The Pentagon on Friday released the third batch of vintage classified files related to “flying saucers” and other unidentified anomalous phenomena (better known to most Americans as unidentified flying objects, or UFOs) that the government has been monitoring for decades.
Subscribe to read this story without ads
Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.
The 72 newly released files date from the 1940s to this year and show that government investigators were investigating UFO sightings in the United States and around the world.
The files include further reports from both the CIA and FBI, as well as additional sightings from the public, including a report earlier this month that “federal law enforcement officers” saw an object in the sky resembling a “flying car from the Harry Potter series.”
But like the last two times the government, at the request of President Donald Trump, released “never-before-seen” files on a subject that has intrigued Americans for generations, this new document drop will be a disappointment to those looking for definitive proof that we are not alone in the world.
“Official responses consistently stated that, circa 1998, the U.S. government was not aware of any evidence supporting the existence of extraterrestrial technology,” one of the documents states.
Like the previously released files, the new batch released Friday is posted on a dedicated government website, the Department of Defense Public Affairs Office said in a press release.
“The material held here is a cold case, meaning that the government cannot make a final judgment on the nature of the phenomenon observed,” the ministry said.
The unearthed files include 29 from the FBI, 18 from the CIA, 12 from the Department of Defense, 11 from NASA, one from the intelligence community, and final documents from an unspecified U.S. government agency.
In addition to reports of UFO sightings, this collection also includes references to historical scientific literature regarding specific “UFO” sightings.
One such incident was a suspected UFO sighted at Harare International Airport in Zimbabwe in July 2008.
“People debated whether the sightings were due to advanced reconnaissance equipment from foreign governments or were of extraterrestrial origin,” it reads.
“At some point during the observation, a ‘beam’ was observed emanating from the object,” it says.
And there’s a file likely to raise eyebrows among those who believe the government is hiding what it knows about UFOs. It contained a memo dated January 9, 1958, written by RPB Roman, believed to be a CIA official.
In the letter, Roman wrote that he told Dr. Leon Davidson that “we cannot resolve his issue because the records regarding the space message and its transmitter have been destroyed by the review agency.”
Roman also seemed to regret having to give this answer to Davidson, a scientist who was part of the atomic bomb development team and investigated later reported UFO sightings.
“We appreciate the work of many cooks in the kitchen on this dish and, as a result, the very non-committal and evasive response we were directed to give Mr. Davidson was the only response that was probably possible to avoid confusion with our own and other agencies’ past statements about this man,” he wrote.
One of the files shows that the CIA convened a “Scientific Advisory Committee on Unidentified Flying Objects,” and includes correspondence and reports dated 1952 and 1953.
“The panel’s primary conclusion was that ‘flying saucers’ do not pose a direct physical threat to the national security of the United States,” the report said.
But the real threat came from the “sensationalist press” that reported on the sightings and recommended an official “‘debunk’ policy” to “remove the mystery from the UFO subject.”
The oldest files in this batch date back to the 1940s.
One from the Department of Defense is the “Evaluation Study of the Phenomenon (Flying Saucers)” dating back to June 1946.
“Of the approximately 210 cases, 20 percent have been solved,” it says. “There is no concrete evidence to support the theory that all incidents are due to foreign activity.”
However, none of these incidents seem to rule out the possibility that they were caused by an alien presence.
A second file from 1949 includes correspondence between then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and the Rev. Charles Burns, who reported seeing “four rays of light ‘converging’ in the Cascade Mountains” at an altitude of about 10,000 feet.
Burns told Hoover that “a ‘massive explosion’ was seen at the point of beam convergence for at least 10 minutes.”
In his reply, Hoover thanked Burns for writing the letter and told him he would forward the letter to the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC).
Mr. Hoover suggested to Mr. Burns that what he reportedly witnessed may be related to “military or scientific experiments within the scope of the commission.”
There are also excerpts from a November 1962 interview that legendary CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite conducted with astronaut Gordon Cooper, who piloted the last Mercury spaceflight.
Cooper said in an interview that a “large number of very talented people observed objects without a logical explanation.” He also speculated that other planets exist with “habitable atmospheres” and that “some kind of human life” might exist there.
Cronkite, who passed away in 2009, covered most of NASA’s first spaceflights and was later presented with a moon rock in recognition of his decades of coverage of the space program.
