NSA Declassified Documents: "Citizens Against UFO Secrecy v. NSA

For years, UFO believers and debunkers have been at odds over the issue of why the US Government keeps information about UFO's secret, or for that matter if it keeps any information secret at all. For those still claiming that the US Government has no information to release with reaguards to UFO's, they might be interested in knowint that in 1980, the NSA was involved in a letigation known as "Citizens Against Unidentified Flying Objects Secrecy v. NSA", Civil Action No. 80-1562.

During the trial, the defense relied almost entirely on the affidavit of an NSA employee known as Eugene F. Yates. The prosecution was not allowed to view this affidavit. It was delivered to the judge, alone, in his personal chambers. Based on this affidavit, the judge ruled in the favor of the NSA, without the defense ever having heard the NSA's argument for why UFO documents must remain secret.

Skeptics have charged for years that many UFO's are in fact secretive aircraft such as the SR-71 Blackbird, F-117 Seath Fighters, and the famed U-2 spy plane. However, many paranormal investigators and believers are unconvinced. In any event, the issue of what UFO's are is not a subject the US Government will address. However, the NSA recently released a censored copy of the affidavit of Eugene Yates, pivotal to the 1980 lawsuit.

These documents are currently available at the NSA's Freedom of Information act (or FOIA) server. These documents require Adobe Acrobat reader, version 3.0 or better to be opened, and can be obtained at the following web address:

NSA Copy of the Affidavit of Eugene Yates
http://www.nsa.gov/docs/efoia/released/ufo/ufo1.pdf

UPDATE
A second document pretaining to the case, the "Memorandum and Order - Citizens Against UFO Secrecy v. National Security Agency" has recently been removed from the NSA FOIA server. Fortunetly I posess a copy of this document. Copies of this and the Affidavit of Eugene Yates can be obtained from me personally via ICQ, AIM, or Yahoo Messanger. Please check my profile for contact information.

 

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Well, xevious, the documents do seem to vindicate the NSA's
reasons for withholding the reports. They would seem to offer
no proof of UFOs, only of sightings reported mostly by others
and radar data. No "smoking gun." Do you see it differently?

 

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No, but what it does say is that someone, somewhere knows just what some of the most extreme and unidentifiable UFO cases are, and it certanly does give some credibility to those claiming to see UFO's and the like at Government facilities. It also gives a precidence to the supposed creation of a Government branch charged specifically with enforcing the keeping of some information secret. In other words, it says blatantly that somewhere, there IS a smoking gun.

 

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I wonder where the skeptics are?

 

=================================================
Xevious, I will respond to your post. I don't consider myself a "skeptic" because I do believe "something" is being observed and
tracked in our skys. I also believe the US government is keeping
information related to the subject from the people. I do not see
any proof of what that information consists of. You may consider
me a skeptic. Q considers me a "UFO nutter." I may be somewhat
of both, I don't adhere to labels, I have been interested in the
phenomenon for years and have developed my own thoughts about
the subject. I am not suggesting I know more or my thoughts are
more correct than yours or anyone else's with a knowledge of the
subject. I glanced through the NSA documents again. I don't come
to the same conclusions you do. I am not saying I am right and
you are wrong, just that I don't see what you do. I see that at least one person assigned to NSA attended a UFO symposium. I
don't know if it was in an official capacity, but he made a report.
I see many instances of intercepted communications between
aircrafts and ground controllers reporting both visual and radar
information, much of which was by foreign governments. NSA is
saying if the exact reports are made public, their sources and
methods of "spying" will be at risk, and new methods will have to
be devised at considerable cost. Where does it "give credibility
to those claiming to see UFOs and the like at government facilities?" Where does the "smoking gun" come from? Again, I
am not saying you are wrong, but I must have missed the parts
that would have me draw such conclusions.

 

That is a very fair argument. However, it should also be pointed out that a good part of Eugene Yates affidavit was censored. If the case you are stating is all there is to it, there is no reason they would have to censor it at all, let alone keep that information from the civilian group which sued them.

Okay, so I went overboard and I'll admit it. The case of the NSA is fair enough, but this does not explain the reasons for secrecy held by the FBI, or CIA amoung others. If this is all there is to it though, why have government agencies repeatedly denied having any records at all (as the NSA used to) and then release cencored copies at a later date?

We have cause to be suspicious and have for years. The main reason I believe it shows that the Government has a smoking gun has to do with the level of secrecy shown even local UFO cases.

 

The US govt has been unable to keep a lot of secrets they would rather not have known. Why believe that they can conceal evidence of extraterrestrail visitors? Among others, they could not keep the the following secret.

