130,000 Pages of Classified UFO Files Available on the Black Vault, Nothing on Roswell

The United States government just declassified 130,000 pages of UFO reports collected during the Air Force's Project Blue Book (which also ran under Project Sign and Project Grudge) investigation into UFO sightings, which dated from 1947 to 1969. The documents are now available online at the Black Vault. For the Black Vault's founder, John Greenewald, this is the culmination of nearly 2 decades of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

Unfortunately, there's one thing that's sure to irk UFO/conspiracy enthusiasts: nothing on the Roswell incident was included.

Before getting too excited and into Roswell (and where the files could have gone), it is important to realize that many of the UFO reports can be easily explained in a down to Earth manner. Misidentified aircraft of Earthly origin can account for a large number of the night sightings. Other common explanations for UFO sightings include meteors, satellites, and planets. However, of 12,618 reports collected during the 22-year Air Force investigation, 701 remain classified as 'unidentified.'

Now, onto Roswell.

A complicating factor in the goal of releasing UFO files to the public (and the fact that the released files rarely contribute any new information to UFO enthusiasts' investigations) is that many may have been transferred away from the military and to private corporations in order to take the information out of the public domain and into the realm of corporate secrecy where FOIA requests cannot touch them. Sound crazy? Consider this: this theory does explain why so many document requests under FOIA come back with the government saying that the files do not exist in their records, which is the response all the FOIA requests on Roswell inevitably result with.

Bottom line: either the government is lying or the records have indeed been moved.

While some hail the release of the documents as hopefully the beginning of a new era of government openness, others see it only as a few tantalizing tidbits to keep the public occupied, especially considering that the newest of these reports are 46 years old. Besides this, the tendency of governments all over the world to downplay, not investigate, and even ridicule the idea of UFOs and alien contact lends more fuel to the conspiracy fire. If UFOs/aliens are not real, why are governments so secretive about the topic?

The truth is out there, but is anyone willing to tell it . . .

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