All of the CIA's documents on UFOs have been made available for download, said The Black Vault website, which claims to be the largest privately run archive of declassified documents and government secrets. According to John Greenewald Jr., the founder of The Black Vault, he obtained the information via the Freedom of Information Act, a federal law requiring the government to disclose unreleased information and documents upon request. Some of the documents date all the way back to the 1980s.
"It was like pulling teeth! I went around and around with them to try and do so, finally achieving it. I received a large box, of a couple thousand pages", Greenewald Jr. told the Motherboard.
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the founder of The Black Vault completed a feat, as he scanned every page by hand. According to him, the CIA used a very outdated format, which made it "INCREDIBLY" (he wrote in caps) difficult to use the records. That is why he decided to scan all the documents before uploading them online.
According to Greenewald Jr., the CIA maintains that the files they sent him are the “entire” collection of documents on UFOs; however, he doubts that this is true.
One of the most interesting UFO cases he believes is a file on a CIA assistant deputy director for science who personally examined an object related to a UFO.
Since he posted all the documents on The Black Vault, there have been thousands of downloads.
"Plain and simple, the public has a right to know! When I began researching nearly 25 years ago at the age of 15, I knew there was something to this topic. Not because of viral internet hoaxes. Not because of back door meetings wherein I can’t tell you who, but I promise it was mind-blowing information. No, none of that. It was simply because of the evidence that I got straight from the CIA. And the NSA. And the Air Force. And the DIA. I feel I am achieving what I set out to do. Easy access, to important material, for people to make up their own minds on what is going on", Greenewald Jr. said.
The news comes a month after US President Donald Trump signed a coronavirus relief bill, which, among other things, has a strange provision requiring the Pentagon to brief the Congress on all the information it has on unidentified flying objects within 180 days.