes the agency's reply that it does not make public any information about unidentified flying objects. He says a later letter was referred to the U.S. Air Force, and he mentions Air Force figures given to the LA Times.
This item, released by the Central Intelligence Agency with a date of 2005-01-04, is a short newspaper notice. It announces that Dr. Frank E. Stranges, president of International Evangelism Crusades, Inc., would lecture on the "Flying Saucer Mystery" at Drexel Hall in Kansas City, sponsored by the U.F.O. Study Club. The notice lists his books and says he illustrates his talks with colored slides. It also claims he obtained evidence from the Air Force and the CIA about the validity of flying saucers.
This CIA release, approved in 2005, is a 1968 compilation of translated Soviet press items on scientific affairs. It centers on a 29 February 1968 PRAVDA article by Ye. Mustel, D. Martynov and V. Leshkovtsev, together with a TASS report on it. The article dismisses flying saucers as misidentified aircraft, balloons, satellites and optical effects. It says a luminous object over Sofia was a NATO sounding balloon and calls Adamski a charlatan. It also reports that the USSR Academy of Sciences found the UFO reports had no scientific foundation.
This CIA-released copy of Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14 is dated 5 May 1955 and comes from the Air Technical Intelligence Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. It is a statistical analysis of about 4,000 unidentified aerial object reports from 1947 through 1952, coded onto IBM punched cards with the help of a panel of scientists. The report concludes that such objects were highly unlikely to be technological developments beyond present-day scientific knowledge. It also found no valid evidence of physical matter.
This Central Intelligence Agency record, approved for release in July 2005, is an interview with a person whose name is withheld, on the subject of unidentified flying objects. The subject said he had extrasensory perception and could travel in a fourth dimension, and he described meeting saucer occupants on a screen. He also said that on the night of May 11 and 12 a red orb landed in the desert near a convention site and that he walked about twenty miles following a magnetic force.
This Central Intelligence Agency release, dated 2005-07-13, is a short observer's report of an unidentified flying object seen on 6 December 1956. The writer describes a red flare with short tails, flying 10 to 12 miles out to sea at an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 feet and 750 to 1000 miles per hour. It matched a missile's altitude near T plus 95 seconds, then turned east and kept going until T plus 330 seconds. The report mentions a similar sighting on the night of a failed Jupiter launch.
This CIA FOIA release, approved in 2022, holds a June 5, 2006 appeal from Larry W. Bryant to the CIA Records-Release Panel, along with the agency's replies. Bryant challenges the CIA's refusal to treat him as a news media requester in two requests: one on John Joseph McCarthy Jr. and PROJECT CHERRY, the other on Philip J. Corso. The CIA's letters report no McCarthy records and no Corso records in its holdings. An enclosed UFO magazine column discusses the FBI's file on Philip J. Klass.
This CIA FOIA release, approved for release in 2025, holds Larry W. Bryant's June 5, 2006 appeal to the CIA Records Release Panel. He challenges the agency's handling of two requests: one on former Army captain John Joseph McCarthy Jr., for which no records were found, and one on Philip J. Corso, where his news media fee status was questioned. Included are the CIA's May 2006 letters from Scott Koch and Bryant's April 2006 UFO magazine column on the FBI dossier on Philip J. Klass.
This CIA FOIA release contains a June 5, 2006 appeal from independent writer Larry W. Bryant to the CIA Records-Release Panel. He challenges the agency's no-records finding on former Army captain John Joseph McCarthy, Jr., whom he says was assigned to the clandestine Vietnam-era Project CHERRY. He also disputes fee denials on his request for records on Philip J. Corso. Attached are Scott Koch's May 2006 replies and Bryant's UFO magazine column on the FBI dossier on Philip J. Klass.
This CIA FOIA release contains 2006 correspondence between researcher Larry W. Bryant and the agency's Information and Privacy Coordinator. Bryant appealed denial of his news media fee status for request F-2004-01956 on former Army captain John Joseph McCarthy, Jr., whom he says served in the Vietnam-era Project Cherry. A CIA letter dated 20 June 2006 refused the appeal over an unpaid $30.00 fee. Bryant also sought records on Philip J. Corso and Philip Julian Klass, citing Corso's Roswell claims and Majestic-Twelve.
