Ground Saucer Watch and the State Department (1982)
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 10
| Group | Ground Saucer Watch (GSW), Arizona-based civilian UFO organisation |
|---|---|
| Leader | William Spaulding, aerospace engineer with AiResearch |
| CIA requests | Letters of 7 June and 14 July 1975; FOIA lawsuit filed September 1977 |
| CIA release | 14 December 1978: about 900 pages found; all but 57 documents (about 100 pages) released |
| Court outcome | Second suit dismissed May 1980; D.C. Circuit ruled for the CIA in 1981 |
| State Department | By February 1982, GSW reportedly said a request had gone unanswered |
| 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 UFO group headed by the aerospace engineer William Spaulding, was one of the first organisations to use the Freedom of Information Act to pry UFO records from federal agencies.[1][3] Its suit against the CIA produced a release of CIA UFO documents in December 1978, which made national headlines.[1][3] The courts later upheld the CIA's search as adequate.[1][2] By February 1982, according to one account, GSW was complaining that a request to the State Department had gone unanswered. Copies of the relevant State Department records could not be checked.[8][9]
Ground Saucer Watch
The New York Times described GSW in 1979 as an Arizona-based, nationwide research organisation of about 500 scientists, engineers and others.[3] The CIA's own historian, Gerald Haines, called it "a small UFO group".[1] Its head, William Spaulding, was an aerospace engineer with AiResearch.[3]
The CIA requests
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Haines's 1997 history, written for the CIA's Studies in Intelligence, sets out what happened:[1]
- June 1975. On 7 June 1975 Spaulding asked the CIA for the Robertson Panel report and all its UFO records. He was sent the Robertson report and the Durant report.
- July 1975. On 14 July he wrote again, questioning their authenticity and alleging a cover-up. The CIA's information coordinator, Gene Wilson, replied that the Robertson report summed up the agency's interest and implied there was nothing more. "Wilson was ill informed," Haines wrote.
- September 1977. Spaulding and GSW filed an FOIA lawsuit for all the CIA's UFO documents.
- The search. After "much legal maneuvering", a team led by Launie Ziebell of the Office of General Counsel searched the agency, at times "threatening" colleagues. They "even turned up an old UFO file under a secretary's desk". They found 355 documents of about 900 pages.
- The release. On 14 December 1978 the CIA released all but 57 documents of about 100 pages. It withheld those on national-security grounds and to protect sources and methods.
The headlines
The release drew national coverage. The New York Times reported GSW's claim to have obtained 1,000 pages showing the CIA had been "secretly involved in UFO surveillance since 1949", despite saying its interest ended in 1952.[3][6] What it reported:[3]
- Spaulding. "The Government has been lying to us all these years," he said. "The cover-up is massive."
- Embassies. He said U.S. embassies gathered sighting reports, which seemed "to be directed to the CIA, the White House and the National Security Agency".
- The documents. They included a 1952 memo urging that "no indication of CIA interest or concern reach the press or public". There was also a report of Iranian F-4 jets pursuing a UFO in 1976, and a 1975 directive against acknowledging any pattern in sightings.
- Crashes. Spaulding also claimed sworn statements from retired Air Force colonels about crashes in New Mexico in 1948 and near Kingman, Arizona, in 1953.
- The withheld items. GSW was pressing for the 57 items, which it hoped would include gun-camera film. It also sought a 1952 film by the Cleveland cameraman Ralph Mayher that the Air Force had borrowed and never returned.
Haines judged that the documents "produced no smoking gun" and showed only low-level interest after 1953, but that the press treated them "in a sensational manner".[1] A version of the Times article is held in the CIA's reading room, though the page as retrieved showed only the reading room's front page.[6] A related collection of CIA UFO documents on Scribd could not be read.[7]
The CIA's reaction
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Director of Central Intelligence Stansfield Turner was so upset by the Times article that he asked his senior officers, "Are we in UFOs?"[1] His deputy director for administration, Don Wortman, reported that there had been no organised CIA research on UFOs, or collection of intelligence on them, since the 1950s. The files held only sporadic correspondence and sighting reports.[1] Turner then had the General Counsel seek summary judgment against GSW's new suit for the withheld documents.[1]
The courts
In May 1980 the court dismissed the suit, finding that the CIA had conducted a thorough and adequate search in good faith.[1] In 1981 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit affirmed in the CIA's favour in Ground Saucer Watch, Inc. v. CIA.[2] The case is still cited in FOIA litigation for the principle that agency affidavits describing a search are presumed to be made in good faith and can establish its adequacy.[2][5] The online opinion page held no readable text. A later case citing it, Hall v. CIA, and a 2013 MuckRock article on "how aliens helped build FOIA" refused automated access.[2][4][5]
The State Department
GSW's interest in the State Department followed from the CIA papers, which showed embassies passing on sighting reports.[3] The group's complaint that a State Department request had gone unanswered by February 1982 has been cited as part of a pattern: agencies said they held little or nothing on UFOs, and later releases showed more.[3][4] State Department material on UFOs has since surfaced through several channels:[8][9][10]
- The FOIA reading room. The department's virtual reading room returns documents for searches on La Paz in 1978.
- A compilation. A bulk compilation of State Department UFO documents was posted on the NOUFORS website.
- Diplomatic cables. Cables from the 1970s are indexed in WikiLeaks's Public Library of U.S. Diplomacy.
None of these could be read for this article. Neither could a related Defense Intelligence Agency reading-room file.[8][9][10][11]
Assessment
GSW's suit forced the first large release of CIA UFO records and helped set FOIA case law on the adequacy of searches.[1][2] The CIA's own historian later acknowledged that the agency's first denial had been wrong. He maintained that what was found showed only marginal interest, and that the press overstated it.[1] Whether the gaps GSW complained of reflected poor record-keeping or deliberate stonewalling is still debated. Haines noted that in the 1980s CIA officials "purposely kept files on UFOs to a minimum" to avoid creating records that might mislead the public.[1]
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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