Archive / search
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.Documents438 records · page 8
This Project Blue Book file combines a USAF record card with a fireball report. The record card lists two objects with a glowing white band that maneuvered erratically, and its conclusion reads as insufficient data. The attached report covers a fireball seen on September 12, 1952 at about 7:00 P.M. E.S.T., moving toward Flatwoods, West Virginia. It was brilliant greenish white and egg-shaped. The report estimates a visible flight of about 135 miles, an altitude of about 65 miles and a velocity near 27 miles per second, based on an observation point near Akron, Ohio.
This NICAP document reproduces part of a Project Blue Book sighting list and has no date. It covers entries numbered roughly 2656 to 2697 for August, running from Stalingrad, USSR and Centerville, Idaho to Port Moresby, New Guinea and Lewisdale, Maryland. Some case files are marked as missing. The evaluations given include aircraft, meteors, balloons, stars and planets, anomalous propagation and insufficient data, and several entries are listed as unidentified.
This MoD file, titled UFOs - Persistent Correspondence - Dr David Clarke, holds Dr David Clarke's Freedom of Information requests and emails to the Directorate of Air Staff from 2005 to 2008. Clarke asked for the DI55 report on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena in the UK Air Defence Region and for Rendlesham papers. He also sought records about Nick Pope. Other items include an internal review that released redacted passages on plasmas, the MoD's statement that it had no report of the 2008 South Wales police helicopter sighting, and a 2009 disposal form.
This combined Project Sign file, drawn from USAF records, documents the 1 October 1948 encounter over Fargo, North Dakota, in which Air National Guard pilot 2nd Lt. George F. Gorman chased a small round white light in his F-51 for 27 minutes. The file holds checklists, interrogation reports by Major Paul Kubala of the ATI Field Office at Wright-Patterson, tower witness statements, Geiger readings on the aircraft and press clippings. It concludes that Gorman's statements should be accepted as truth until proven wrong.
This declassified U.S. Air Force file contains the final report of Project Twinkle, dated 27 November 1951 and written by Louis Elterman of the Geophysics Research Division, together with related correspondence. The project was set up to investigate the green fireballs and other light phenomena around Holloman AFB and Vaughn, New Mexico, and it was run with Askania cameras. The report calls its findings essentially negative and recommends no further funding. In March 1952 the Directorate of Intelligence declined to declassify it.
The Project Twinkle Final Report, approved 27 November 1951 by Louis Elterman of the Air Force Geophysics Research Division's Atmospheric Physics Laboratory, describes a camera and observation program begun in 1950 to investigate green fireballs and other light phenomena over New Mexico, at Vaughn and Holloman AFB. It says the findings were essentially negative and puts most sightings down to aircraft, balloons, birds, planets, meteors or clouds. It recommends no further spending, with meteor camera film to be checked instead.
This DoD Washington Headquarters Services release collects emails about Luis Elizondo, marked as correspondence from a private citizen to a DoD employee. In a June 2020 email and a June 2019 email, Elizondo asks public affairs officer Susan Gough to correct statements that he had no assigned duties in AATIP. He says he ran the program and names people who could confirm his role. Attached August and September 2017 emails with Neill Tipton discuss handing the portfolio over to Tipton.
This FOIA release from DoD Washington Headquarters Services collects 2020 Pentagon public affairs and Navy emails about press queries on unidentified aerial phenomena. It includes the August 14, 2020 announcement that Deputy Secretary David Norquist had approved the UAP Task Force, and follow-ups on a CBS query about a claimed F/A-18 cellphone photo of a triangular object. It also reproduces The Debrief and Vice/Motherboard articles, and internal emails on DOPSR's handling of the Navy videos and Luis Elizondo's AATIP role.
This FAA Alaskan Region folder, released via the National Archives and The Black Vault, collects public letters written in early 1987 about the November 17, 1986 sighting reported by JAL Captain Kenjyu Terauchi. Many writers ask for the FAA form summarizing the sighting, price lists, radar photos or transcripts, and FAA staff reply with order forms. A San Francisco Chronicle clipping in the folder describes the FAA's $194.30 mail-order package and Philip Klass's conclusion that the pilot saw Jupiter and possibly Mars.
This Black Vault release reproduces a folder of public letters sent to the FAA Alaskan Region in Anchorage, mostly from March 1987 with a few from 1988 and 1989. Many writers say they heard about the materials on Paul Harvey's radio newscast. They ask for tapes, radar images, drawings and summary reports on the November 17, 1986 sighting by the crew of JAL Flight 1628 over Alaska. Several letters mention the FAA's mail-order kit of 20 items and ask about prices.