This 2006 CIA FOIA release holds correspondence between an independent writer who directs the Washington, D.C., office of Citizens Against UFO Secrecy and the CIA's Information and Privacy Coordinator. The writer appeals the denial of news media requester status and a $30.00 fee on request F-2004-01956, which sought records on John Joseph McCarthy, Jr. and Project Cherry. The letters also request records on Philip J. Corso and Philip Julian Klass. The CIA's June 20, 2006 reply refuses the appeal until the fee is paid.
This Central Intelligence Agency FOIA release, dated September 2006, contains an email from a UFO Magazine columnist to CIA Information and Privacy Coordinator Scott Koch. The columnist gives notice that they plan to sue in federal court over the CIA's refusal to treat them as a news media requester and its denial of search fee waivers. The email quotes Koch's August 28, 2006 letter, which accepts the columnist's appeal after no records on John Joseph McCarthy, Jr. were found.
This Central Intelligence Agency article, dated 2006-10-23 in the archive, was written by a Directorate of Intelligence officer. It reviews how CIA Public Affairs handled the 1996 San Jose Mercury-News "Dark Alliance" series by Gary Webb, which alleged CIA complicity in crack cocaine sales. The article concludes that good relations with journalists and a strong Public Affairs response kept the story from becoming a disaster. UFO coverups come up only once, as an example of fantastic allegations about CIA.
This is a Freedom of Information Act request dated November 8, 2008, sent by Larry W. Bryant, a columnist for UFO Magazine, to the Central Intelligence Agency's Information and Privacy Coordinator. It asks for CIA records on the late investigative journalist W. Todd Zechel and on a reported February 1969 agreement between CIA and Soviet intelligence personnel about attributing UFO intrusions over military bases. Bryant also asks to be treated as a news media requester and attaches Zechel's obituary.
This is a final response letter dated December 23, 2008, from Delores M. Nelson, Information and Privacy Coordinator at the Central Intelligence Agency, answering FOIA request F-2009-00135. The requester had asked for the 1,757 UFO pages released after Director Woolsey's 14 December 1993 radio interview. The letter states that the Agency has released 2,779 pages of UFO-related documents, which are not indexed. It encloses a listing and offers the full package for $267.90 or individual documents at ten cents per page.
This one-page Central Intelligence Agency assignment file brief report, dated 2 June 2009, records the opening of Freedom of Information Act litigation file LD-2009-00096, Larry Bryant v. CIA. The plaintiff, identified as Director of the Washington, DC office of Citizens Against UFO Secrecy, filed a complaint challenging the Agency's denial of his request for media status. The report lists the attorney and paralegal assigned on 2 June 2009, with their names withheld under FOIA exemptions (b)(3) and (b)(6).
This Central Intelligence Agency file summary covers the lawsuit Larry Bryant v. CIA, case 1:09-CV-00940, which the agency assigned on 2 June 2009 and closed in August 2012. The plaintiff, director of the Washington, DC office of Citizens Against UFO Secrecy, challenged the CIA's denial of his request for media status in a FOIA/Privacy Act matter. The complaint was filed on 20 May 2009. Names, contacts and staff details are redacted.
This is a Freedom of Information Act request sent to the Central Intelligence Agency's Information and Privacy Coordinator. The letter is dated June 9, 2009, and the CIA approved it for release on May 12, 2010. The requester says they are a representative of the news media and asks for a full fee waiver, citing a radio network and articles in outlets including UFO Magazine and FATE Magazine. They ask for all publications and reports that the DNI's Open Source Center produced in January 2009.
This is a Freedom of Information Act request dated June 18, 2009, sent to the Central Intelligence Agency's Information and Privacy Coordinator. The CIA approved it for release on May 12, 2010, under case number F-2009-01274. The requester, who works in radio and has written for UFO Magazine and FATE Magazine, claimed news media status for a fee waiver. The request asks for all memoranda of understanding and comity agreements between the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency.
This Central Intelligence Agency release, dated 23 June 2009, is a FOIA response letter from Information and Privacy Coordinator Delores M. Nelson to Larry W. Bryant, reference F-2008-01781. It covers his August 2008 request for records of a 1987 special meeting at FAA headquarters in Washington, D.C., and for similar airborne UFO encounters reported since 17 November 1986. The CIA says it is reopening the request and will search for records through 15 June 2009. It places Bryant, a UFO Magazine columnist, in the news media fee category. Several preceding pages are fully redacted.
This is a declaration by Delores M. Nelson, the CIA Information and Privacy Coordinator, dated October 26, 2009. She filed it in support of the CIA's motion for summary judgment in Larry W. Bryant v. CIA, a FOIA suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Bryant had sought records of a 1987 FAA meeting about the November 17, 1986 Japanese flight 1628 encounter over Alaska. The declaration describes the agency's searches, which found no records of the meeting and three documents from other agencies about later airborne UFO encounters.
