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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.Documents1,073 records · page 17
This CIA FOIA release, dated 2001-04-09, collects 1978 internal records from the case Ground Saucer Watch, Inc. v. CIA (Civil Action 78-859). It includes an Office of General Counsel memo, a stipulation from plaintiff's attorney Peter Gersten that restates the group's requests for all CIA documents relating to UFOs, a list of the original requesters, and routing slips. Office of Data Processing components searched their files and reported that they found no material related to UFOs.
This Central Intelligence Agency newsletter covers Information Review and Release activities for 16 to 20 April 2001. It lists upcoming declassification panel meetings, reports on an External Referral Working Group meeting, and quotes a 1953 letter from General Counsel Lawrence Houston. It also summarizes FOIA requests, including several nearly identical requests from Woodland, California about Area 51, Majestic 12 and Roswell. The CIA says it holds no information on the alleged Roswell event and has not located Majestic 12 records.
This is a Central Intelligence Agency executive summary of Information Review and Release news for 23 to 27 April 2001, approved for release in 2019. It covers upcoming declassification meetings and deadlines, FOIA requests about the April 2001 missionary plane shootdown in Peru and about Rwanda, and the dismissal of a FOIA lawsuit about Princess Diana. It also notes that 74.5 cubic feet of declassified records went to NARA, including a motion picture film on Unidentified Flying Objects.
This CIA release, approved in 2001, gathers Air Force and Research and Development Board correspondence from late 1952 about how flying saucer reports affect air defense. In it, Air Defense Command says many fast radar tracks came from mutual interference between radar sets. It warns that unexplained tracks could waste guided missiles and interceptors, so their causes must be found. Also included are a CIA memo planning a research program and an RDB memo on radar phantoms.
This Central Intelligence Agency release, approved in 2004, collects 1966 memoranda on Air Force requests to declassify the 1953 report of the scientific panel on unidentified flying objects that the Office of Scientific Intelligence convened. The memos trace the USAF requests of July 1966, the press interest behind them, and the 15 August forwarding of a sanitized version with CIA references removed. The attached panel comments found no threat to national security, judged the Tremonton film to probably show birds, and recommended a training and debunking program.
This is a US Air Force news release fact sheet on UFO reports, filed in CIA records and approved for release in 2004. It reports 173 sightings between 1 January and 30 June 1960, with 139 analyzed and only 3 left unidentified. It also gives yearly totals from 1947 onward, explains how cases are categorized, and cites Project Blue Book Special Report #14. The Air Force concludes that there is no evidence of hostile intent, interplanetary spacecraft, advanced technology or physical debris.
This is Air Force Regulation 200-2 on unidentified flying objects, released through the Central Intelligence Agency, with a CIA release stamp dated 2004. It supersedes the 12 August 1954 version and sets out how the Air Force reports and investigates UFO sightings and how it releases information about them to the public. The regulation defines what counts as a UFO. It assigns analysis to the Air Technical Intelligence Center, puts the Office of Information Services in charge of public releases and gives a standard report format, including rules for handling photographs and physical evidence.
This is a short US government memorandum dated 18 July 1967, released by the Central Intelligence Agency in 2001. It confirms that a meeting is planned for Wednesday, 19 July, at 1000 to discuss the UFO problem. The writer says they asked OSI for the 1953 Panel Report and related data, and that OSI promised to have it ready by meeting time. The memo also notes that the file is held at the Records Center.
This Central Intelligence Agency executive summary covers Information Review and Release activities for the week of 28 May to 1 June 2001. It lists incoming FOIA requests, including one on the USS Pueblo captain, one on brain fingerprinting research, one on Peruvian massacres, and one seeking records of a 9 July 1959 CIA meeting about unidentified flying objects that involved a South Berwick, Maine case. It also covers pending STAR GATE remote viewing releases, planning for the Bay of Pigs declassification, and Publications Review Board workload.
This Central Intelligence Agency memorandum for record, dated 30 January 1953 and approved for release in 2001, records a briefing on unidentified flying objects given to the ONE Board on 29 January. The briefing covered the history of O/SI interest and action on the subject and showed motion picture films of sightings at Tremonton, Utah, and Great Falls, Montana. Board members had already received the Report of the Scientific Advisory Panel, and the session served as background before an ATIC briefing.
