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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.Documents448 records · page 2
This U.S. Department of State incoming telegram, dated November 14, 1963, was sent by the American Embassy in Rio de Janeiro to the consulate in Salvador and passed to Defense and NASA. It asks the consulate to confirm that it denies a local newspaper report. The report said a large metal manned balloon was found near Salvador around November 8 with a dead crewman in a strangely marked uniform or spacesuit, and that it left a crater. The cable notes an object sighted nearby had been tentatively identified as a weather balloon, but that no object was found on the ground.
This is an unclassified airgram that the U.S. Embassy in Rio de Janeiro sent to the Department of State on November 20, 1963. It gives a negative report on an unidentified flying object said to have come down near Conde, Bahia. The Consul in Salvador, Harold Midkiff, reported that the story looked fabricated in Rio and that nobody in the area had seen any such object. Local newspaper clippings added that the Ministry of Aeronautics denied that any strange object had appeared.
This NASA file from 1965 combines Mission Operation Report M-913-65-04 on the Gemini 4 (GT-4) flight with related correspondence. Memoranda from the Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight describe the planned four-day mission with James McDivitt and Edward White, including a spacewalk, a rendezvous with the booster second stage and thirteen experiments. Later letters and telegrams from NASA's Manned Space Science office concern the astronaut debriefing and requests for GT-4 photography and film for scientific analysis.
This is a preliminary transcript of the Gemini V (GT-5) flight crew debriefing, prepared by NASA's Spacecraft Operations Branch, Flight Crew Support Division, and dated September 1, 1965. It records Cooper and Conrad's operational account from the debriefing held August 30 to September 1, 1965 at Cape Kennedy. Topics include countdown, window fogging, POGO vibration, fairing jettison debris, radio loss, reentry and recovery. Visual sightings are left for a later part of the debriefing.
This is a preliminary Part II transcript of the Gemini 5 (GT-5) flight crew debriefing, prepared by the Spacecraft Operations Branch of NASA's Flight Crew Support Division and dated September 2, 1965. It records astronauts Cooper and Conrad at the Crew Quarters, Cape Kennedy. They discuss how the spacecraft systems worked, including the platform and the OAMS thruster failures. The transcript also covers operational checks, visual sightings, experiments, training, premission planning, and medical aspects. It was originally classified Confidential.
This is a preliminary transcript of the Gemini 7 technical debriefing, dated December 23, 1965, from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. It was made from tape recordings of the crew debriefing held December 19 to 21, 1965 at the Crew Quarters, Cape Kennedy, Florida. In it, Frank Borman and Jim Lovell go through countdown, powered flight, insertion, station keeping with the booster, systems, experiments and training. The table of contents also lists a section on visual sightings during orbital flight.
This Central Intelligence Agency file, dated 1 February 1965, holds a memorandum from the Assistant Director (Special Activities) to the Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence. It concerns a UFO reported near Puerto Rico during 18 to 24 November 1964. A Navy command had identified the object as a YF-12A, but the memo says ONI was persuaded it was not one. It asks OSI to analyze the Navy's radar film. A February 1965 reply concludes the object was probably a delta-wing fighter with speeds reported above Mach 3.
This is a preliminary transcript of Part I of the Gemini 4 (GT-4) flight crew debriefing. The Spacecraft Operations Branch of NASA's Flight Crew Support Division prepared it on June 16, 1965, from recordings of the debriefing held aboard the USS Wasp on June 9, 1965. In it, astronauts McDivitt and White describe the mission from an operational viewpoint, covering countdown, powered flight, insertion, orbital operations, reentry, landing and recovery. According to the preface, visual sightings were left for a later part.
This is a preliminary transcript of Part II of the Gemini 4 (GT-4) flight crew debriefing, prepared by NASA's Spacecraft Operations Branch, Flight Crew Support Division, and dated June 18, 1965. The debriefing began aboard the recovery ship USS Wasp and ended at the Manned Spacecraft Center. In it, astronauts McDivitt and White discuss how the spacecraft systems performed, including the platform, OAMS, RCS and control modes. They also cover operational checks, visual sightings, experiments, mission planning and training, and give recommendations for future crews.
This audio recording contains air to ground communications and the NASA Public Affairs audio feed with commentary, recorded during the flight of the Gemini 7 mission. In this excerpted segment of audio, Astronaut Frank Borman reports to NASA mission control in Houston his sighting of an unidentified object, which he referred to as a "bogey." This sighting occurred on December 5, 1965. The dialogue includes Borman's initial report, as well as additional comments by Astronaut Jim Lovell, Borman's fellow crew member.
