The truth ‘might’ be out there. The CIA is letting the public have a peek at its so called X-files. The documents, which were once classified, are primarily from the 1940s and 1950s.
Many scientists and academics have combed through official records at the National Archives throughout the years in quest of evidence that life exists elsewhere outside Earth.
Actually, there are multiple collections of documentation about “flying disks” or unexplained flying objects (UFOs) at the National Archives and Records Administration. And over the years, those resources have been carefully examined and investigated for any more information or concrete evidence of extraterrestrial presence.
Project Blue Book is a collection of retired, declassified records from the United States Air Force (USAF) that are presently kept by the National Archives. It has to do with the 1947–1969 USAF UFO investigations.
12,618 sightings in all were recorded to Project Blue Book during this time, according to a US Air Force Fact Sheet. 701 of them were still deemed “unidentified.” Officially ending in 1969, the project had its former headquarters at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.
The staff of the National Archives has also long been captivated by the UFO phenomenon. Archivists Greg Bradsher and Sylvia Naylor provide a brief history of Project Blue Book, information on the infamous Roswell, New Mexico, UFO incident, and requirements for reporting UFOs in a post published on the National Archives The Text Message blog on July 15, 2017, titled “See Something, Say Something”: UFO Reporting Requirements, Office of Military Government for Bavaria, Germany, May 1948.
The case files and administrative records are included on 94 rolls of microfilm (T1206), together with all other Project Blue Book data. In the National Archives Microfilm Reading Room at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, you can examine these documents. The Motion Picture & Sound & Video Branch and the Still Picture Branch are responsible for maintaining motion picture film, sound recordings, and certain still images. Researchers may even view more than 50,000 official U.S. Government documents about the UFO phenomena online through the Project Blue Book website.
In response to “a few hundred or so inquiries” over the years, the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, according to Richard Peuser, chief of textual reference operations, has seen a constant level of interest in its UFO-related records.
Peuser said, “Occasionally the same person will write several times hoping for a different response. Many people believed that the documents were too tame and that the government was “hiding” the truth. There were many accusations of document destruction or willful document concealment.
“The National Archives still receives a considerable number of enquiries connected to UFOs, and people have been in seeking for other papers,” Peuser added, referring in particular to the accessioned US Air Force archives. Thus, Projects Mogul, Sign, Grudge, Twinkle, Area 51, Majestic-12, and Roswell continue to excite and draw scholars to investigate our possessions for extraterrestrial life.
37 catalog entries categorized as flying saucers, saucers, flying UFO phenomenon, UFOs, or UFOlogy were found in the National Archives collection.
Gerald Ford, who was the House Minority Leader at the time, requested an investigation into UFO sightings in 1966 in these congressional news releases. Ford folder in Box D9 Ford Congressional Papers Press Releases-UFO 1966: Press Secretary and Speech File at the
Do Records Provide Evidence of UFOs?
Other records have surfaced throughout time as records at the National Archives have been handled and cataloged.
Michael Rhodes, an archival worker, was sorting through hundreds of boxes of Air Force papers just a few years ago when he saw a doodle in the corner of a test flight report page.
The design drew his eye because of its uncanny resemblance to the flying saucers in popular science fiction movies produced at the time, Rhodes said in the National Archives Pieces of History blog post Flying Saucers, Popular Mechanics, and the National Archives on July 8, 2013. Researchers have the option of physically perusing the whole collection or reading the 1956 Project 1794 Final Development Summary Report online.
The crew of Japan Airlines Flight 1628 sighted a UFO while flying over Alaska, according to a number of data from the Federal Aviation Administration that are available online at the National Archives. Simulated radar images and a report on the event that ran in The Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine on May 24, 1987, are both available in the National Archives.
The online catalog for this collection’s records includes notes taken during interviews with the three crew members who saw the UFO. According to Marie Brindo-Vas, a metadata technician at the National Archives in Seattle, Washington, the papers were found as part of the Alaskan digitization effort.
The Air-to-Ground transcripts from Gemini VII are another fascinating item in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration files. The transcript of a discussion between Houston control and astronauts who “had a bogey at 10 o’clock high” was found in the National Archives’ online collection. The word “bogey” was frequently used to describe UFOs. The astronauts are hearing “hundreds of small particles moving past from the left out around 3 or 4 kilometers,” the dialogue continues.
The Army’s study of flying disks is covered in a film of Maj. Gen. John A. Samford’s Statement on “Flying Saucers” from the Pentagon in Washington, DC, on July 31, 1952, which is among the audiovisual UFO documents held by the National Archives. A different film released by the Department of Defense has Maj. Hector Quintanilla, Jr. and USAF Lt. Col. Lawrence J. Tacker talking about Project Blue Book and identifying UFOs.
When Ford was the House Minority Leader and a member of Congress from Michigan, he wrote a report on UFOs, which is now housed at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum. The Ford Library’s Ford Congressional Papers: Press Secretary and Speech File, Box D9, folder “Ford Press Releases – UFO, 1966,” has the original paper.
Then-Congressman Gerald Ford suggested in this memorandum that “Congress investigate the spate of reported sightings of unexplained flying objects in Southern Michigan and other regions of the country.” Ford is not pleased with the Air Force’s explanation of the recent sightings in Michigan, and he deems astrophysicist J. Allen Hynek’s “swamp gas” explanation to be flippant, according to an attached news release.
Jimmy Carter, Georgia’s governor at the time, reported seeing a UFO above Leary, Georgia, in October 1969. The whole report that he filed to the International UFO Bureau is kept in the Jimmy Carter Presidential Museum and Library in Atlanta, Georgia.
What proof of the presence of aliens and UFOs may be discovered at the National Archives when additional records are searched, processed, and declassified? That will have to wait, but judging by the past, it’s certain that academics and UFO enthusiasts will keep looking for new data. The tremendous interest in the presence of extraterrestrial life and UFOs continues to spark intense debate around the world.