• The Tea Pot Dome scandal.
  Our nuclear bomb technology.
  Watergate
  Clinton/Lewinsky
  Numerous presidents who had affairs
  The recent CIA agent who was unmasked
  The Spiro Agnew situation

 

The Government is a human invention. It is subject to all our perks and flaws. That means that they SOMETIMES get things wrong. They have been able to keep some things secret too.

 

Not that I'm arguing the ET issue here, but what secret; you mean the alleged secrets about aliens at Roswell that nearly everyone in the civilized world knows about?

 

Ivan Seeking: The point is that the US Govt is alleged to have kept Roswell and other UFO data from the public for many years.

While I am a skeptic, I have always read about ESP, UFO's, channeling, OBE, the Bermuda Triangle, Van Daniken, The Jupiter Effect, and other types of nonsense.

The current hype about Roswell is that the govt covered it up for many years, but now the truth has been discovered. No way the govt could have covered that up for even 10 years.

When you say that everyone in the civilized world knows, I hope you are not implying that they believe. The only believers are the deluded nuts and the gullible who support those making a fast buck pretending to believe.

To paraphrase Isaac Asimov

• Just as physics has conservation laws, so does politics, psychology, and sociology. There is a law of conservation of belief in nonsense.

The UFO nonsense in a late 20th century belief that replaces phrenology, witchcraft, and various other nonsense from earlier times. I think Ufology started with stories about Foo Fighters during WW2.

 

What you state is just more uninformed rhetorical nonsense.

You claimed that the alleged events at Roswell were a secret; clearly they are not. Before you start throwing stones and insulting people you should get your facts straight...at least the most obvious ones.

 

Ivan Thinking: You are apparently one of those who claim that some alien craft crashed at Roswell. I like what Sagan said on the subject (paraphrase not a quote).

• I know of no evidence for extraterrestrial visitors. I know of lots of evidence that people have hallucinations, misinterpret what they see, and tell lies.

 

I didn't claim anything except the obvious fallacy in your logic.

 

Dinosaur,

So because of that statement, you see no reason to believe in UFOs? Tell me, was Mr. Sagan telling a lie? How does he come to this conclusion? He knows people tell lies, sure. But how does he know that the witnesses at Roswell were lying? He doesn't, but he JUMPS to the conclusion that they were. He refuses to take any testimony in that direction simply because he thinks it's a lie, or misinterpretation, or a hallucination.

People who debunk UFOs are the same people who believe in God; or at least of the same mold. Theists fear their mortality, so they believe in the highest power. People like you fear not being the highest power, so they shun UFOs. It's irrational and primitive in either case.

You can't call a UFO "highly improbable" because you have no idea of the probability of an advanced alien race. For the same reason, you cannot call it "highly probable," either. So to say anything other than "I don't know" is arrogant and ignorant.

JD

 

Nice thing about living in Canada is that the RCMP must report such sightings; it is required by law. All such reportings are in public archives for anyone to view. Hence, the UFO sighting/crash in Shaq Harbour Nova Scotia being one of the most documented.

 

Well, first, replying to the whole. Wrong. I'm a skeptic. That applies as much to alien visitors as it does to god. I'm definitely NOT in the same mold as a believer, being a skeptic takes care of that. I think quite the opposite. Believers are believers, just what they choose to accept without proof varies. The ability to suspend rational thought is common.

Second, 'debunk UFOs'. Well, I do that, but it depends on what you mean exactly. We had a chap on here selling CDs with pictures of UFOs on, that clearly weren't 'Flying' objects, but merely cloud formations, or bright objects smeared with camera shake, and then Photoshop got involved, and suddenly he has a curious image. It was all down to bad photography, and enhancement. So in that context, yes I debunk some UFOs, as actually qualifying as the objects photographed weren't flying.

But then it works on a another level, debunking UFOs as being alien spacecraft. People use the phrases interchangeably too often. I accept that people see things they can't explain, but what I don't accept is that we need to jump to the conclusion that we've seen an alien spacecraft to explain the phenomena.

And that Sagan quote means exactly that we have nothing to say other than 'we don't know'. You seem to be disagreeing with the quote, and then saying the exact same thing in a roundabout way.

 

If I become aware of some valid evidence, I will be astonished and reconsider my point of view, which is the following.

• .
• The best I can say for Ufology is that there is a good chance that there is life elsewhere in the universe.
• There is a slim chance that there is intelligent life.
• There is hardly any chance that we will ever find evidence for or have contact with an alien intelligence.
• There is no chance that we have been or are being visited.
• Anecdotes are not evidence.

As of now, I view the UFO fad as the modern day equivalent of belief in the Oracle at Delphi, witches, leprechauns, the philosopher's stone, unicorns, demonic possession, the Bermuda Triangle, Velikofsky, The Jupiter Effect, et cetera.

Asimov was correct when he said there is a law of conservation of belief in nonsense. The subject matter changes, but the gullible always find some weird belief. I have often wondered what drives this silly need to believe in nonsense.