This FAA Alaskan Region Public Affairs Office release, dated March 5, 1987, is a computer printout of recorded FAA radar data for Japan Air Lines Flight 1628 on November 17, 1986. It covers 38 minutes of computer time and lists 105 radar returns. Of these, 86 are usable and 19 are uncorrelated primary returns. The printout records when the pilot first asked about other traffic and when he said he could not see the UFO. It also explains that uncorrelated returns occur when the primary and beacon signals do not match in position.
This Black Vault release contains FAA Alaskan Region correspondence and an order form for records on the Japan Air Lines Flight 1628 unidentified traffic sighting of November 17, 1986. A May 14, 1987 letter points requesters to an NTIS report, and a February 21, 1987 letter from Public Affairs Officer Paul Steucke introduces the itemized list. That list covers crew interview transcripts, Captain Terauchi's statements and drawings, air traffic control transcripts and tapes, radar data, and news releases.
This record, from the Brazilian Air Ministry's I Regional Air Command (I COMAR), 2nd Section, is marked confidential and logs UFO sightings in Pará state. Each entry gives the place, date, color, shape, movement, estimated altitude, distance and witnesses. The sightings run from September 1977 into November 1977 at Colares, Santo Antônio do Tauá, Vigia, Mosqueiro and the Bay of Marajó. Witnesses reported physical effects such as paralysis, and the A2/I COMAR team made its own observations with theodolite angles and photographs. Copies of local newspaper clippings from 1978 are attached.
This FBI teletype from the Dallas office to the Director and the Cincinnati Special Agent in Charge is marked urgent. It reports that the Eighth Air Force had telephoned to say an object said to be a flying disc was recovered near Roswell, New Mexico. The object was hexagonal and hung by cable from a balloon about twenty feet in diameter, and it resembled a high altitude weather balloon with a radar reflector. The disc and balloon were being flown to Wright Field for examination.
This Defense Intelligence Agency routing slip forwards a September 1976 message from the US Defense Attache Office in Tehran reporting a UFO sighting on 19 September 1976. It describes citizen calls from Shemiran, the scramble of two Imperial Iranian Air Force F-4s, and instrument and communications failures as they approached a brilliant object. It also reports smaller objects emerging from the main one, one appearing to land, and a daylight helicopter search that detected a beeper signal.
This NICAP copy of a declassified DIA file pairs a routing slip from Louis E. Foster of DIA with a message the US Defense Attache Office in Tehran sent on 23 September 1976, signed by Col. Frank B. McKenzie. The message reports that two Imperial Iranian Air Force F-4s were scrambled on 19 September 1976 after citizens in Tehran reported an object in the sky. It describes lost instruments and communications, smaller objects separating from the main one, a possible landing, and plans to check the site for radiation.
This is the written testimony that former Navy F/A-18 pilot Ryan Graves gave to the House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs at its first public hearing on UAP. Graves says that UAP are routinely seen but underreported, and that stigma and heavy classification hide what the government knows. He describes the encounters his squadron had in Warning Area W-72 off Virginia Beach. He also calls for commercial pilot reporting, empowered investigation and declassification of UAP data.
This combined file holds US Air Force Air Materiel Command intelligence records for Project SIGN on the 1 October 1948 Fargo, North Dakota incident. A cover memo to the Chief of Staff reports that investigators questioned witnesses on 3 October and found that an F-51 pilot had chased a small round white light for 27 minutes, and that the light outmaneuvered his aircraft. Major Paul Kubala's interrogation reports cover pilot Lt. George F. Gorman and tower controllers L.D. Jensen and Manuel E. Johnson. The memo rules out balloons, other aircraft and Canadian jets and rates the report A-2.
This is NASA's press kit for Space Shuttle mission STS-75, dated February 1996 and later edited by Richard W. Orloff. It covers Columbia's planned 13-day flight carrying the Italian Tethered Satellite System reflight (TSS-1R) and the third United States Microgravity Payload. The kit sets out launch and landing plans, abort modes, the timeline, payload weights, crew duties, the tether's science objectives and investigators, and crew biographies. It does not mention any unidentified objects.