This CIA memorandum from H. Marshall Chadwell, Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence, to the Director of Central Intelligence requests permission to hire Dr. Luis W. Alvarez and Dr. Thornton W. Page as ad hoc consultants. They would serve on the O/SI Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects, scheduled to convene on 14 January 1953, at $50 per day. The request was approved on 20 January 1953, subject to security clearance. The document was approved for release in 2001.
This is a Central Intelligence Agency memorandum dated 16 December 1953, approved for release in 2001, sent to the Chief, Operations Staff, O/SI. It says overall substantive responsibility for flying saucers has been given to the Physics and Electronics Division, with action responsibility inside that division assigned to the Operations Staff. It directs that any matter concerning flying saucers be coordinated with a named officer or, in that officer's absence, an alternate. Both names are redacted. The memo is a short administrative routing notice.
This is a Central Intelligence Agency memorandum from H. Marshall Chadwell, Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence, released in 2001. It asks for unvouchered funds to pay fees, per diem and travel for a small panel of scientists advising on the unidentified flying objects problem. The panel was to meet in Washington, D.C. in January and February 1953. The memo estimates the cost at about $5,400 and attaches a cost breakdown for three consultants.
This Central Intelligence Agency release, approved in 2001, gathers records of the OSI Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects, which met 14 to 17 January 1953 under H. P. Robertson. It includes an internal memo on the meetings, the panel's charge, the list of members and the evidence presented, and the final report. The panel concluded that UFOs posed no direct physical threat to national security. It recommended stripping the subject of its special status and educating the public.
This is a CIA office memorandum dated 3 July 1953 from the Chief of the Physics and Electronics Division, Office of Scientific Intelligence, to the Assistant Director, SI, released in 2001. It responds to a May 1953 assignment to keep current on UFO sighting reports. The Division cites the Scientific Review Board's finding of no serious, direct threat to national security and treats the project as inactive. It will review incoming material periodically, using a part-time analyst and a file clerk.
This Central Intelligence Agency document, dated 2001-06-05 and titled Unidentified Flying Objects, is a fragment of a routing and comment sheet on Form No. 75-3 from March 1951. The surviving comment describes the matter as a holding job for now and says the writer foresees no action in the immediate future. It recommends assigning a custodian to the subject, possibly from the Physics Branch. The rest of the text is standard form instructions.
This Central Intelligence Agency office memorandum, dated May 27, 1953, went from H. Marshall Chadwell, Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence, to the Chief of the Physics and Electronics Division of OSI. It was approved for release in 2001. It puts that division in charge of keeping current knowledge of reported unidentified flying object sightings, and it asks the Applied Science Division to support it on weapons and hardware. It also says where the existing UFO files are held and suggests the division take custody of the files it needs.
This Central Intelligence Agency memorandum, dated February 10, 1953 and released in 2001, went from the Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence to the Deputy Director (Intelligence). It passes on the findings of the Scientific Advisory Panel on unidentified flying objects, which met from 14 to 17 January. The office agrees with the panel's conclusions and plans to send its report to the Secretary of Defense and other officials. It concludes that no National Security Council Intelligence Directive on the subject is warranted.
This is a Central Intelligence Agency office memorandum dated 31 March 1953, approved for release in 2001, on unidentified flying objects. It reports that the Office of Current Intelligence is no longer following U.F.O. reports and suggests that the Office of Scientific Intelligence keep watch in case activity increases that summer. It proposes naming the Chief of the Applied Science Division as coordinator, rerouting future messages to that division, and destroying most of the old files except for samples of unusual reports.
The Central Intelligence Agency's Information Review and Release office issued this weekly executive summary covering 9 to 13 July 2001. It lists upcoming declassification deadlines under Executive Order 12958 and recent FOIA requests. In one of these, an Australian requester received Gerald Haines's article on CIA's role in the study of UFOs, 1947 to 1990, and a 1991 FBIS report on UFO sightings by Soviet officials. It also covers document scanning at the Jimmy Carter Library and 1953 remarks by DCI Allen Dulles.