JDawg: Putting UFO skeptics in the same category as religious types is a crazy notion.

I Would expect more atheists (like myself) than religious types to be UFO skeptics. Neither the UFO believers nor the religious believers pay any attention to evidence, making them more kindred than either is with the skeptics.

The main difference between UFO nuts and religious people is that religious types admit that their belief is faith based, not evidence based. The UFO nuts claim there is evidence.

 

dino indeed

Asimov was correct when he said there is a law of conservation of belief in nonsense. The subject matter changes, but the gullible always find some weird belief. I have often wondered what drives this silly need to believe in nonsense.

garbage. somethings accepted as a "given" nowadays was once deemed "nonsense" by similarly shortsighted and dogmatic individuals. perhaps instead of these vapid soundbites you put on display here, you could come up with some examples on how today's technology were yesterday's fantasies (and dismissed as such)

As of now, I view the UFO fad as the modern day equivalent of belief in the Oracle at Delphi, witches, leprechauns, the philosopher's stone, unicorns, demonic possession, the Bermuda Triangle, Velikofsky, The Jupiter Effect, et cetera.

another indication of the dangers of mouthing off without adequate info. references to ufos can be found to go back for thousands of years. this shit is not a uniquely "modern day "phenomena. neither is it a fad

I Would expect more atheists (like myself) than religious types to be UFO skeptics. Neither the UFO believers nor the religious believers pay any attention to evidence, making them more kindred than either is with the skeptics.

garbage. utterly fallacious and retarted thinking. it simply does not follow that disregarding evidence on the falsity of their faith (religious) should make them less of a skeptic than atheists. infact it would appear that it is the religious that would be fanatical about debunking anything that would contradict their worldview.

*by the high dramatics that is passed off as skepticism by quite a few of our scientific types, i feel quite comfortable with brushing them with a religious taint

*you know that objectivity has been lost when derogatory descriptions of ufologists are employed by the pseudo skeptics

i piss on you all!

 

Spookz: Lots of talk & no evidence. You start out with a common & well known fallacious argument.

Erroneous concepts from history do not support anything. This argument is used au lieu de evidence so often that it is almost an admission that no evidence is available.

Again, more talk & no evidence

I assume you are referring to Van Daniken or perhaps various biblical passages, perhaps Ezekiel. You are correct and I am wrong on the fad issue. Anything that lasts over half a century is not a fad. It started with Foo Fighters during WW2 and the first books were published in the early 1950's.

We skeptics have lost objectivity?

Of course, your following remarks is highly objective.

You believers amuse me, but I do not hate you.

 

Lots of talk & no evidence.

uhh i am supposed to provide evidence? of ufo's? because i have categorically stated, without a doubt, they exist? be clear, consise and state your demands now. what is the nature of the evidence required. i will provide a case and we can discuss

You start out with a common & well known fallacious argument.

which is? if so common, what is the argument called?

Erroneous concepts from history do not support anything.

it should serve as a caution against dismissing stuff out of hand as nonsense merely because it doesnt jive with conventional wisdom. why would anyone put their credibility on the line like this by taking such a radical stance is beyond me. i suspect pathology. for instance....

*It was scientific skepticism which brushed aside all the instances of hypnotic phenomena...and which--even in the face of the systematic demonstrations of hypnosis by Mesmer and his successors--denied for another century after Mesmer's first appearance the reality of hypnotic phenomena. When the medical profession ignored such palpable facts as the painless amputation of human limbs, performed before their own eyes in hundreds of successive cases, they acted in the spirit of scepticism, convinced that they were defending science against imposture.'

*The ancients even witnessed falls of meteorites to the earth and found some to be lumps of iron....During the eighteenth century...science made a backward step in this respect....Farmers who came to the Academie Francaise with samples of meteorites were politely, but impatiently, shown the door. 'The French Academy of Science stubbornly denied the evidence for the fall of meteorites, which seemed massively obvious to everybody else. Their opposition to the superstitious beliefs which a popular tradition attached to such heavenly intervention blinded them to the facts in question....Many public museums threw away whatever they possessed of these precious meteorites: it happened in Germany, Denmark, Switzerland, Italy and Austria. When, in 1807, two Connecticut scholars...reported having witnessed a fall, President Thomas Jefferson said that he would sooner believe that two Yankee professors would lie than that stones would fall from heaven.

nothing seems to change, do you, dino, still deny hypnosis? meteorites?

Of course, your following remarks is highly objective.

heh, i retaliate in kind. neither have i claimed objectivity. yet!

You believers amuse me,

you are aware of the connotations of that description? i am afraid i have to spit on you for that insult. you dogmatic fanatics amuse me in turn

but I do not hate you.

if you can get past the rhetoric, neither do i.