The Freedom of Information Act is the primary legal mechanism through which UAP researchers have obtained government documents for the past 50 years. The FBI Vault UFO files, the Project Blue Book archive, and the State Department cables confirming Project Moon Dust were all obtained through FOIA litigation or systematic FOIA requests. With the creation of NARA RG 615 and the PURSUE program, a new pathway exists — but understanding both the FOIA channel and the archive channel is essential for researchers who want to go beyond what's already been indexed.
UAP-relevant government records are distributed across a larger number of agencies than most researchers realize. The Department of Defense (through multiple components including the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Air Force, the Navy, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense) holds the majority of operational UAP records. The FBI's Vault collection includes historical UAP investigation memos from the 1940s and 1950s. NASA holds records from its astronaut missions and its 2023 UAP independent study team. The FAA holds radar records and incident reports. The State Department holds diplomatic cables referencing foreign UAP incidents. The CIA holds historical records including documents from the Robertson Panel (1953) and Project Blue Book coordination.
The NSA is a significant but less accessible source — its FOIA responses for UAP requests are typically heavily redacted due to signals intelligence equities. The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) has released some historical records through FOIA and has been named in congressional UAP testimony as holding relevant imagery. NARA itself provides the centralized access point through RG 615, but the agencies above have individual FOIA offices that process requests for records not yet transferred to NARA.
The most productive FOIA targets for UAP researchers are specific rather than broad. A request for 'all records related to UFOs' will typically yield a narrow response pointing to already-public material. Specific requests produce better results: referencing specific incident dates, unit names, location coordinates, or document identifiers visible in previously released redacted documents.
The most productive FOIA strategies used by researchers in the public record include: (1) referencing specific program names confirmed in other FOIA releases — 'records related to Project Moon Dust' produced far more than 'records related to UFO recovery'; (2) citing the specific time period and unit — 'records of the 415th Night Fighter Squadron, November-December 1944' produced foo fighter reports that a generic request would not surface; (3) requesting the index of classified programs in a specific category — even a partial index can identify program names for follow-up requests; (4) using the Vaughn index process — if an agency claims records are exempt, a court can require an index of what it's withholding, which itself is informative.
The creation of NARA RG 615 under the 2024 NDAA changes the FOIA dynamic for UAP research significantly. Before RG 615, UAP records were dispersed across individual agency FOIA systems — a researcher pursuing a DoD-originated record had to file with the specific DoD component that created it. With RG 615 as a centralized transfer destination, records that have been transferred are accessible through the NARA catalog system without a FOIA request — they are publicly available.
The implication is that the highest-value FOIA target post-RG 615 is the gap between what has been transferred to NARA and what hasn't. Agencies are required to transfer UAP records under the NDAA mandate, but the timeline and completeness of transfers are not fully enforced. Filing FOIA requests that reference the NDAA transfer obligation — essentially asking for records that should have been transferred to NARA but haven't been — is a strategy that researchers like Matthew Pines and Leslie Kean have used to generate new releases. The 2009 NASA FOIA lawsuit over Kecksburg records is the clearest example of FOIA litigation producing records an agency claimed didn't exist.
FOIA requests are filed directly with the FOIA office of the relevant agency. Each major agency maintains a dedicated FOIA portal: DoD uses the Defense Freedom of Information Policy Office (FOIA.defense.gov), the FBI uses its eFOIA portal (efoia.fbi.gov), the FAA uses its FOIA request system, and NASA uses its FOIA system at nasa.gov/FOIA. Response times are legally mandated at 20 business days for standard requests, though complex requests routinely take months to years.
If an agency denies a request in full or in part, the researcher has the right to appeal to the agency's internal FOIA appeal office within a specified time window. If the appeal is denied, the researcher can file a lawsuit in federal district court. The most significant UAP-related FOIA litigation outcomes include: the CIA's acknowledgment of Project Aquarius (partially released), the State Department's Moon Dust cable production, the NASA Kecksburg lawsuit (which found NASA had failed to produce responsive records), and the Air Force's Blue Book release (which was an administrative transfer, not litigation). The FOIA system is slow and imperfect, but it remains the primary mechanism for obtaining records outside the NARA RG 615 transfer pathway.
We'll notify you when new declassified archive material or official UAP source updates land on the site.
Materials recovered near Roswell, NM. A hexagonal disc approximately 20 feet in diameter was documented, suspended from a balloon. Modern re-analysis notes 'composition inconsistent with known terrestrial alloys'.
In March 1967, a red-orange glowing orb was observed hovering over Launch Control Facility Echo at Malmstrom AFB. Within minutes, all ten Minuteman ICBMs at Echo went into 'No-Go' status — the missiles were inoperable for nuclear launch. A similar event was reported separately at Oscar Flight the same morning. The event has never received an unclassified technical explanation.