This NASA transcript of Public Affairs Office release commentary for the Gemini 7/6 flight is dated 5 December 1965 and comes from tape T-00763. In the exchange with Houston, Frank Borman reports a bogey at ten o'clock high, hundreds of small particles passing three or four miles away and the booster in sight. Jim Lovell describes the booster as a brilliant, slowly tumbling body. The Public Affairs Office notes that the flight had reached 4 hours 24 minutes.
This 1966 NASA file collects memoranda by Jocelyn R. Gill of the Manned Flight Experiments Office, plus related correspondence, on the scientific experiments of the Gemini IX mission. Status reports from March and June 1966 describe the zodiacal light, airglow, micrometeorite and synoptic photography experiments, and an experiments debriefing held June 16. The file also contains a congratulatory telegram to astronauts Stafford and Cernan and a Naval Research Laboratory letter on the S-9 cosmic ray experiment. It reports no unidentified objects.
This Central Intelligence Agency information report, dated 21 August 1967, recounts a US astrophysicist's conversations about UFOs with Soviet astronomers during a one-month trip through the USSR in spring 1967. It covers visits to observatories in Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Crimea and Alma Ata, including N.A. Kozyrev's view that UFOs may originate on Venus. It concludes that the USSR had given the UFO problem no official treatment, yet Soviet astronomers were widely aware of the phenomenon and often interested in it.
This U.S. Air Force file gathers records of the USAF Scientific Advisory Board Ad Hoc Committee to Review Project Blue Book, dated 1965 to 1969. It holds Major General LeBailly's 1965 request for a review, meeting records from Wright-Patterson AFB, and Secretary Harold Brown's approval of a university scientific study. There are also 1969 letters praising the Condon Report, a 1968 NICAP request for records, a 1967 attendee list for a meeting with Dr. James McDonald, and a copy of the 1953 Robertson Panel report.
This Central Intelligence Agency information report, classified confidential and retrieved in a 1974 Foreign Technology Division records search, lists sightings of unidentified flying objects in Ladakh, Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan between 19 February and 25 March 1968. Its tables give dates, times, areas, directions of flight and descriptions, including bright lights, thunder sounds and rocket-like trails. It notes that a metallic disc-shaped object was found in a crater near Pokhara, Nepal.
This is the Apollo 11 Technical Crew Debriefing, dated July 31, 1969 and prepared by the Mission Operations Branch, Flight Crew Support Division of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. It is a confidential transcript. In it, Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins describe a bright L-shaped object seen about a day out from the Moon, which they could not identify and suspected came from the spacecraft. They also report light flashes inside the cabin and a bright light from Earth that was probably a reflection off a lake.
During a medical debriefing of the crew of the Apollo 12 mission, Commander Charles “Pete” Conrad, Command Module Pilot Richard “Dick” F. Gordon, and Lunar Module Pilot Alan L. Bean describe their observations of instances of light flashes or “streaks of lights.” The astronauts each reported that these experiences occurred in the dark as they tried to sleep. The NASA medical team considered whether similar phenomena reported by Apollo 11 Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin had been attributable to exposure of the retina by cosmic rays. NASA later determined that the phenomena reported by the Apollo 12 flight crew were internal to the astronauts’ vision rather than external light sources.
This NASA document is part of the air-to-ground voice transcript of the Apollo 12 mission in 1969, covering tapes 90 and 93. It records routine exchanges between Houston and the crews of the command module Yankee Clipper and the lunar module Intrepid about state vector uplinks, lift-off time, battery charging and rendezvous tracking. One crew member reports flashes of light and particles that appear to stream away from the Moon. Houston attributes a pulsing AGS display to probable electromagnetic interference, and the crew concludes that the LM tracking light has burned out.
This archival photograph depicts the lunar surface as viewed from the landing site of Apollo 12. This image features a highlighted area of interest slightly to the right of the vertical axis of the frame, above the horizon, in which unidentified phenomena are visible. This image has been modified from its original state to assist viewers in identifying specific areas of interest. These highlights are provided for contextual purposes only. Such alterations do not constitute an analytical judgment, investigative conclusion, or factual determination regarding the nature or significance of the subject matter.
