The Black Vault
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🏢 Organization
Contents 5
| Type | Organization |
|---|---|
| Also known as | Black Vault |
| On the Timeline | 12 events, 1955–2023 |
The Black Vault is an online archive of U.S. government documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), founded in 1996 by John Greenewald Jr., then aged 15. It has become one of the largest free collections of declassified records on the internet and a major source for UFO and UAP research.[1][2]
History
Greenewald started the site as "John's World" and renamed it the Black Vault about a year later. His interest began when he requested a document he had found online and received it from the Defense Intelligence Agency. By 2015 he had filed more than 5,000 FOIA requests, and ABC News reported over 1.3 million documents on the site; by 2020 the Columbia Journalism Review reported more than two million files, with about 300,000 unique visitors each month.[1][2][3]
Notable releases
- Project Blue Book: in 2015 the site posted 129,491 pages covering more than 10,000 Air Force UFO cases from Projects Sign, Grudge and Blue Book.[1][3]
- Navy UAP videos: in September 2019 the Navy told the Black Vault that the objects in its three released videos were "unidentified aerial phenomena", the first official confirmation, and in 2022 the Navy confirmed it held further UAP videos but withheld them on national security grounds.[1][4][5]
- CIA UFO records: in January 2021 the site published about 2,780 pages of CIA UFO-related documents, which Greenewald said he had bought from the agency on CD-ROM.[1][6]
- MKUltra: the site helped establish that a 2004 CIA release had omitted 4,358 indexed pages, which the agency admitted in 2016.[1]
Importance
By publishing original documents alongside the government's replies and denials, the Black Vault is used by journalists, skeptics and believers alike, and has become a model of citizen use of the Freedom of Information Act.[2]
On the UAP Timeline
.jpg)
- Senator Russell's Soviet sighting (1955) (15 October 1955) — Sen. Richard Russell sees two discs in the Soviet Union; the CIA classifies the case.
- CIA Domestic Collection Division memo (1976) (26 April 1976) — A CIA teletype says agency staff monitor UAP unofficially.
- Carter request and NASA's UFO decision (1977) (13 December 1977) — A NASA safety chief writes that a possible UFO fragment was studied at Los Alamos.
- Henry Diamond letter to John Gibbons (1995) (1 November 1995) — A letter to the White House science adviser discusses Laurance Rockefeller's UAP efforts.
- DARPA Advanced Aerospace System Concepts (June 2008) — A DARPA budget line describing advanced aerospace concepts becomes public.
- Boyd Bushman's final interview (August 2014) — Lockheed scientist Boyd Bushman says before his death that he worked on UAP technology.
- NRO "no UFO records" reply (2015) (5 November 2015) — The NRO tells a FOIA requester it has no UFO records.
- USS Russell drone swarm logs (30 July 2019) — Logs from the USS Russell UAP incident are heavily redacted.
- Gradisher–Gough FOIA coordination emails (10 July 2020) — A Navy spokesman's email shows efforts to coordinate FOIA replies about UAP across agencies.
- Navy UAP briefing cards (24 July 2020) — A Navy briefing card tells staff to say 'UAP', not 'UFO'.
- AAWSAP DIRD release (25 March 2022) — The DIA releases 37 research papers from the AAWSAP program.
- NRO Sentient system (27 February 2023) — An NRO FOIA reply describes its AI system 'Sentient' detecting a Tic Tac-shaped object in 2021.
References
- The Black Vault — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- "Inside the Black Vault", Columbia Journalism Review (2020) · cjr.org · archived copy
- "Man releases 130K pages of declassified Air Force documents on UFOs", ABC7 · abc7.com · archived copy
- "Those UFO videos are real, the Navy says, but please stop saying 'UFO'", The Washington Post (18 Sep 2019) · washingtonpost.com · archived copy
- "Release of more classified UFO videos will 'harm national security', US Navy spokesperson says", The Independent · independent.co.uk · archived copy
- "You Can Now Explore the CIA's 'Entire' Collection of UFO Documents Online", Smithsonian Magazine (2021) · smithsonianmag.com · 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.
No discussion yet.