This Central Intelligence Agency filing is a declaration by Delores M. Nelson, the CIA's Information and Privacy Coordinator, in Bryant v. CIA, Civil Action No. 09-0940 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. It supports the CIA's motion for summary judgment. It traces Larry W. Bryant's 2008 FOIA request for records of a 1987 FAA meeting on the November 17, 1986 Japanese 747 encounter over Alaska and records of similar airborne UFO encounters. It also describes the fee dispute and the searches the CIA ran. No records of the meeting were found, and three documents from other agencies were referred to them.
This is a declaration by Delores M. Nelson, the CIA's Information and Privacy Coordinator, signed January 22, 2010. It was filed in support of the CIA's motion for summary judgment in Larry W. Bryant v. CIA, Civil Action No. 09-0940 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. It covers Bryant's FOIA request about a 1987 FAA meeting on the November 17, 1986 Japan Air Lines Flight 1628 encounter over Alaska. It also covers later airborne UFO cases, the dispute over his fee category, and the CIA's searches. The CIA found no records of the meeting and three records from other agencies, which it referred to the State Department and NSA.
This Central Intelligence Agency information report, distributed 5 March 1957 and approved for release in sanitized form on 1 July 2010, collects twelve attachments on the Soviet port of Kherson in the Ukrainian SSR. The attachments hold sketches, photographs and observations of cranes, wharf repairs, shipyards building tankers, fuel tanks, a radar station on Nikolayev Island and a nearby airfield. They also report Kherson-built fishing boats with HIGH SIEVE type radar seen at Djibouti on their way to Vladivostok. The report has nothing to do with UFOs.
This is a newspaper book review by Charles Foster Ransom, held in the Central Intelligence Agency's files with a release date of 2010-07-23. It reviews four books on flying saucers. J. Allen Hynek's "The UFO Experience" is judged able, Donald Keyhoe's "Aliens From Space" half-baked, and works by Erich von Daniken and R. L. Dione are labeled "ZOWIE!" The review also cites a Gallup Poll on belief in UFOs and criticizes the Condon report's conclusions.
This item, filed in the Central Intelligence Agency's records with a 2010 date, is a newspaper article by Victor Wilson of The Oregonian's Washington Bureau. It reviews Maj. Donald E. Keyhoe's book "Aliens from Space" and reports Keyhoe's claim that UFOs are real and that the Air Force and the CIA have kept this secret for more than 25 years. The article also covers the JANAP-146 reporting directive and Keyhoe's proposed "Operation Lure". It notes a Gallup Poll finding that 51 per cent of Americans believed in UFOs.
This undated wire news item, held in Central Intelligence Agency files, is headed Washington Aliens. It says Larry Bryant of Alexandria, Virginia, representing Citizens Against UFO Secrecy (CAUSE), filed a habeas corpus petition in federal district court demanding that the Air Force release the remains of extraterrestrial beings it allegedly holds. The petition was served on Air Force Secretary Vernon Orr, who had 60 days to respond. An official said the Air Force stopped investigating UFOs in 1969.
This is a Washington Post article by Ward Sinclair from 3 November 1981, held in CIA files. It reports on a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by Citizens Against UFO Secrecy to force release of 131 secret National Security Agency documents on UFOs. Judge Gerhard Gesell had withheld them on national security grounds, and the case went to the U.S. Court of Appeals. The article also recounts retired sergeant Stephen Eichner's account of a 1975 object seen over Loring Air Force Base.
This Radio TV Reports transcript, prepared for the CIA's Public Affairs Staff, records a CBS Radio Network broadcast of November 3, 1981, with Bob Schieffer filling in for Dan Rather. The segment reports on Citizens Against UFO Secrecy (CAUSE), led by Bronx lawyer Peter Gersten. The group sued under the Freedom of Information Act, and the CIA released 900 pages of UFO documents in 1979. CAUSE is now suing for National Security Agency files and argues that UFOs are a real military threat.
This Central Intelligence Agency foreign-documents report, distributed 23 August 1952, translates a Greek article published in an Athens daily newspaper on 9 July 1952. It relays the sworn statement of Oscar Linke, a former mayor of Gleimershausen who had fled the Soviet Zone. Linke said that he and his daughter Gabriella saw two men in shiny clothing beside a 13 to 15 meter object near Hasselbach. The object rose, spinning and ringed with flames, and flew off. The report marks the material as unevaluated.