This archival photograph depicts the lunar surface as viewed from the landing site of Apollo 12. This image features two highlighted areas of interest, labeled “Area 1” and “Area 2,” slightly to the right of the vertical axis of the frame, above the horizon, in which unidentified phenomena are visible. This image has been modified from its original state to assist viewers in identifying specific areas of interest. These highlights are provided for contextual purposes only. Such alterations do not constitute an analytical judgment, investigative conclusion, or factual determination regarding the nature or significance of the subject matter.
This archival photograph depicts the lunar surface as viewed from the landing site of Apollo 12. This image features a highlighted area of interest near the right edge of the frame, above the horizon, in which unidentified phenomena are visible. This image has been modified from its original state to assist viewers in identifying specific areas of interest. These highlights are provided for contextual purposes only. Such alterations do not constitute an analytical judgment, investigative conclusion, or factual determination regarding the nature or significance of the subject matter.
This archival photograph depicts the lunar surface as viewed from the landing site of Apollo 12. This image features a highlighted area of interest slightly to the left of the vertical axis of the frame, above the horizon, in which unidentified phenomena are visible. This image has been modified from its original state to assist viewers in identifying specific areas of interest. These highlights are provided for contextual purposes only. Such alterations do not constitute an analytical judgment, investigative conclusion, or factual determination regarding the nature or significance of the subject matter.
This archival photograph depicts the lunar surface as viewed from the landing site of Apollo 12. This image features five highlighted areas of interest, labeled “Area 1” through “Area 5,” above the horizon, in which unidentified phenomena are visible. This image has been modified from its original state to assist viewers in identifying specific areas of interest. These highlights are provided for contextual purposes only. Such alterations do not constitute an analytical judgment, investigative conclusion, or factual determination regarding the nature or significance of the subject matter.
This document, released by the Central Intelligence Agency and held by the National Archives of Australia, is an Australian Department of Defence paper from about 1971 on the scientific and intelligence aspects of the UFO problem. It traces the history of US official handling of UFOs through Projects Sign, Grudge and Blue Book, the Robertson panel and the Condon report, and it argues that a covert programme and gravity research continued. It recommends that another Australian government department take over UFO investigation from the RAAF.
This file contains segment 2 of 2 of the Apollo 14 post-mission crew debriefing at the Manned Spacecraft Center (now Johnson Space Center), Houston, Texas. In this continued segment, crew members and debriefers further discuss the “light flash phenomena,” a then novel, now well-documented biological effect where high-energy cosmic rays pass through the eye and strike the retina, causing the perception of light streaks or flashes.
This file contains segment 1 of 2 of the Apollo 14 post-mission crew debriefing at the Manned Spacecraft Center (now Johnson Space Center), Houston, Texas. In the recording, crew members and debriefers discuss the “light flash phenomena,” a then novel, now well-documented biological effect where high-energy cosmic rays pass through the eye and strike the retina, causing the perception of light streaks or flashes. The questioners attempt to distinguish the characteristics of the observed phenomena. The debriefing continues in the next file (NASA-UAP-D027), which contains some overlapping audio content.
This NASA document contains excerpts from the Apollo 17 air-to-ground voice transcription from 1972. The crew reports bright, jagged fragments drifting past the spacecraft after S-IVB separation, and later describes a distant flashing, rotating object that Jack thinks is the S-IVB. Gene also describes light flashes he saw with his eyes closed. Other passages cover weather over Hawaii and the Solomon Islands, and a flash seen on the lunar surface north of Grimaldi.
As part of the review of historical UAP materials under PURSUE, DOW has opened a case to investigate the accompanying NASA photograph from the Apollo 17 mission, taken December 1972. The image contains three “dots” in a triangular formation in the lower right quadrant of the lunar sky that is clearly visible upon magnification of the image. While this photo has been previously released and discussed by keen observers, there is no consensus about the nature of the anomaly. New preliminary US government analysis suggests the image feature is potentially the result of a physical object in the scene. Additionally, as part of this investigation, the government has obtained the original film from the Apollo 17 mission and the results of the full NASA and DOW analysis will be released when completed.
This Central Intelligence Agency intelligence information report, dated April 1972, relays unevaluated information from a US citizen about the Conference on the Origins of Life in Yerevan, Armenia, held 6 to 8 September 1971. It describes a speculative paper by N. S. Kardashev and Andrei Sakharov on how a charged mass collapsing in space might bounce back into a different part of space time. A US attendee found the paper somewhat fantastic but grounded in sound physics.
