US Government UFO documents: "avoid creating records"

Back in the seventies, there was an onslaught of requests by researchers (such as William Spaulding of Ground Saucer Watch and Peter Gersten of Citizens against UFO Secrecy) to force the US Government to release UFO documents. They were largely sucessful, but there were also some unitended consequences.

At that point in time the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, was in full swing and UFO inquiries proliferated... To legally avoid answering any UFO FOIA requests, I adopted the term advanced theoretical physics, assuming no one would make the connection and request ATP reports. Further, there were no written documents kept within U.S. Government agencies. One of the rules was that there were no written reports to be kept by anyone...
John B. Alexander, Ph.D, UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies, and Realities

Dr. Alexander seems to be saying that methods were adopted to avoid generating UFO documents. The Central Intelligence Agency was also using the same playbook:

There was no formal or official UFO project within the Agency in the 1980s, and Agency officials purposely kept files on UFOs to a minimum to avoid creating records that might mislead the public if released.
Gerald K. Haines, A Die-Hard Issue: CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90 www.fas.org...

Knowing that UFO files would be scrutinized, Government agencies simply stopped producing them. The ones that were created were probably carefully crafted to avoid using UFO terminology. Researchers seeking UFO documents from the late seventies onward have to know the rules and the game were changed.

reply to post by CardDown


Just saying, but I've held the notion that John Alexander is a disinformation agent for some time

Originally posted by CardDown
Researchers seeking UFO documents from the late seventies onward have to know the rules and the game were changed.

Or researchers need to be able to gain insight from the documents which are available and/or by obtaining information from the people that had been involved in matters relating to UFO reports at the CIA and other agencies. Several UFO groups, researchers and websites (including ATS) have links to such people.

It's a shame that we don't hear more from some of those people.

Not only don't we hear much from those with an intelligence background that have gotten involved in UFO groups and websites, we don't seem to hear much about that involvement in the publications of those UFO groups or on those websites either...

Well, ATS member SplitInfinity keeps telling us that a lot of UFO documents were moved to the Department of Agriculture to dodge FOIA requests. If you want details about that, ask him.

Originally posted by xpoq47
Well, ATS member SplitInfinity keeps telling us that a lot of UFO documents were moved to the Department of Agriculture to dodge FOIA requests. If you want details about that, ask him.

Why, don't they have to answer the FOIA requests?

reply to post by ArMaP


He said it's just that UFO researchers don't look in such an unlikely place.

reply to post by xpoq47


Silly UFO researchers, they should look everywhere.

reply to post by xpoq47


I don't think the government is hiding much here, but is interesting to see how they avoid dealing with things they'd rather not be talking about. I'm sure these methods extend to other areas of classification and secrecy.

Another dodge is by relying on ouside contractors. They are not subject to FOIA requests. For example:
While being a contracted civillian advisor for Project Blue Book, Dr. J Allen Hynek reveiwed some UFO cases outside of his official role. His records on these materials are thereby not included in government files.

reply to post by CardDown


Remember that much of the "UFOs" were undisclosed reconaissance craft operated for CIA or NRO.

They didn't want any records saying "Oh yeah this UFO report was really our HEXAGON film pickup from space re-entry" or something because it would give adversaries more information.

Originally posted by xpoq47
Well, ATS member SplitInfinity keeps telling us that a lot of UFO documents were moved to the Department of Agriculture to dodge FOIA requests. If you want details about that, ask him.

Done:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

But I must say that I think that asking some of the people that actually did work with UFO reports and related issues while working for the CIA and other agencies is a better way to address the issue of locating relevant documents highlighted by CardDown in his OP.

Springer has posted about his fairly close links with one such person that is well known within the UFO community, so Springer may well have done this already.

reply to post by CardDown
I think there are a multitude of reasons and interests that have led to a diminution of contemporary, official UFO FOIA documents. Your OP presents one aspect that seems pretty reasonable. After all, *if* there were reasons for playing UFO sighting reports down, it'd be stupid naive to be recording and storing them in archives that were/are subject to FOIA legislation.

Perhaps a more significant factor is the lack of very good UFO sighting reports in the US? This would mean that the physical volume of paperwork would be shrinking and that might just be compounded by the suspicion you raised in the OP. Fewer reports and some portion of them being squirreled away in unlisted filing boxes? Maybe.

Following a hard-drive death, I don't have the files to link to, but recall a series of PDFs that listed FOIA requests to NASA. John Greenwald Jr of the Black Vault featured very heavily in the pages of names. He's posted 1000s of pages of documents and some of them relate directly to those GSW legal appeals of the '70s. Surprisingly, those NASA FOIA lists didn't feature the redoubtable Larry Fawcett who's been persistent for years in his FOIA requests.

Of course, FOI requests are available to researchers outside of the States and (imho) Dr Dave Clarke (UK) and Keith Basterfield (Aus) have been the most prominent in recent years. Clarke uncovered a series of UFO documents by filing requests for unusual meteorological phenomena. Basterfield has had great success via FOI and also by trawling online records of the Australian National Archives site.

