EDITORIAL GUIDE
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What Is NARA Record Group 615?

Record Group 615 is the National Archives landing point for the UAP Records Collection created under the 2024 NDAA. It is the strongest official archive anchor for this site's current source model.

The Legislative Origins of RG 615

Record Group 615 was established by the National Archives and Records Administration following the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, which mandated the creation of a centralized public archive for all federal UAP-related records. Before this legislation, UAP documents were scattered across the Department of Defense, the FBI, NASA, and multiple intelligence community components — with no common access point for researchers or the public. The NDAA directed the Archivist of the United States to receive, organize, and make available all responsive records transferred by the relevant agencies.

The legislation emerged from years of congressional pressure following the landmark 2023 UAP hearings. Members of the Senate Armed Services Committee and House Oversight Committee testified that they had been denied access to UAP programs that apparently existed within classified compartments. Creating a National Archives collection was the mechanism to ensure those records — regardless of original classification level — would eventually reach a consistent, publicly auditable repository.

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What Record Group 615 Contains

NARA describes RG 615 as a rolling collection, meaning it is designed to grow over time as agencies transfer records under the NDAA mandate. Initial transfers included records from the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, certain DoD program files, historical FBI investigation memos from the 1940s and 1950s, FAA radar records tied to specific incident dates, and State Department diplomatic cables referencing foreign UAP incidents.

The archive is not a media gallery. Most records in RG 615 are administrative — routing memos, radar log printouts, case-intake forms, and internal communications between agencies. Researchers expecting only photographs and videos will find those exist but are a small fraction of the total volume. The administrative record is often more revealing than imagery, because it shows how the government internally categorized, routed, and responded to incidents over decades.

How to Access the Archive

Access to NARA RG 615 begins at the NARA catalog online, where researchers can search by record group number, subject keyword, or creating agency. The NARA UAP topic guide — linked from the collection page — provides curated entry points and direct links to the most significant transferred files. For records not yet digitized, NARA offers a duplication service and physical research room access at the National Archives at College Park, Maryland.

Now Declassified uses RG 615 as its primary source anchor. Each incident indexed on this site traces to one or more agency records in the collection. Where a record is partially redacted, the index notes the redaction status and links to the closest available unredacted parallel. The collection is ongoing — new record transfers are announced on the NARA UAP page as agencies meet their NDAA transfer obligations.

Why RG 615 Matters for UAP Research

Before the NDAA mandate, the closest thing to a centralized UAP document repository was the Project Blue Book archive — roughly 12,000 Air Force UFO investigation files that concluded in 1969 and were transferred to NARA in 1975. Blue Book covered only Air Force cases and only through 1969; everything that happened after that date or outside Air Force jurisdiction was effectively invisible to public researchers.

Record Group 615 is the first attempt to create a genuinely whole-of-government UAP archive. It covers all domains (air, sea, space), all agencies, and has no fixed end date — it is a living collection. For researchers, this means that the most significant UAP archive growth in U.S. history is currently underway, and the records being transferred today will define what future researchers can access for decades.

KEY POINTS
  • NARA states RG 615 will grow on a rolling basis as federal agencies transfer additional records.
  • The page links into the National Archives Catalog rather than acting as a standalone media gallery.
  • This matters for search because many users look for a stable archive page, not just incident summaries.
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