The United States Forest Service (USFS) manages and protects 154 national forests and 20 grasslands in 43 states and Puerto Rico. The agency’s mission is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the nation’s forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations.

In November of 2016, I requested under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) all records pertaining to the UFO phenomena, including those reports submitted or witnessed by USFS personnel.

I received a packet of documents on February 7, 2017, which can be seen below.

You will notice photographs at the top of the release. I did confirm with the USFS via email, that these were the highest resolution photos available, sadly.

Another release came in

Document Archive

 U.S. Forest Service UFO Files, released February 2017 [20 Pages, 3.8MB]

 U.S. Forest Service, Washington Office, released February 2023 [3 Pages, 0.5MB]

The post U.S. Forest Service UFO Files and UFO Photographs first appeared on The Black Vault.

The year 2019 was undoubtedly exciting for UFO enthusiasts. It brought news that the U.S. government and military takes UFOs, or what they now call Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (UAP), seriously. As they are potentially a threat to military personnel, the U.S. Navy announced in May it had implemented guidelines for reporting and investigating UAP activity. They also divulged in September that three videos circulating throughout the mainstream media, are, in fact, unidentified objects. And in December, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) declassified a document to The Black Vault which unveiled details about a UFO encounter that has remained a mystery for more than forty years. The record represents yet another piece of evidence for an ongoing concern that not only are UAPs a potential threat; but that threat is global and has existed for decades.

The “Intelligence Information Report” was first released by the CIA in 1978, however most of it was redacted. The only legible portion was a paragraph detailing an encounter with a UFO.

“On one evening in late Summer 1973, Source observed an unidentified phenomenon at Site 7,” the intelligence report revealed. “While watching a sport competition between Canada and the USSR on television, he stepped outside for some air and observed an unidentified sharp (bright) green circular object or mass the sky. The object was situated West of the site at an angle of sighting of approximately 70 degrees.”

Although the witness could not determine the altitude of the object, they believed it was above cloud level. They also recounted that, “within 10 to 15 seconds of observation, the green circle widened and within a brief period of time several green concentric circles formed around the mass. Within minutes the coloring disappeared. There was no sound, such as an explosion, associated with the phenomenon.”

For forty-two years, all of the other pages and paragraphs in the intelligence report have remained secret, until now. Thanks to the result of a Mandatory Declassification Review (MDR) request filed by The Black Vault, additional details have been declassified that shed light on the incident.

It occurred at the Soviet operated Sary Shagan Weapons testing Range, located in what is now present-day Republic of Kazakhstan. It was here that during the 1970s, the Soviet Union was secretly launching experimental missiles, along with testing laser weapon systems utilizing powerful antennas.

The CIA intelligence document was crafted utilizing information from an unknown source. It outlined the types of weapons tested at the facility; locations of exactly where experimental weapons were stored and launched from; diagrams of buildings and housing units; and the report of “unidentified aerial phenomenon”.

According to experts, this mysterious encounter at a sensitive Russian weapons facility with a UAP is just one of many cases in the area.

“There has been ‘UFO’ activity around the area for decades,” says Paul Stonehill, author, lecturer, TV consultant and researcher of Russian and Eurasian paranormal phenomena. “USSR had taken UFO presence seriously since 1940s and established a special top-secret UFO/USO research program (academic/military) in 1978. But they are paying attention to the most sensitive UFO/USO presence areas (Arctic Russia; Russian Kuril Islands; Kamchatka, etc.). There is a new generation of highly educated, professional military scientists engaged in such research.”

The UFO encounter outlined in this CIA report also reinforces an ongoing issue that still plagues the U.S. military today. “There have been a number of reports of unauthorized and/or unidentified aircraft entering various military-controlled ranges and designated air space in recent years,” the U.S. Navy told The Black Vault in 2019. “For safety and security concerns, the Navy and the USAF take these reports very seriously and investigate each and every report.”

This same problem currently facing the U.S. Navy, is the same that tormented the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War.  And despite the U.S. denying interest in the UFO phenomena after the close of Project Blue Book in 1970, there are many intelligence records like this one, which outline the concern on a global scale. Stonehill added that, “the Soviets knew they were watched, and those at the top were aware that the ‘watchers’ were not Americans [or the]Chinese.”

Mr. Luis Elizondo, a former DOD employee who claims to have run a secret UFO investigation program for the Pentagon from 2010 – 2012, also echoes the threat potential behind the phenomena today. In fact, according to Elizondo, he quit his post because the DOD was not taking the threat seriously.

“In many instances, there seems to be a direct correlation the phenomena exhibits with respect to our nuclear and military capabilities. The Department must take seriously the many accounts by the Navy and other services of unusual aerial systems interfering with military weapon platforms and displaying beyond next generation capabilities,” Elizondo said in his undated resignation letter. “Underestimating or ignoring these potential threats is not in the best interest of the Department no matter the level of political contention. There remains a vital need to ascertain capability and intent of these phenomena for the benefit of the armed forces and the nation. For this reason, effective 4 October 2017, I humbly submit my resignation in hopes it will encourage you to ask hard questions: ‘who else knows?’, [‘]what are their capabilities’, and ‘why aren’t we spending more time and effort on the issue?’.”

