IllustrationPhoto: rows of card-catalog drawers in a library archive in Warsaw, Poland, used here as an illustration. It isn't one of the U.S. archives named below. Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko on Pexels.
What's documented: Where each agency posts its UFO and UAP records, what's in each collection, and how to search it.
What's claimed: That the declassified files prove alien visits. No agency that released them says that, and their own summaries, quoted below, say the opposite or say the cases are still unexplained.
Status: Growing. The Pentagon's seventh batch posted on October 23, 2026, and the National Archives is still adding agency records on a rolling basis.
Last checked: November 6, 2026, against the archive pages and agency reports linked below.
Where can I find declassified UFO documents?
Start with the agency that made the record. A 1950s Air Force case file is at the National Archives. An FBI memo is in the FBI Vault. A 2023 sensor video is most likely on war.gov. Here's the map.
| Archive | What's there | How you get it | Start here |
|---|---|---|---|
| Department of War, PURSUE | Unresolved UAP files from many agencies, released in batches since May 8, 2026 | Searchable database, PDFs, videos, bulk downloads | war.gov/ufo |
| National Archives (NARA) | Project Blue Book, older military files, and the new UAP Records Collection (Record Group 615) | Online catalog, bulk zip files, microfilm in person | archives.gov/research/topics/uaps |
| FBI Vault | The FBI's UFO file in 16 parts, the Guy Hottel memo, a Roswell file and a Blue Book file | Scanned PDFs, read in the browser or download | vault.fbi.gov/UFO |
| CIA reading room | The "UFOs: Fact or Fiction?" collection of declassified CIA documents | Scanned PDFs, one document at a time | cia.gov/readingroom |
| NSA FOIA page | Declassified NSA documents on UFOs | Scanned PDFs | nsa.gov FOIA, Unidentified Flying Objects |
| AARO, NASA, ODNI | Modern government reports and assessments, not raw files | Published PDF reports | aaro.mil, science.nasa.gov/uap, odni.gov |
One thing to know before you dig in: "declassified" doesn't always mean newly released. The FBI's most famous UFO page, for one, has been public since the late 1970s.
What's in the Pentagon's UFO files at war.gov?
The newest material. The Department of War launched PURSUE, short for the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters, on May 8, 2026. It has posted seven batches since, the latest on October 23. By the department's own file list, the first six held 450 records. The independent site UAP Browser counts 28 files in the seventh, which would bring the total to 478.
The records come from the Pentagon, the FBI, NASA, the CIA, the State Department, the Department of Energy and others. They include infrared clips, pilot debriefs, field-office reports and old intelligence reviews. The database filters by release, agency and file type.
Two limits matter. PURSUE posts unresolved cases, so you won't find the ones that got solved here. And the files arrive with redactions. We keep a batch-by-batch count, with what was in each, in our PURSUE release log.
What does the National Archives have?
The deepest pile, in two parts.
The older records. The Air Force handed Project Blue Book, its UFO investigation from 1952 to 1969, to the National Archives. The Archives describes about 42 cubic feet of textual records, with names of the people who reported sightings removed. You can read them three ways: a digitized "sanitized" set of the case files in the online catalog (catalog ID 597821), 94 rolls of microfilm (publication T-1206) in the microfilm reading room in Washington, or large zip downloads from the Archives' UAP bulk download page.
The 1985 Air Force fact sheet on that same page sums up what Blue Book counted: 12,618 sightings reported from 1947 to 1969, of which 701 stayed "Unidentified."
The new collection. Congress told the Archives to build an "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Records Collection" in the 2024 defense authorization act. It's Record Group 615. The law covers records on UAP, "technologies of unknown origin, and non-human intelligence," and agencies must send digital copies. As of the page's October 27, 2026 review, the Archives lists record series from nine agencies:
- Federal Aviation Administration
- Nuclear Regulatory Commission
- Office of the Director of National Intelligence
- Office of the Secretary of Defense
- National Security Agency
- Department of State
- FBI
- Department of the Air Force
- U.S. Customs and Border Protection
A tip that saves time: the Archives' bulk download page was last updated April 24, 2025, and only bundles the first four of those series. For the FBI, NSA, State, Air Force and CBP records, open the Record Group 615 page and click through to the catalog.
