Ground Saucer Watch and the State Department (1982)
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 6
| Date | 25 February 1982 |
|---|---|
| Topics | Ocean & underwater (topic) |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 94 |
| Year | 1982 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 1982 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 11 |
Ground Saucer Watch (GSW), an Arizona-based civilian UFO group headed by aerospace engineer William Spaulding, was one of the first organisations to use the Freedom of Information Act to pry UFO records from federal agencies. According to the testimony, by February 1982 the group reported that a request to the State Department had gone unanswered.[1][2]
The CIA lawsuit
In September 1977 Spaulding and GSW sued the CIA, asking for all UFO documents in its possession (Civil Action 78-859 in its later stipulated form). The CIA's search found 355 documents totalling about 900 pages, and on 14 December 1978 it released all but 57 documents of about 100 pages, which it withheld to protect national security and intelligence sources and methods. The release drew national press coverage: The New York Times reported Spaulding's claim that the papers showed the CIA had been involved in UFO surveillance since 1949 and that U.S. embassies were used to gather sighting reports, and quoted him saying the cover-up was "massive".[1][3]
Case law
GSW continued to press for the withheld material, and in 1981 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit affirmed rulings in the CIA's favour. Ground Saucer Watch v. CIA is still cited in FOIA cases for the principle that agency affidavits describing a search are presumed to be made in good faith and can establish that the search was adequate.[2][4][5]
The State Department
The testimony cites GSW's 1982 complaint about the State Department as part of a pattern in which agencies said they had little or nothing on UFOs, only for later releases to show more. The CIA papers GSW obtained already showed embassies passing on sighting reports. Whether such gaps reflected poor record-keeping or deliberate stonewalling is still debated.[3][4]
People and topics
- Freedom of Information Act — The 1966 U.S. law that lets the public request government records.
- Unidentified anomalous phenomena — The U.S. government's current term for unidentified objects in the air, in space and underwater.
- Ground Saucer Watch — A civilian UFO group that sued the CIA for UFO records in the 1970s.
- Unidentified flying object — An object in the sky that can't be identified; the older term for UAP.
- Central Intelligence Agency — The U.S. foreign intelligence agency, which has followed UFO reports since the 1940s.
- Project Moon Dust — An Air Force program to locate and recover fallen foreign space objects and debris.
On the Timeline
- Kit Green's Air Force physician source (1982) — Kit Green says a retired Air Force physician told him crash recovery stories are true.
- Richard Haines's conviction about a secret project (1982) (6 April 1982) — NASA scientist Richard Haines tells Vallée he is sure a secret government UAP project exists.
See every 1982 event on the UAP Timeline →
References
- Gerald K. Haines, "CIA's role in the study of UFOs, 1947–90", Studies in Intelligence (1997) · cia.gov · archived copy
- Ground Saucer Watch, Inc. v. CIA, 665 F.2d 394 (D.C. Cir. 1981) · hallapproved.com · archived copy
- "C.I.A. papers detail U.F.O. surveillance", New York Times (Jan 1979), via Patrick Gross · ufology.patrickgross.org · archived copy
- "I want to believe: how aliens helped build FOIA", MuckRock (Jul 2013) · muckrock.com · archived copy
- Hall v. CIA, Document 187, D.D.C., Justia · docs.justia.com · archived copy
- C.I.A. papers detail U.F.O. surveillance — CIA Reading Room · cia.gov · archived copy
- scribd.com · scribd.com · archived copy
- foia.state.gov · foia.state.gov · archived copy
- noufors.com · noufors.com · archived copy
- wikileaks.org · wikileaks.org · archived copy
- dia.mil · dia.mil · archived copy
This page was last edited on 29 October 2026. Articles are written in our own words from the sources listed under References; disputed claims are attributed to the people who made them.
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