This Central Intelligence Agency release, dated 2012-06-01, contains an English translation of a 1948 Soviet article by S. P. Tolstov and M. A. Orlov on archaeological aerial surveys in Khwarazm, Uzbekistan, during 1945 and 1946. It describes flight altitudes, lighting and camera methods for photographing ruins. The authors report flights of more than 9,000 kilometers that doubled the number of known monuments, located medieval cities and irrigation networks, and produced an archaeological map. It contains no UFO material.
This Central Intelligence Agency FOIA tasking record, case F-2012-01843, task 5217389, was produced for requester John Greenwald. The Defense Intelligence Agency referred documents to CIA for review of CIA equities in August 2012. The request asked for UFO documents released since FOIA request case 0292-97. The record holds the task details, a caution that the preliminary search is only a starting point, and an empty list of tasked documents. Much of it is redacted under exemptions (b)(3), (b)(5) and (b)(6).
This Central Intelligence Agency FOIA task record belongs to case F-2012-01843, requested by John Greenwald. It shows a referral from the Defense Intelligence Agency, sent on 15 August 2012 and returned on 11 September 2012. The subject is documents about UFOs released since FOIA request case 0292-97, and CIA was asked to review them for agency equities. The only comments are a forward for review and a concurrence. The document list and many details are redacted.
This Central Intelligence Agency file, declassified and approved for release on 2013/06/24, is a collection of published UFO photographs and captions. It includes images reported over Helsinki, Grenoble, Brazil, Bad Hersfeld, Upper Gornal, Hawthorne, Bulawayo and Salem, Massachusetts. It also has Cedric Allingham's 1954 Lossiemouth photographs, Palomar Gardens telescopic pictures from 13 December 1952, a Washington D.C. Airport radar plot, and Captain Jack Bicknell's sketch from near Mount Kilimanjaro. The file offers no analysis or conclusions.
This Central Intelligence Agency release, declassified and approved for release on 24 June 2013, is a collection of UFO photographs and pages from flying saucer books. It reproduces pictures including the Coniston saucer, the Trent photograph at McMinnville and a radar plot from Washington, D.C. Airport of 15 August 1952. The pages also discuss the Norwich sighting by F. W. Potter, the Bicknell sighting near Kilimanjaro, Maury Island and Farmington. The CIA adds no analysis of its own.
This CIA release, dated 2013-06-24, is an English translation of "UFOs: What Are They?", an article by F. Yu. Zigel' printed in the Soviet magazine Smena in February 1967. Zigel' reviews reported sightings, including the Mantell crash, Clyde Tombaugh's 1949 observation, Antarctic station reports and radar detections. He then weighs five explanations: hoaxes, optical illusions, secret aircraft, an unknown natural phenomenon and craft from other planets. He concludes that no hypothesis is final and that the phenomenon calls for careful scientific study.
This is a Central Intelligence Agency document with a release date of 2013-06-26. It is titled Guidance to UFO Photographers and gives ten steps for photographing a UFO. The steps cover camera settings, film, and shutter speed, and they ask for several pictures. The photographer should take shots from different spots to set a base line, then take a 360 degree series of the surrounding area and keep the original negatives safe. The document also includes a blank information sheet that asks for camera details, the date, time, direction, location and where the film was processed.
This CIA-released foreign broadcast report, dated November 2, 1954 and declassified in 2013, summarizes an October 30, 1954 Hungarian Home Service radio interview on flying saucers with Professor Jozsef Oveges and journalists Gomori and Tibor Peto. Oveges argued saucers could be neither earthly rockets nor probable spaceships, attributing sightings to atmospheric effects and a recent meteor over Hungary. Gomori and Peto described the saucer stories as mass hysteria organized for political purposes by imperialist forces.
This is a secret memorandum dated 17 February 1967 from the Chief of the Technical Intelligence Division to the Director of the National Photographic Interpretation Center. The CIA approved it for release in 2013. It reports a photo analysis of Polaroid pictures of an alleged UFO taken on the shore of Lake St. Clair, Michigan, which were supplied by the Air Force's Aerial Phenomena Office at Wright-Patterson AFB. It estimates the object's size from stated assumptions but calls the results inconclusive and says it found no definite evidence of a hoax.
