Government and military
Records made public through FOIA, declassification, the National Archives and the PURSUE releases. 76 events, newest first.
Media1 Apr 2000
Historian Richard Dolan published the first volume of 'UFOs and the National Security State', a history of U.S. government handling of UFOs from 1941 to 1973 built on declassified records, which argues the government hid what it knew.
Photo: David Maluenda, CC BY-SA 4.0
Media1996
John Greenewald Jr., then 15, began filing Freedom of Information Act requests in the summer of 1996 and started an online archive of the records he obtained, first called John's World and later The Black Vault. By 2020 it held more than two million pages, much of it on UFOs.
Government1994
The Royal Australian Air Force stopped investigating UFO sightings in 1994. According to the National Archives of Australia, it reasoned that only about 3 percent of reports could not be explained by natural phenomena and that these posed little or no security threat.
Photo: Nick Dowling at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0
Media23 Jul 1993
Paramount released Coneheads, a comedy based on the Saturday Night Live sketch, starring Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin as stranded aliens passing as suburban Americans while immigration agents pursue them.
Government1992
Spain's Defence Ministry says a review of the Air Force's confidential UFO files began in 1991 and a physical copy of the released files was placed in the Air Force central library in Madrid in 1992. Releases continued through the decade and eventually covered 80 case files.
Photo: Zarateman, CC BY-SA 4.0
Government1987
Papers describing 'Majestic 12', a supposed 1947 committee handling a Roswell crash, were published by UFO researchers in 1987. The FBI closed an inquiry after learning the document was 'completely bogus', and the National Archives found no record of it beyond an unrelated 1954 memo.
Photo: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Public domain
Whistleblowers1986
Ralph Noyes, a retired senior Ministry of Defence official, wrote to the MoD in 1986 that in 1970 he had been shown RAF Venom gun-camera film of UFOs at a secret screening in MoD Main Building. The letter is among MoD UFO files released by The National Archives.
Government1985
A 1954 memo from Robert Cutler to Gen. Nathan Twining mentioning an 'MJ-12' meeting turned up in Air Force records at the National Archives. NARA later said it could not verify it, citing a missing register number, wrong markings and paper, and Cutler being abroad on the date.
Military1983
Lt. Col. Charles Halt's January 1981 memo to the UK Ministry of Defence, 'Unexplained Lights', describing lights and landing traces near RAF Woodbridge, was released in the U.S. under FOIA. In October 1983 the News of the World ran it as a front-page UFO landing story.
Photo: Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt, Public domain
Military11 Nov 1979
A TAE Super Caravelle bound for the Canary Islands diverted to Valencia-Manises after its crew reported red lights closing on the aircraft. A Spanish Air Force Mirage F1 later chased lights without success; the declassified file records no radar contact. A deputy raised it in parliament.
Photo: Rob Hodgkins, CC BY-SA 2.0
Sightings5 Mar 1979
The Spanish Air Force's air operations command compiled a 234-page intelligence file on strange phenomena reported over the Canary Islands on 5 March 1979. The file was declassified in 1995 and is published by the Defence Ministry.
GovernmentDec 1978
After a Freedom of Information Act suit by the Arizona group Ground Saucer Watch, the CIA released roughly 1,000 pages of UFO-related records. The group said they showed agency interest in UFO reports long after the CIA said its study ended in 1952; the claims were the group's reading.
MilitaryOct 1977
After residents of Colares and nearby Para coastal towns reported lights in the sky, a Brazilian Air Force team from Belem logged sightings and took photographs into 1978. The Air Force says the files went to the National Archives; no explanation covers every report.
Media1977
W. Todd Zechel, Brad Sparks and attorney Peter Gersten formed Citizens Against UFO Secrecy to press for release of government UFO records through FOIA requests and lawsuits. Its 1980 suit against the NSA ended with the agency withholding its records on national security grounds.
Military19 Sep 1976
Iranian Air Force F-4 jets were sent after a bright light over Tehran overnight, and crews reported losing instruments and communications as they closed in. A U.S. Defense Attache report on the incident, circulated by the DIA, was later released under FOIA.
Photo: Unknown author, Public domain
Government1976
The Air Force placed its Project Blue Book UFO files in National Archives custody in 1975. After witness names were redacted, the records opened to public research in spring 1976 and are read today on 94 rolls of microfilm (T-1206).
Photo: Steve Jurvetson, CC BY 2.0
MilitaryOct 1975
Air Force and NORAD records released under FOIA describe unidentified, low-flying objects, often likened to helicopters, over Loring, Wurtsmith and Malmstrom bases in late October and November 1975. Pursuit efforts failed; the Washington Post reported the files in 1979.
Photo: Unknown author (Library of Congress, HABS/HAER), Public domain
Government21 Nov 1974
The House and Senate overrode President Ford's veto to enact amendments tightening the Freedom of Information Act. UFO researchers later used the law in suits such as Ground Saucer Watch's, which led the CIA to release hundreds of UFO documents in 1978.
Government1968
A draft paper titled 'UFO Hypothesis and Survival Questions', from National Security Agency files, was released by the NSA in 2021 and is now in the National Archives UAP Records Collection. Its title frames UFOs as a question bearing on human survival.
Photo: National Security Agency, Public domain
Military16 Mar 1967
All ten Minuteman missiles of Malmstrom's Echo Flight went offline within about half a minute, an event recorded in declassified unit histories. Former launch officer Robert Salas and others later said guards reported glowing objects at the time; their decades-later accounts are disputed.
Photo: U.S. Air Force photo, Public domain
Sightings9 Dec 1965
After a fireball crossed several states, witnesses in Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, said an object came down in the woods and military personnel hauled something away. A FOIA suit led NASA to a court-monitored search in 2007-2009 that found no records of a recovered object.
Photo: Ryright, CC BY-SA 3.0
Military7 Oct 1965
Edwards Air Force Base reported about a dozen moving lights over the base on October 7, 1965; an F-106 was scrambled and found nothing. About 40 minutes of a six-hour recording of the night's radio and phone traffic were declassified when Blue Book closed.
Photo: Unknown author, Public domain
GovernmentApr 1958
An April 1958 CIA memo answering letters from Leon Davidson and NICAP's Donald Keyhoe recommended sending them a declassified Robertson Panel report written in late 1957 that omitted any CIA tie. The CIA kept refusing to release the full report until 1975.
Sightings1957
Ground Saucer Watch, a civilian UFO group of scientists, engineers and laypeople, formed in 1957 to study UFO reports with technical methods. It later pursued lawsuits and Freedom of Information Act requests for government UFO files before folding over money problems.
Government1953
FBI records released under FOIA show the Bureau tracked contactee George Adamski and the flying-saucer clubs that promoted him in the 1950s, filed under espionage, and record that FBI and Air Force OSI agents had interviewed him. The file is now on the FBI's online Vault.
Photo: Unknown (press photo), Public domain