It remains unclear exactly how serious the Pentagon currently takes the UAP threat. Although the Navy has gone on the record about their guidelines and the facts that their results will remain classified; others like the Air Force and the FAA have not followed suit as they are seemingly not interested in UFOs at all.

The CIA’s recent declassification shedding light on one more UFO mystery may just offer some hopefuls a glimmer of optimism that possibly in a few decades, we will know just a little bit more about whatever this phenomena is that could potentially threaten our skies, along with everything in it.

Document Archive

CIA UFO Document Declassified Further Solidifies Threat Potential from Unknown Objects [14 Pages, 4.5MB]

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The post CIA UFO Document Declassified Further Solidifies Threat Potential from Unknown Objects first appeared on The Black Vault.

 Download the Missing 28 Pages [34 Pages, 4.3MB] – This has been converted to a searchable .pdf, by The Black Vault.

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Statement by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence

Statement by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on the Declassification of Part Four of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence’s 2002 Report on the Committees’ Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001.

Congress has today released additional portions of the Congressional report, Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001, that have been declassified.  The ODNI coordinated a declassification review—pursuant to Executive Order 13526—before sending the report back to Congress for their release.  The decision to authorize the release of this information is not an endorsement of, or concurrence in, its accuracy or reliability.

 Additionally, the ODNI today is releasing a declassified executive summary of a 2005 joint CIA–FBI memorandum prepared in response to a congressional directive on the same topic. [2 Pages, 1MB]

The Joint Inquiry report, completed in December 2002, detailed the findings and conclusions of a year-long inquiry by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence into the activities of the U.S. Intelligence Community in connection with the 9/11 attacks.  After a classification review by the Executive Branch, three of the four parts that make up the Joint Inquiry report were publicly released in December 2002.  Part Four, entitled “Finding, Discussion, and Narrative Regarding Certain Sensitive National Security Matters,” was withheld in full, because it contained still-sensitive national security and law enforcement information.  The Committees and the Intelligence Community instead agreed to release a brief unclassified summary of Part Four, which stated in relevant part that “[t]hrough its investigation, the Joint Inquiry developed information suggesting specific sources of foreign support for some of the September 11 hijackers while they were in the United States.”

In response to inquiries about Part Four, and after careful consideration by the relevant Departments and agencies, the Executive Branch determined that the harm to national security by releasing portions of Part Four of the report at this time is outweighed by the public interest in additional transparency concerning the Committees’ findings.  Some information has been redacted because the document includes discussion of properly classified matters the disclosure of which would still cause significant harm to national security.

The newly released portion of Part Four relates to the Joint Inquiry’s finding that “[w]hile in the United States, some of the September 11 hijackers were in contact with, and received support or assistance from, individuals who may be connected to the Saudi Government.” As noted above, the decision to authorize the release of a portion of Part Four does not indicate the Intelligence Community’s agreement with Part Four’s accuracy or concurrence with any information it contains.  The Committee itself highlighted that it “has made no final determinations as to the reliability or sufficiency of the information regarding these issues…[and that it]was not the task of this Joint Inquiry to conduct the kind of extensive investigation that would be required to determine the true significance of such alleged support to the hijackers…”

In that regard, Congress subsequently established the bipartisan 9/11 Commission. The 9/11 Commission built on existing investigations and information, including that of the Joint Inquiry, but had greater access to senior officials and classified information.   Its final report concluded that it “found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded [al Qaeda].” Similarly, in 2013, Congress directed the FBI to establish the 9/11 Review Commission to further assess any available evidence; that Review Commission concluded that there was no new evidence that “would change the 9/11 Commission’s findings regarding responsibility for the 9/11 attacks.”

Release of this additional information reflects the Executive Branch’s continued commitment to making information publicly available when appropriate and consistent with the national security of the United States.

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The post Download the Missing 28 Pages from the 9/11 Report first appeared on The Black Vault.

This Intelligence Community Assessment responds to requests from the Joint Theater Air and Missile Defense Organisation of the Department of Defense and the Transportation Security Administration of the Department of Transportation.

This Assessment examines both terrorist and state threats to facilities and people in the US homeland using most types of air, vehicle and associated weapons, including land attack cruise missiles. This assessment does not cover ballistic missile threats.

We define the US homeland as all 50 states, the District of Columbia. Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the various trust territories in the Pacific. The intelligence reporting we cite illustrates our concerns but is not an exhaustive listing.

This Assessment focuses on the next five years, although in some instances longer projections are offered when intelligence information and analysis warrant.

Declassified Document

 The Current and Future Air Threats to the US Homeland (ICA 2001-O5HC), published July of 2002 [25 Pages, 1.6MB]

The post The Current and Future Air Threats to the US Homeland (ICA 2001-O5HC), published July of 2002 first appeared on The Black Vault.