This declassified CIA document, released in 2013, is F. C. Durant's memorandum of 16 February 1953 on the Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects. The Office of Scientific Intelligence convened the panel from January 14 to 18, 1953, and Dr. H. P. Robertson chaired it. The memorandum gives a history of the meetings and the members' unofficial comments. The panel found no evidence of a direct threat to national security and rejected the Navy's analysis of the Tremonton film. It recommended an educational program to reduce public concern. The release also contains a later Air Force summary of a 1955 statistical study.
This Central Intelligence Agency memorandum for the record, written by the Chief of NPIC's Technical Intelligence Division, describes a 5 May 1967 briefing for Dr. Edward Condon and colleagues on NPIC's analysis of the Zanesville, Ohio, UFO photographs. Condon called it the first scientific UFO analysis that would stand up to investigation. The group discussed moving future analysis to University of Colorado control, reviewing NICAP's photo files, and giving Polaroid cameras to police officers and pilots.
This CIA memorandum for the record, dated 23 February 1967 and written by the Chief of NPIC's Technical Intelligence Division, describes a 20 February 1967 visit by Dr. E.U. Condon and members of his University of Colorado UFO study team to NPIC. NPIC agreed to give only technical photogrammetric help, with no written reports or conclusions, and no reference to CIA. The group received briefings on photogrammetry, microdensitometry and analysis of UFO photographs.
This Central Intelligence Agency release, dated 2013-08-19, is a short excerpt from an article about UFOs. It reports that the government, perhaps the President, was expected before the end of the year to make "unsettling disclosures" about unidentified flying objects, based on CIA information. The text says such disclosures would reverse an official policy that had previously downplayed UFO incidents. The rest of the record is marked "Page Denied."
This newspaper article by Mort Young, Journal-American special writer, appears in a CIA release dated 2013. It reports that APRO of Tucson warned a Congressional investigation of UFOs might not be in the national interest and called for broader scientific study. House Republican Leader Gerald R. Ford sought hearings on UFO sightings and Project Bluebook after Michigan reports, while NICAP and Donald Keyhoe accused the Air Force of suppressing evidence. A caption shows Kenneth Arnold's drawing of his 1947 sighting.
This Central Intelligence Agency release, dated 2014, contains a 1958 exchange between the National Security Council and Major Donald E. Keyhoe, Director of NICAP, about unidentified flying objects. In an October 14, 1958 memorandum, NSC Executive Secretary James S. Lay, Jr. forwards Keyhoe's October 1 letter and his reply to the Department of Defense, with copies to the CIA. Lay says he cannot discuss NSC policies. Keyhoe's letter asks whether the NSC controls UFO information policy and says NICAP has proof of CIA interest.
This is a letter to the editor of The Courant, signed by Neil J. Almquist and held in a Central Intelligence Agency release dated 2014-06-12. It quotes the revised Air Force Regulation 200-2 of 20 July 1962 on UFO interception, limits on releasing information to the press, and reporting to the Foreign Technology Division. The letter argues that UFOs are serious business, citing former CIA director Roscoe Hillenkoetter's call for open Congressional hearings, and refers readers to NICAP.
This CIA file, released 2014-06-12, is a UPI newspaper clipping from the Times-West Virginian dated February 28, 1960. It says the Air Force Inspector General sent its commands a directive on December 24 telling them to treat UFO sightings as "serious business" tied to national defense. The private group NICAP made the directive public, and NICAP board member Vice-Adm. R. H. Hillenkoetter accused the Air Force of secrecy and called for open congressional hearings.
This North American Newspaper Alliance article, released by the Central Intelligence Agency in 2014, reports that civilian UFO groups were pressing Congress to investigate flying saucers. It covers the earlier House space committee subcommittee under Rep. Joseph E. Karth, whose hearings ended after Chairman Overton Brooks refused to hold them in public. It quotes former CIA director Adm. R. H. Hillenkoetter, Albert W. Chop, Dr. Clyde W. Tombaugh and Rep. John W. McCormack, who all favored a congressional inquiry or took UFOs seriously.
This is a newspaper article by Bulkley Griffin, chief of the Evening Gazette Washington Bureau, held in Central Intelligence Agency files with a 2014 date. It reports that Adm. R. H. Hillenkoetter, CIA director from 1947 to 1950, said UFOs operate under intelligent control and called for a Congressional investigation. The article uses the U-2 cover story to ask whether the Air Force is misleading the public about UFOs. It also mentions an early 1950s CIA-arranged scientific meeting at the Pentagon.