During the eleventh and final crewed mission in the Apollo program, Apollo 17 Commander Gene Cernan, Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt, and Command Module Pilot Ronald Evans report seeing small lights outside the Apollo spacecraft during transit to the moon. The crew describe bright “particles” or “fragments” as being “jagged,” “angular,” and drifting near the Apollo spacecraft and the separated Saturn S-IVB stage. The Apollo 17 crew speculate that paint chips or ice chips are likely the source of these lights and note that they “twinkle” and move away from the Saturn S-IVB stage.
This file contains segment 2 of 2 of the Apollo 17 post-mission medical debriefing at the Manned Spacecraft Center (now Johnson Space Center), Houston, Texas. In this continued segment, crew members and debriefers further discuss the “light flash phenomena,” a then novel, now well-documented biological effect where high-energy cosmic rays pass through the eye and strike the retina, causing the perception of light streaks or flashes. Two of the three crew members reported observing these flashes at various points during the mission, including in lunar orbit and while on the lunar surface.
This file contains segment 1 of 2 of the Apollo 17 post-mission medical debriefing at the Manned Spacecraft Center (now Johnson Space Center), Houston, Texas. In the recording, crew members discuss the “light flash phenomena,” a then novel, now well-documented biological effect where high-energy cosmic rays pass through the eye and strike the retina, causing the perception of light streaks or flashes. Two of the three crew members reported observing these flashes at various points during the mission, including in lunar orbit and while on the lunar surface. The debriefing continues in the next file (NASA-UAP-D029).
This is the Apollo 17 Crew Debriefing for Science, document MSC-07632, issued by NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston and dated January 8, 1973. The extracted pages record a scientist named Henry reporting ultraviolet spectrometer results. These include a search for ionized hydrogen in the Coma cluster that found none. They also cover ultraviolet light at high galactic latitudes, possibly reflected by interstellar dust or extragalactic in origin, and Lyman-alpha hydrogen inside the solar system. The pages contain no UFO content.
The Training Office of NASA's Crew Training and Simulation Division at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston prepared this Apollo 17 technical crew debriefing, dated January 4, 1973. The extract covers Evans describing a fireball seen through the rendezvous window. Cernan says the only unusual sighting he recalls during landing or recovery was the CMP spotting an aircraft carrier's superstructure. Schmitt reports light flashes nearly the whole flight while dark adapted, with none seen during the ALFMED blindfold period.
This Central Intelligence Agency Directorate of Operations intelligence information report covers November 1972 to November 1973 and is based on a former Soviet citizen who served at the Sary Shagan weapons testing range in the USSR. It gives limited information on the range's facilities, security, a warhead checkout unit and the System-75 (SA-2) and System-300/Aldan (ABM-1 GALOSH) warheads, and passes on rumors of laser research. It also describes the source's late summer 1973 sighting of a silent green circular mass that formed concentric circles and faded within minutes.
This NASA Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center release collects excerpts from the Skylab 1/2, 1/3 and 1/4 technical crew debriefings, dated June 30, 1973, October 4, 1973 and February 22, 1974. The Skylab 2 crew describe light flashes they saw with their eyes closed and link some of them to cosmic particles. The Skylab 3 crew describe a bright reddish, rotating object that they tracked for about 10 minutes in an orbit close to their own and ask to have it identified. The Skylab 4 crew report lights outside that they took to be Skylab debris or other satellites.
This Central Intelligence Agency Intelligence Information Report, distributed in December 1973, relays information from a former Soviet citizen about the Sary Shagan weapons testing range in the USSR. It covers the range's facilities, security, headquarters and warhead checkout unit, along with warheads for the System-75 (SA-2) and System-300/Aldan (ABM-1 GALOSH) missiles and rumored laser research. It also reports that in late summer 1973 the source saw a silent bright green circular object at Site 7 that formed concentric circles and faded within minutes.
This Federal Bureau of Investigation file from the Chicago office holds UFO correspondence from 1967 and 1974. A 1967 memo records an eleven-year-old Chicago boy's report of a weird noise and a flash of light moving north, which was passed to an Air Force radar squadron. In 1974 researcher Larry W. Bryant asked for FBI records on an April 8, 1954 occupied UFO landing. Special Agent in Charge Richard G. Held replied that the FBI had no information and does not investigate UFO sightings.
This Central Intelligence Agency Domestic Collection Division report on the USSR is dated 10 November 1976 and marked as unevaluated information. It describes how Aeroflot deals with crew fatigue through physical conditioning, preflight medical testing and rest facilities called prophylactoriums at major airports. It also describes an automated prototype that tests pilots' psychomotor function in about three minutes. Radiation biologist Akoyev is reported as explaining that cosmic ray particles make Aeroflot pilots see flashes of light at night. The subject line also lists UFO phenomena.
