Documents describing encounters with unidentified flying objects (UFOs) by the CIA are now available for download online. A repository of declassified documents called the Black Vault has released a downloadable archive of a compilation of CIA UFO data.
The Black Vault's John Greenewald Jr. revealed the contents of a CD containing 2,780 pages of documents last week, the result of his multiple Freedom of Information Act requests.
The data dump comes months before U.S. authorities from the Department of Defense and intelligence agencies are expected to testify before Congress to spill their guts on what they know about UFOs, according to the New York Post. According to the provision tucked inside the COVID-19 relief bill, agencies must "submit a report within 180 days ... to the congressional intelligence and armed services committees on unidentified aerial phenomena."
It's not the first time documents by the CIA regarding UFOs has been declassified. The organization even made available online reading libraries covering information from the 1940s to the early 1990s. Last year, the US Navy declassified records and videos linked to the 2004 UFO encounter. Footage of the incident is all over the internet.
The documents describe numerous UFO-related events, including the 1976 account of the then Assistant Deputy Director of Science & Technology being hand, delivered a mysterious piece of UFO information to a description of a mysterious midnight explosion in a small Russian town.
1/ In this CIA #UFO document, the Assistant Deputy Director for Science & Technology (A/DDS&T) was shown SOMETHING related to a UFO that was hand carried to him. He decided he would personally look into it, and after, he gave advice on moving forward. That advice is classified. pic.twitter.com/PyVEr3zCny — :us: T̷h̷e̷ ̷B̷l̷a̷c̷k̷ ̷V̷a̷u̷l̷t̷ :us: (@blackvaultcom) January 8, 2021
While the latest data dump is huge, it's just a drop in the bucket of The Black Vault's vast database. The website is estimated to have more than 2.2 million pages of UFO-related content in its archive, obtained from more than 10,000 FOIA requests. According to the Vault website, Greenewald filed his first request for FOIA in 1996, when he was just 15 years old.
According to Greenewald, he had struggled for years to obtain desired UFO documents from the CIA, describing the experience like it was "pulling teeth." He said he had to read "a couple thousand pages" one at a time. You can see all the documents and download them at the Black Vault website, in addition to the over 2 million other government declassified pages.
"Although the CIA claims this is their 'entire' [declassified] collection, there may be no way to entirely verify that," wrote Greenwald on The Black Vault website. "Research by The Black Vault will continue to see if there are additional documents still uncovered within the CIA's holdings."