What's in the FBI Vault UFO file?
The FBI's "UFO" file is posted in 16 parts as scanned pages. The FBI says that for a few years after Roswell, Director J. Edgar Hoover had agents check sightings at the Air Force's request. That practice ended in July 1950.
The best-known page from that era is a single sheet, the Guy Hottel memo of March 22, 1950. In 2013 the FBI called it the most viewed document in the Vault. Hottel ran the FBI's Washington field office. His memo passed along a story, told to an agent by a third party, that an Air Force investigator had reported three "flying saucers" recovered in New Mexico, each with three small bodies.
The FBI's own write-up is blunt. The memo "does not prove the existence of UFOs," it says. It's "a second- or third-hand claim that we never investigated," and the agent noted "[n]o further evaluation was attempted." The FBI adds that the memo was first released in the late 1970s, and that there's no reason to tie it to Roswell, which came almost three years earlier. For the Roswell paperwork itself, the Vault keeps a separate file; we walk through it in what happened at Roswell.
Where are the CIA's UFO documents?
In the CIA's FOIA reading room, in a collection called "UFOs: Fact or Fiction?" When we checked on November 6, 2026, the collection URL still did not load the documents. It redirected to the reading room's home page instead. On October 29 it had shown a maintenance notice. If you hit the same page, try again later.
Meanwhile, two things still work. The Internet Archive holds an unofficial mirror of that collection, 223 items uploaded in 2016, tagged with the CIA's document numbers. And the CIA's own 1997 history of its UFO work, "CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90" by Gerald K. Haines, is still up as a PDF.
The Haines paper is the one to read first. It says that, according to later estimates from CIA officials who worked on the U-2 and OXCART projects, "over half of all UFO reports from the late 1950s through the 1960s" were accounted for by manned reconnaissance flights, namely the U-2, over the United States. It also says the Air Force made "misleading and deceptive statements" to the public to protect that secret work. That's the backstory to what's at Area 51.
What does the NSA have?
Scanned historical records. The NSA's FOIA page on UFOs posts declassified documents as scanned images of old carbon copies and reports. The agency warns that some are too faint for a screen reader. The page also keeps a list of "Commonly Requested UFO Terms for which No Records Have Been Found," which is worth reading before you file a request.
Which government reports should I read first?
The raw files tell you what someone saw. The reports tell you what the government concluded. Four are worth having:
| Report | Date | What it says |
|---|---|---|
| ODNI, Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena | June 25, 2021 | Looked at 144 reports and explained one with high confidence, a large deflating balloon |
| AARO, Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with UAP, Volume I | Dated Feb. 2024, released March 2024 | Found no evidence that any government investigation, academic research or official review panel confirmed a UAP sighting was extraterrestrial technology |
| NASA UAP Independent Study Team, final report | Sept. 14, 2023 | "At this point there is no reason to conclude that existing UAP reports have an extraterrestrial source" |
| Air Force fact sheet on Project Blue Book | January 1985 | No evidence the "unidentified" cases were extraterrestrial vehicles |
AARO also posts case resolutions and official imagery on its own site. A second historical volume has been expected but hadn't been published when we last checked.
Did the declassified UFO files prove anything?
They prove that pilots, agents and sensors kept reporting things nobody identified, and that the government took some of those reports seriously enough to investigate. That part is on paper.
They don't prove alien craft. The government's own reviews, in the table above, found no evidence of it. And the Pentagon said on PURSUE's launch day that many of its files hadn't even been analyzed yet. Our PURSUE log tracks what each batch claimed and what it didn't.
Keep the observation and the conclusion apart as you read. A witness saying an object was 500 feet wide is a record of an estimate. It isn't a measurement.
How do I read these files without getting fooled?
A few habits help.
- Check the date first. The July 2026 batch put a 1948 Project Sign progress report next to 2019 and 2020 pilot debriefs. They're very different kinds of evidence.
- Find who wrote it, and how they knew. The Hottel memo is a secondhand story, not an investigation.
- Read the description before the video. The notes give the place, the sensor and what the crew reported. The clip usually can't. We explain why in why UFO photos are always blurry.
- Look for the solved version. PURSUE skips resolved cases, so an AARO or Blue Book explanation may sit somewhere else.