This FAA document, labeled AAL-5 and dated February 4, 1987, gives selected portions of the air traffic control transcripts for Japan Air Lines Flight 1628 on November 18, 1986 (UTC). It records the crew reporting unidentified traffic with navigation and strobe lights near Fort Yukon and Fairbanks. Anchorage Center, Fairbanks approach and military ROCC radar discuss intermittent primary returns. A United flight and a military C-130 are brought in to look, and neither sees any other aircraft.
This undated FAA document, released through the National Archives and The Black Vault, contains five captioned radar display simulations reconstructing the track of Japan Air Lines flight JL1628 on 11/18/86. The captions describe plotted positions between Fort Yukon and Fairbanks, the pilot's report of an object descending in formation with the aircraft, a 360 degree turn past Fairbanks, and a United flight near Nenana that reported JL1628 in sight around 0250Z.
This FAA package, released through The Black Vault, covers regenerated radar data for Japan Airlines flight 1628 over Alaska on November 17, 1986. It contains photographs of the regenerated radar image taken by Paul Steucke on January 7, 1987, and a chart of the flight track. It also includes a March 5, 1987 public affairs release, a February 27, 1987 Airway Facilities memo and Dennis Simantel's analysis. These attribute the radar returns to uncorrelated primary and beacon targets, which they call normal for the area.
This FAA release, obtained through The Black Vault, collects material on the radar data from Japan Air Lines Flight 1628 over Alaska on November 17, 1986. It includes a March 5, 1987 explanation by FAA public affairs officer Paul Steucke, a February 1987 Airway Facilities memo, and Dennis Simantel's analysis attributing the returns to uncorrelated primary and beacon targets, considered normal. It also contains regenerated radar image photos and a Philadelphia Inquirer magazine article on the sighting and the FAA's inconclusive review.
This NICAP-hosted compilation of Project Blue Book records covers the Air Force investigation of policeman Lonnie Zamora's 24 April 1964 sighting at Socorro, New Mexico. It includes Foreign Technology Division teletypes, a resume and narrative of the sighting, Capt Hector Quintanilla's memos, and letters to Project Cloud Gap and the FAA. Investigators found no radiation, no foreign material in soil samples, and no helicopter or radar explanation. They concluded that a real object was seen, possibly a VTOL or lunar module type vehicle, and left the case open.
This is Spanish Air Force file 761119, released by the Ejército del Aire and declassified in 1994. It covers a luminous phenomenon seen over the Canary Islands on 19 November 1976 by the crew of the training ship Juan Sebastián Elcano, a T-12 aircraft carrying the Canary Islands Air Zone commander, a Spantax crew and witnesses in Guía near Gáldar. The file includes Informe 02/76 with 14 witness statements, radar and weather data, the investigating judge's proposal for a UFO study center, and airline reports of a bright dome over Málaga. The general's own view was that it was an unidentified optical phenomenon.
This FAA release, dated February and March 1987, covers the radar data from Japan Airlines flight 1628 on November 17, 1986. It includes a statement and drawing by Paul Steucke of FAA Public Affairs in Anchorage, a memo from the Airway Facilities Division, and an analysis by Dennis Simantel. They conclude that the radar showed an uncorrelated primary and beacon target, which they describe as a normal timing effect and not an unknown object.
This is a 1946 letter from the Swedish naval attaché in Helsinki to the Foreign Department of the Swedish Defence Staff (Försvarsstaben, Utrikesavdelningen), logged on 19 August 1946. With it the attaché sent a clipping from Hufvudstadsbladet and noted that the newspapers were mentioning "ghost rockets" over Finland for the first time in a long while. According to the letter, the phenomenon was seen to the southeast from Brunnsparken on 13 August at 23.30 Finnish time.
This feature from the Département de la Lozère, undated, recounts the Beast of Gévaudan. Starting in 1764, the creature killed more than a hundred people across Lozère and Haute-Loire over three years. It describes the failed hunts led by Captain Duhamel, by Denneval father and son and by Antoine de Beauterne, and ends with Jean Chastel killing the animal. The article reprints a 1765 burial record for a girl partly eaten by the beast and says the mystery remains unsolved.
This FAA record of interview documents a January 2, 1987 session in Anchorage, Alaska, in which Inspector Richard O. Gordon of FSDO-63 questioned JAL Captain Kenju Terauchi about his crew's November 17, 1986 sighting. Terauchi describes two small craft with exhaust-like lights that flew near his aircraft and a much larger mothership, and says the target appeared green on his onboard radar. He also reports VHF interference and says the objects matched his 360-degree turn and his descent.