This U.S. Department of State cable was sent by the American Embassy in Port Moresby on January 28, 1985. It reports an informal inquiry from Papua New Guinea's National Intelligence Organization about high-altitude, high-speed aircraft and other unidentified aerial phenomena seen over PNG on the evening of January 24. The reports included an Air Niugini pilot's radar contact near Angoram and sightings of contrails. The embassy said it knew of no B-52 or other U.S. aircraft in PNG airspace that day and asked for confirmation.
This is a meeting notice dated May 20, 1986 from the Pajarito Astronomers, a club based in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and it was released through the U.S. Department of Energy. It tells members that the next meeting will be held on Thursday, May 29, 1986, at 7:30 p.m. in the Ranch Room at Fuller Lodge. The guest speaker will be Dr. John Warren of AT-6, and his talk is titled "Why Should a Scientist be Concerned about UFO's?"
This U.S. State Department cable, sent from the U.S. Embassy in Dushanbe on January 31, 1994, reports a UFO sighting by Tajik Air chief pilot Ed Rhodes and two American colleagues. On January 27, while flying a Boeing 747SP at 41,000 feet over Kazakhstan, the crew watched a very bright light maneuver for about forty minutes. It left contrails that Rhodes estimated at 100,000 feet. The crew rejected a meteor explanation, and the embassy said it had no opinion.
During STS-80, between November 19 and December 7, 1996, astronauts aboard Space Shuttle Columbia captured a series of three images of an unidentified object in low-Earth orbit. In the first photograph, the object is visible near the center of the frame, to the right of the limb of the Earth.
During STS-80, between November 19 and December 7, 1996, astronauts aboard Space Shuttle Columbia captured a series of three images of an unidentified object in low-Earth orbit. In the second photograph, the object is visible near the center of the frame, to the right of the limb of the Earth. It appears to have rotated or tumbled about its major axis, which is consistent with the behavior of a free-floating object.
During STS-80, between November 19 and December 7, 1996, astronauts aboard Space Shuttle Columbia captured a series of three images of an unidentified object in low-Earth orbit. In the third photograph, the object is visible near the center of the frame, superimposed against the Earth. It appears to have continued along a trajectory passing between Columbia and the Earth.
The United States Navy Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF) transferred this media to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) in 2022. The video contains 2 minutes and 57 seconds of footage likely captured by an infrared sensor aboard a U.S. military platform in 1996. Video Description: No formal data handling practices for UAP-related records existed at the time this media was reported to the UAPTF. This media was digitally altered before being reported to the UAPTF, and is presented as it was received by AARO. 00:01-00:13: No content. 00:14-00:17: An area of contrast transits the sensor field-of-view, entering near the upper right corner and exiting near the lower left corner of the frame. 00:18-01:21: The footage repeats frame-by-frame. 01:22-02:13: The footage repeats at a slower playback speed. 02:14-02:56: The footage holds on a frame extracted from the first 17 seconds of the video. This video description is provided for informational purposes only. Readers should not interpret any part of this description as reflecting an analytical judgment, investigative conclusion, or factual determination regarding the described event’s validity, nature, or significance.
This final report, dated September 10, 1996, was prepared by the Research Triangle Institute for the Department of the Air Force's 45th and 30th Space Wing safety offices. Titled Modeling Unlikely Space-Booster Failures in Risk Calculations, it shows how rare Mode-5 failures, in which a rocket veers well off its intended flight line, are modeled in the DAMP risk-analysis program. An appendix lists Atlas, Delta, Titan and Thor launch and failure histories through August 1996.
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.
This is the Vandenberg AFB Launch Summary for 1958 to 2000, compiled by the 30th Space Wing Office of History and current as of 3 February 2000. It is the official registry of all major launch operations from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, starting with the first launch on 16 December 1958. It includes a chronology, annual launch totals by booster and by command, a launch facility guide, and a glossary. It contains no discussion of unidentified aerial phenomena.
This U.S. Embassy Moscow cable to the State Department is dated October 30, 2001 and signed by Ambassador Vershbow. It reports Russian Foreign Ministry denials that Russian planes flew over or bombed the Kodori Gorge in Georgia on October 28 and 29. A ministry official said reports of planes might as well have been about "UFOs." The cable also covers equipment withdrawals from the Gudauta base. The embassy's comment calls the UFO suggestion a bold lie meant to avoid an awkward admission.