Back on USA territory, I recall Richard Dolan describing how there was also a shift in FOIA policy in the wake of 9/11 that made it easier for official departments to obfuscate and/or limit their archive protocols. Further to that shift, a number of previously released files had their status changed and were/are no longer accessible. I think Nick Redfern ran into that problem too and mentioned in a podcast that a lot of his files are now 'technically' illegal to possess. I think Frank Warren has also mentioned that issue.

I guess it should be no surprise that the potentially more interesting files would be inaccessible to FOIA requests. Still, there are a few researchers who believe that one day they'll receive a 'smoking gun' document that confirms their beliefs.

Since FOIA only applies to Confidential and below levels of classification, anything they don't feel like downgrading and releasing they simply upgrade and it becomes inaccessible. Another technique they have used is to transfer information to private industrialists like Boeing et al where none of it is subject to any request of any kind.

reply to post by CardDown


As the years goes by Im getting more and more sure of that the most dangerous and compromising classified Ufo documents doesn't even exist. Some do sure, we have seen them. But the most interesting documents probably never even saw the inside of a file cabinet in the first place.

And those who try to hack their way into CIA and whatever to gain knowledge, don't bother. Sensitive material is not stored in any network connected computers anyway.

It seems like a big part of the Ufo community is caught up in reading old military memos, and trying to navigate through a huge jungle of real and faked. Its actually quite uninteresting and it takes focus away from the real questions.

People interested in the matter just need to leave Roswell, Area51 and what J Edgar Hoover knew behind, and start exploring what really goes on around us all today.

It's not important to figure out which part of the government that knew what 50 years ago. Those were different times. Now is now.

This thread (and quite a few others on ATS) gives rise to questions that could usefully explored with Dr "Kit" Green. For those not familiar with Dr Green, see Springer's thread from 2006 at the link below (and/or do a Google search on his name):

HUGE NEWS and AboveTopSecret.com Moves To the Next Level!

Originally posted by CardDown
I don't think the government is hiding much here

Where is 'here?'

And why even blame the government for playing the part of David Copperfield? Most individuals are not interested in the truth. And for those interested they should respect the success of making places such as 'here' and 'there' no place at all.

It is very very simple ignorance to disbelieve truthful people and to believe others with a reputation, means, 'places' to withhold the truth or even disinform.

The reason why Dr. Alexander is not a good disnformation agent is because it is too inconvenient for him to describe stories around truths, in order to be a very good agent you have to have a passion for telling stories. When he is missing this passion it is making it too obvious when he pressed with the direct truth which is not a story, description, or analogy but a yes or no question. So a master disinformation like some members of his oldschool group Avery are so quick to tell lies and stories that they could go on for hours doing so as if they were holding a warm tub of popcorn and looking at themselves on a comedy sneak preview screening for their favorite movie sequel. Dr. Alexander cannot do this, it seems like he is thinking about his next appointment or lecture rather than wanting to do what it takes to be a master at the art, but he probably also knows that people of today don't need to be told anything with concrete foundation, just look at all the attention talking about the end of the world at 2012 got, just pathetic that people even let others say things no matter what they are and feed off of them.

reply to post by CardDown


Deny deny deny! THe one thing our government excels at.

very interesting

Originally posted by CardDown

I don't think the government is hiding much here, but is interesting to see how they avoid dealing with things they'd rather not be talking about. I'm sure these methods extend to other areas of classification and secrecy.

CardDown, interesting thread and there's another article here claiming that the Department of Justice actually held meetings 'to train FOIA officers how to keep more information from being disclosed under FOIA' -I've also read that NORAD and the Pentagon are completely exempt from the FOIA so (if this is true) it's probably one of the best methods of the lot.
Cheers.

For the dissemination of the truth, there is one thing. "Let no one disagree the viable logic that I can be as a winner ...". This idea leads to the Nazi ideological system. For example. USA disagree with existance of Wiki Leaks methods, which can to show U.S. like a simple primitive, and not mystical wheeler... Or... In U.S. is a lot of information about UFOs, aliens, but this information can to create a view that the U.S. don't have a winners status.
This question can to born much more troubles for U.S. F.e. Peerl aliens kind have a social state, which is equal to Russian kolkhozes system (just it is very under technologies control), or - Peerl aliens have a few times smarten brine.
Then how would be with a wictorious U.S. democraty's model..?
It so somewhat as for cases, when people disagrees the real Truth.
About the aliens, which is unwanted to be visible of people is a lithe especial here: tech.groups.yahoo.com...
This autor, it seams, sometimes wrote in a drunk stay, but... nobody disagreed, that he did the big mistakes..

Also... There is few big troubles concerning alient in people standpoint, which origin is from Bible. Few forms:
1. "First was Word..."
2."God is one",
3. "Is the kingdom of heaven".
From there - the strong solidity criteria and ...THIS decides an imagination of "how people must be proud within a contact with aliens" :
1. The aliens must be the good speakers in the human way...
2. Must to be enough to give them a one human representative in dialogue
3. "All of them - Aliens". From this status - a person, who is in positive thinking as for aliens - he belong to any of the (there also decide a formula "God is one")...
It follows a paralysis ... Until the people have not decided Every Aliens - they can not to say about them, "I wants to say my conclusion"...
tech.groups.yahoo.com...