This is a weekly executive summary from the Central Intelligence Agency's Information Review and Release office, covering 18 to 22 February 2002. It lists upcoming meetings of the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel and the Historical Review Panel, as well as the April 2003 automatic declassification date. It also summarizes several requests. A former official asked for review of memoranda about Cuba. A German requester who often files on UFO topics received a 1956 report. The summary closes with a 1953 report on Soviet repression in Latvia and Lithuania.
This document package is a March 19, 2002 White House memorandum from Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card, Jr., released by the Central Intelligence Agency. It tells agencies to protect records on weapons of mass destruction and other sensitive homeland security information. Attached is guidance from the Information Security Oversight Office and the Justice Department on classifying such records and handling them under FOIA. The package also contains the CIA response from Chief Information Officer Alan C. Wade, which describes enhancements to its review and release procedures.
This Central Intelligence Agency document, approved for release on 2002/05/23, is a partly legible intelligence report on an investigation into UFO sightings over offshore islands and the Taiwan Strait. It says the UFOs stayed visible for anywhere from two minutes to five or ten minutes and flew unaffected by wind, with similar objects sighted elsewhere. The investigating team believed the objects were possibly satellites, flying saucers, electronic jamming devices or psychological warfare balloons, and called those seen on 13 August man-made satellites.
This Central Intelligence Agency release, dated 2002-04-08, reproduces an intelligence information report about UFO sightings on the South Korean east coast and north of the Korean Demilitarized Zone. It says the ROK Air Force Chief of Staff briefed security unit commanders in Seoul on 10 and 11 February 1970. Since early 1970, radar stations in Kangwon-do had tracked large balloon-shaped objects, assumed to be dirigibles, that entered ROK airspace and exploded. The Chief of Staff speculated they might be used to drop agents, propaganda or germs.
This is a CIA Information Review and Release (IRR) weekly executive summary covering 8 to 12 April 2002. It lists upcoming Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel meetings, delays in manuscript mail to the Publications Review Board, and FOIA website statistics. According to those statistics, the CIA's UFO collection was by far the most popular of its frequently requested records, with almost 1,900 visits. It also notes a 1956 Suez Crisis bulletin and several unusual FOIA requests.
This Central Intelligence Agency executive summary covers Information Review and Release activities for 13 to 17 May 2002. It reports NARA's release of declassified CIA records on Nazi war crimes and describes several FOIA requests, including ones on the Mt. Ararat anomaly and Operation Cyclone. It also notes a 1953 Director's Log entry on convening the Robertson Panel, which found no evidence of UFOs but recommended controlling UFO information. It observes that the CIA's UFO collection is one of the most requested on its FOIA website.
This declassified 1968 intelligence report was released through the CIA in 2002. It came from the US Defense Attache Office in Buenos Aires, dated 1 August 1968, and forwards a La Razon newspaper article on alleged USAF and CIA activities regarding UFOs. The article cites an APRO report which claims the Robertson panel was a CIA instrument, criticizes the Condon committee, and mentions a 1966 radar sighting over a North Dakota missile base. It also attaches a USAF message that asks for copies of the article.
This Department of Defense Intelligence Information Report, released by the Central Intelligence Agency, is dated 19 December 1968 and was filed from Vientiane, Laos. It quotes a 7/13AF intelligence message on low, slow radar returns near Nakhon Phanom RTAFB in Thailand. Helicopter checks of those returns found nothing. The message attributes such returns to balloons, birds, kites, temperature inversions and unreported Thai flights, and says there is no evidence of hostile activity. The report also notes an unidentified aircraft seen over Ban Thatong, Laos.
This is a US Defense Attache intelligence report from Wellington, New Zealand, approved by Colonel Lewis H. Walker, USAF, covering January to February 1968. It is filed under the CIA and dated 2002. It records information volunteered by National Airways Corporation pilot Captain B. L. Cathie, including his forthcoming book "Harmonic 33" and his claim that Auckland air traffic control radar tracked four fast objects on 14 January 1968. The attache describes Cathie as sincere and above average in mathematics, and notes that he is trying to prove an alien master plan.