- Use the official copy. Mirrors and screenshots get cropped. Cite the archive page.
How do I request a UFO record that isn't online?
File a Freedom of Information Act request. The government's FOIA.gov site routes requests to the right agency. For records already at the National Archives, ask the Archives directly; its UAP page lists an email for reference questions.
Be specific. A date, a place and a name get a better answer than "all UFO files." And check the NSA's no-records list before asking it for something famous.
If you've seen something yourself, here's how to report a UAP sighting.
What's still unknown?
- How many UAP records agencies still hold. The law requires the transfers, and the Archives says they're arriving on a rolling basis.
- When the Pentagon's next batch comes. The department says it's working on it, with no date.
- When AARO's second historical volume will appear.
- When the CIA's "UFOs: Fact or Fiction?" collection loads again. The collection URL still redirected to the reading room home on November 6, 2026. We'll update this page when it returns.
Sources
- U.S. Department of War: Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE), war.gov/ufo
- U.S. Department of War: "Department of War Publishes Seventh Release of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Files on WAR.GOV/UFO," Oct. 23, 2026
- UAP Browser (independent): "UFO Files Release 7: 28 declassified files"
- National Archives: Records Related to UFOs and UAPs at the National Archives
- National Archives: Record Group 615, Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Records Collection (reviewed Oct. 27, 2026)
- National Archives: UAP Records Collection, Frequently Asked Questions
- National Archives: Bulk Downloads for Records Related to Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs)
- National Archives: Project BLUE BOOK - Unidentified Flying Objects (includes the 1985 U.S. Air Force fact sheet)
- National Archives Catalog: Sanitized Version of Project Blue Book Case Files on Sightings of Unidentified Flying Objects, 1947-1969 (NAID 597821)
- FBI Records: The Vault, UFO (16 parts)
- FBI Records: The Vault, Guy Hottel
- FBI Records: The Vault, Roswell UFO
- FBI: "UFOs and the Guy Hottel Memo"
- CIA FOIA Reading Room: "UFOs: Fact or Fiction?" collection (URL redirected to reading-room home Nov. 6, 2026; maintenance notice Oct. 29)
- Internet Archive (unofficial mirror): CIA "UFOs: Fact or Fiction?" documents
- CIA Studies in Intelligence: Gerald K. Haines, "CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90" (1997)
- National Security Agency: FOIA, Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs)
- Office of the Director of National Intelligence: Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, June 25, 2021
- All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO): official site
- AARO: Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, Volume I (2024; GovInfo copy)
- NASA: Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Independent Study
- NASA: UAP Independent Study Team Final Report, Sept. 14, 2023
- FOIA.gov: Freedom of Information Act requests
Questions people ask
Where can I find declassified UFO documents?
Start with five official archives: the Pentagon's PURSUE site at war.gov/ufo, the National Archives (Project Blue Book and Record Group 615), the FBI Vault, the CIA's FOIA reading room and the NSA's FOIA page. AARO, NASA and ODNI post the government's summary reports.
Is the U.S. government releasing UFO files?
Yes. The Department of War has posted seven batches on war.gov/ufo since May 8, 2026, the latest on October 23, 2026. The National Archives is also adding agency records to its UAP Records Collection on a rolling basis.
Did the declassified UFO files prove aliens exist?
No. They show that people and sensors reported things nobody identified. The government's own reviews, from Project Blue Book in 1969 to NASA in 2023 and AARO in 2024, found no evidence those reports were extraterrestrial.
Are the Project Blue Book files online?
Yes. The National Archives has a digitized, sanitized set of the case files in its online catalog (ID 597821) and offers bulk downloads. The full textual records are also on 94 rolls of microfilm, publication T-1206, at the National Archives.
What is the FBI's Guy Hottel memo?
A one-page FBI memo dated March 22, 1950, passing along a secondhand story of three flying saucers recovered in New Mexico. The FBI says it never investigated the claim and that the memo doesn't prove UFOs exist.
How do I request UFO records that aren't online?
File a Freedom of Information Act request through FOIA.gov, which routes it to the right agency, or ask the National Archives directly for records it already holds. Give a date, a place and a name if you can.
Corrections: if something here is wrong, tell us and we'll fix it and say so on this page.