Categories: HistoryNational Security Agency (NSA) Collection

UFOs: The National Security Agency (NSA) Collection

September 10, 2016

NSA Building at night

Background – Original NSA Release

The NSA was a target of one of my original FOIA requests, which yielded the below results. Some of these records were one of the first documents I scanned onto The Black Vault back in 1996, and are archived here as a timestamp for what the NSA was releasing then vs. now.

National Security Agency’s UFO Files Batch #1 [159 Pages]

National Security Agency’s Batch #2, Records Once Exempt From Release [254 Pages]

Continue scrolling for more...

The “Missing” UFO Files

The below documents are the UFO records released today by the NSA. Years after The Black Vault put the UFO records (as scanned above) – the NSA added them to their website as well. One interesting document of note is the the “Yeates Affidavit.”

In 1980, the NSA was involved in Civil Action No. 80-1562, “Citizens Against Unidentified Flying Objects Secrecy v. National Security Agency”. Documents related to that litigation are below, and marked with “*”. “XXXXX” has been inserted in a title if a portion of the title has been deleted prior to release. During this court case, the judge was given an “in camera” Top Secret clearance to see the explanation on why the NSA was not releasing the UFO documentation, and why the majority of it, were to remain blacked out.

The judge decided in the NSA’s favor, and allowed the information to remain classified. As the years went by, the NSA released the COMINT records, but most of them had only a few words visible per page. The rest, was largely redacted using white out (less of an impact than black ink).

In July of 2013, I requested a Mandatory Declassification Review (MDR) of ALL of these records from the NSA. What this means, is that you can request an agency to review a document that was classified many years ago, but may not be classified anymore, and hopefully, if you are lucky, they will release more of it.

But, they claim they can not find any of the unredacted original reports for a review. That amounts to literally HUNDREDS of pages of classified UFO material – that has mysteriously vanished into thin air. They did find the Yeates Affidavit, which they did review.

FOIA Case Processing Notes for my FOIA Case 73445 and MDR 73494 [4 Pages, 1.2MB]

The Yeates Affidavit – 2014 Release

2014 Yeates Affidavit Release version in July 2014, a year later. This is the most unredacted version that I know of, however, as of May 20, 2016, almost two YEARS after I was successful in getting it reviewed, the NSA still has an older, much more redacted version, that they release to the public. This is a clear and blatant disregard for transparency to the general public. If the NSA releases this information in a FOIA Reading Room online, they should inform the public they are not giving them the whole and complete story, as there is much more information to be found in the document.

The Documents

* In Camera Affidavit of Eugene F. Yeates – Citizens Against Unidentified Flying Objects Secrecy v. NSA (Civil Action No. 80-1562)

The NSA still releases the above record on their website, with complete disregard that my MDR was successful in getting a much less redacted version released to the public — SEEN HERE.

* Communications Intelligence (COMINT) reports [broken into sizable parts for viewing]. These COMINT reports are what the NSA claims to have lost – and are no longer available for review. So, according to them, this important and valuable information has been lost forever.
PART A
PART B
PART C
PART D
PART E
PART F
PART G
PART H
PART I
PART J