This secret Air Force OSI report was prepared by OSI District 51 at Nakhon Phanom RTAFB, Thailand, and dated 6 September 1969. The archive release is attributed to the CIA. It covers a pilot's sighting on 24 August 1969 of what looked like a helicopter with folded rotor blades, plus a bright light, near the base. Royal Thai Army searches found nothing. The report concludes that the object was probably a village religious procession carrying ceremonial drums on poles and a powerful lantern. It also notes that earlier UFO reports at the base had possible explanations.
This US Department of State airgram was sent by the American Ambassador in Paris to the Department of State on 8 May 1968, with a copy to the US Mission to NATO. It reports that no serious study of UFOs is being conducted in France, though many amateurs are interested. M. Salmon of ONERA said any government work would be coordinated through ONERA. General R. Lehagre of the Secretariat General de la Defense National stated that there were no ongoing French military contracts to study UFOs.
This Central Intelligence Agency executive summary, sent 9 July 2002, reports Information Review and Release activities for 1 to 5 July 2002. It lists upcoming ISCAP meetings and FOIA requests, including one from a Kokomo, Indiana requester seeking the CIA's public statement on UFOs and extraterrestrials. It also notes that a 1976 report on Chinese advanced weapons was denied, and that the CIA Declassification Center found about 300,000 pages of 25-year-old classified material at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
This is a Freedom of Information Act follow-up letter from the Central Intelligence Agency, dated 9 July 2002 and signed by Information and Privacy Coordinator Kathryn I. Dyer, replying to Porfirio Garcia's request F-2002-00503. On UFOs, the CIA says it already sent him "CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90" on 12 April 2002. It encloses one 103-page map document (MORI 177294) and charges no fee.
This Central Intelligence Agency memorandum, dated 26 January 1965 and released in 2002, was sent by Donald F. Chamberlain, Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence, to the Director of Central Intelligence. It reviews recent publicized reports, including the 1963 Sunnyvale incident, the 1964 Gemini launch and the December 1964 Patuxent radar case. It finds no evidence that UFOs are foreign or a security threat and concurs with Air Force conclusions. Attached Air Force statistics cover 1954 to 1964.
This is a weekly Central Intelligence Agency Information Review and Release news summary for 4 to 8 November 2002, approved for release in 2019. It lists upcoming meetings of the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel and the Historical Review Panel. It reports that CIA's FOIA website drew over 1,000 users per weekday in October 2002, with declassified UFO documents the most popular collection. It also notes several FOIA requests and a Declassification Center item on Allen Dulles and the 1960 U-2 incident.
This is a FOIA request letter to CIA Director George J. Tenet, dated March 21, 2003, from a private requester. It asks for information on three subjects: the July 1947 Roswell, New Mexico crash reported by Mac Brazel and investigated by Major Jesse Marcel, the "Operation Majestic" (MJ-12) document, and the secret Nevada base Area 51 (S-4). The requester also asks for a picture of the Director. The letter carries CIA inspection stamps and redactions.
This is a final response letter the Central Intelligence Agency sent on 11 April 2003 to Katrina Taylor under the Freedom of Information Act. It answers her request for records on Roswell, MJ-12 and Area 51. The CIA says it has no information on the Roswell incident, found no Majestic 12 records in two earlier searches, and will neither confirm nor deny that Area 51 records exist. It offers 2,748 previously released UFO pages and describes the Robertson Report.
This CIA Information Review and Release newsletter covers the week of 14 to 18 April 2003. It lists upcoming meetings of the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel and the Historical Review Panel. It also summarizes FOIA requests, including one about JFK Jr. from high school students and one from Stephen Aftergood, who had complained about UFO enthusiasts and Noah's Ark searchers using up FOIA resources. It closes with an External Referral Working Group meeting on Executive Order 13292 and a new automatic declassification deadline of 31 December 2006.
This is a weekly Central Intelligence Agency Information Review and Release newsletter for 28 April to 2 May 2003, released in 2019. It reports that CIA won a FOIA lawsuit brought by Inna Livshits and summarizes several FOIA requests. One came from a Woodland, California student asking about the alleged Roswell UFO crash, Majestic 12 and Area 51. CIA replied that it has no information on Roswell and found no Majestic 12 records, and it neither confirms nor denies that Area 51 exists.
