In September 2019, as the Navy confirmed that three widely circulated videos showed unidentified aerial phenomena, U.S. Air Force public affairs staff circulated queries from The Drive and The New York Times. Internal emails show the 633rd Air Base Wing and 1st Fighter Wing could not confirm Joint Base Langley-Eustis airmen witnessed the phenomenon, while the Air Force Safety Center said it does not track UAP unless a pilot nearly crashed — and OSD took the lead on all such queries.
A NASA FOIA release of internal emails shows how the agency's communications staff handled UAP and UFO queries, prepared internal talking points, and coordinated media interviews while the 2021 ODNI assessment was being released.
ONI's final response to a FOIA request for UAP-related emails involving Captain Scott Chesbrough states that several responsive emails were found and that releasable records would be posted to the FOIA Reading Room. Embedded email fragments reference a 'Classification Guide on UAP' being prepared for promulgation across the Fleet.
NASA is commissioning an UAP Independent Study Team in order to examine UAP from a scientific perspective, focusing on how NASA can use data and the tools of science to move our understanding forward. The study, chaired by Dr. David Spergel with Dr. Dan Evans as Designated Federal Officer, is described as open, independent, and unclassified.
In April 2019, an Air Force press desk officer told CNN the service was 'not working any guidelines for reporting UFOs,' even as the Navy was updating its procedures. Newly released emails show OSD later instructed the Air Force to coordinate all UAP responses through OSD and to monitor FOIA requests for UAP videos.
A partially redacted Navy email chain titled 'USS Stout UAV Interaction' shows OPNAV N2N6 and ONI personnel coordinating a response to an RFI from the IKE N2, with a storyboard shared for situational awareness and a response requested via JWICS.
The Department of Defense has responded to a FOIA request, revealing the existence of 263 pages of documents while applying multiple exemptions for withholding information.
Two declassified U.S. government records — 1987 DIA/JCS message traffic on a UFO over Ghana and a 1971 CIA report on a speculative Kardashev-Sakharov physics paper — show how intelligence channels handled unexplained sightings and foreign scientific speculation.
A newly released FOIA package from the DoD Office of Inspector General shows how the Pentagon's watchdog planned, named, and scoped its 2021 evaluation of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena — including internal debate over a 'vanilla' project title, TS/SCI briefing logistics, and a forwarded news report on interagency resistance.
The FAA released a redacted Mandatory Occurrence Report about a possible downed aircraft near Honolulu on December 29, 2020, but withheld radar and audio data because the request came after the 45-day retention period.
A declassified October 1970 Joint State-DIA message reports that a U.S. Defense Attaché was called by Chad's Minister of Interior to inspect a metal sphere that reportedly fell near Lai with three loud explosions and burned for five days — an object filed under the codename 'MOON DUST.'
The final report of Project Twinkle concluded that most unusual aerial phenomena were man-made or natural—yet noted that fireballs 'ceased abruptly as soon as a systematic watch was set up,' and a separate memo revealed some scientists still believed the phenomena were man-made.
