Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 7
| Date | 16 May 1984 |
|---|---|
| Topics | Secrecy & cover-up (topic) |
| People | Tim Cooper, Albert Collins, Brad Sparks, Kevin Randle |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 97 |
| Year | 1984 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 1984 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 6 |
The Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit (IPU) is a unit named in U.S. Army replies to Freedom of Information requests around 1980, which said it had been an informal project of Army counterintelligence that studied UFOs and was disestablished in the late 1950s. Researchers have long debated whether it ever existed under that name.[1][2]
The FOIA replies
In 1978–1979 researcher Todd Zechel told Larry Bryant about an "Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit"; a request to the Air Force Office of Special Investigations in 1979 found no information on it. In a reply of 25 September 1980 to researcher Richard Hall, the Army said the unit had been part of the Scientific and Technical Branch of the Counterintelligence Directorate and was "disestablished during the late 1950's and never reactivated". A follow-up reply of 29 November 1980 said it had been an "in-house" project with no investigative mission, and that its records, if any, had gone through the Adjutant General's office, with no transfer record.[1]
Later claims
Other researchers claimed that a 1982 Defense Department index printout listed the unit, and that a former Air Force investigator said its files went to the Air Force Office of Special Investigations in 1962. Documents in the 1990s "Majestic" collection received by Timothy Cooper, dated 1942 and 1947, also mention the IPU, and some writers have suggested it was created during the Second World War under General MacArthur. The Army even prepared a standard procedure for answering IPU requests.[1][3]
The "Input Processing Unit" theory
Researcher Brad Sparks argues that "IPU" actually stood for "Input Processing Unit", an Army intelligence mailroom for scientific and technical documents, including routine UFO reports, in the post-Sputnik era, and that the name was misremembered by the official the Army treated as its institutional memory. He believes the unit was renamed the Input Processing Section in the early 1960s, and notes that no authentic document using "Interplanetary Phenomenon" as a unit name has been found. Kevin Randle agrees.[1]
Status
Critics of the Majestic documents note that the IPU name was circulating before they appeared, so its presence in them proves nothing. No original IPU documents have surfaced, so what, if anything, the unit did remains unclear.[1][2]
People and topics
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- 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.
- Unidentified flying object — An object in the sky that can't be identified; the older term for UAP.
- U.S. Air Force — The U.S. military service that ran the official UFO projects from 1947 to 1969.
- Tim Cooper — California researcher who said he received many MJ-12-style documents from anonymous sources in the 1990s.
- Albert Collins — Metallurgist described by author Tim Cooper as having studied recovered crash material; his existence is unconfirmed.
- Brad Sparks — UFO analyst known for his catalogue of Blue Book unknowns and work on the CIA lawsuit.
- Kevin Randle — Roswell researcher and author of many books on crash-retrieval claims.
On the Timeline
- DSP "fast walker" detection (1984) (5 May 1984) — An anonymous source says a U.S. spy satellite detected a UAP passing close by.
- Hudson Valley sightings (28 June 1984) — Hudson Valley residents report a boomerang-shaped craft flying at treetop level.
See every 1984 event on the UAP Timeline →
References
- Kevin Randle, "The truth about the Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit", A Different Perspective (May 2025) · kevinrandle.blogspot.com · archived copy
- "Army counterintelligence and its history with the UFO phenomenon", ACISAA · acisaa.org · archived copy
- Army FOIA standard operating procedure for IPU requests (transcript) · thelivingmoon.com · archived copy
- ufoexplorations.com · ufoexplorations.com · archived copy
- ufoexplorations.com · ufoexplorations.com · archived copy
- cufon.org · cufon.org · 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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