This CIA Information Review and Release newsletter covers the week of 23 to 27 June 2003. It lists upcoming meetings of the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel and notes the 31 December 2006 automatic declassification date. It describes a FOIA request from a New Jersey eighth grader researching UFOs, who was referred to 2,748 pages of released UFO material and sent the Studies in Intelligence article on CIA's role in studying UFOs. It also covers archival items, including a 1975 memo that warned Laos could fall and letters to DCI Hillenkoetter.
This CIA-released item, approved for release on 2003/07/08, is a 1959 mailing from Dr. Leon Davidson of White Plains, New York, addressed to Allen W. Dulles at the Central Intelligence Agency. It is a flyer that advertises a planned serial book called "Flying Saucers: Weapons of the Cold War," to run to 25 chapters, and includes the chapter list and a subscription form. The chapter titles describe the saucer story as psychological warfare shaped by the CIA. The mailing also offers copies of Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14.
This Central Intelligence Agency memorandum for record, released in 2003, was written by the Deputy Division Chief of the Applied Science Division, Scientific Intelligence. It describes a 22 May 1958 meeting about how to answer two letters from Leon Davidson on UFOs. The reply would acknowledge receipt and say the matter was an Air Force concern. It also records a 23 May telephone call with Major L. J. Tacker, USAF, who said he had already answered Davidson and asked whether Admiral Hillenkoetter had been contacted.
This CIA release, approved in 2003, holds the report of the Scientific Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects, dated 17 January 1953 and signed by H.P. Robertson as chairman along with Berkner, Goudsmit, Alvarez and Page. The panel concluded that UFOs posed no direct physical threat to national security and gave no evidence of hostile foreign artifacts. It recommended stripping UFOs of their special status and reassuring the public. The copy was mailed to Allen Dulles by Leon Davidson in 1958.
This CIA memorandum to the Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence, released in 2003, answers a question from Major Keyhoe about claims that CIA agents stopped UFO witnesses from making their sightings public. It says the claim probably misreads Agency policy. Sources are asked to keep their relationship with the Agency confidential, but the information they hold belongs to them, and they may reveal or withhold it as they judge best.
This CIA file, released in 2003, holds a newspaper reprint, stamped September 1967, of talks given at an American Society of Newspaper Editors meeting. Dr. James E. McDonald of the University of Arizona argued that the Air Force had mishandled UFOs for 20 years, criticized the Robertson Panel's debunking recommendation, and called for a congressional inquiry. Dr. Donald H. Menzel of Harvard replied that sightings have optical, radar mirage and psychological explanations and that Project Blue Book should be closed.
This file comes from the Central Intelligence Agency and carries a date of 2003-11-14. It holds a letter to the editor by Robert Barrow of Syracuse, printed in the Syracuse Post-Standard in January 1967. The letter looks back on UFO activity in 1966. It mentions the March Michigan sightings, a pilot paced by a UFO over Sebring, Florida, RCAF witnesses on Prince Edward Island and repeat sightings at Wanaque, New Jersey. It also notes James McDonald's criticism of the Air Force, a 1953 CIA report and the start of the University of Colorado study.
This is a Baltimore Sun wire story from Tucson, dated October 7, and kept in the CIA's files, where it was approved for release in 2004. It reports a charge by University of Arizona physicist Dr. James E. McDonald that the CIA ordered the Air Force to "debunk" UFO stories, an order he said he found attached to the 1953 Robertson Report at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Maj. Hector Quintanilla of Project Blue Book rejected the charge. The article also notes a University of Colorado UFO research grant of about $300,000.
This is a short Washington Daily News item dated March 2, 1967, kept in CIA files and approved for release on February 10, 2004. It reports that Dr. James E. McDonald, a physicist at the University of Arizona, said in Tucson that the Air Force team investigating UFO reports had whitewashed the subject. He estimated there are probably 10 times as many unexplained UFOs as the study indicated and called the Air Force probe superficial and incompetent.