Disruption of the FBI's FOIA Portal

Between a Saturday evening and Monday morning in July 2025, the FBI’s online Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request portal—a critical transparency tool for the public and researchers—experienced an unexpected disruption. Visitors attempting to use

By The UFO Chronicles 7-28-2015

the service encountered an error message and were unable to submit requests during this period. Reports from Expanding Frontiers Research (EFR) indicate that multiple independent researchers also observed and discussed the outage on social media platforms, highlighting community concern and the potential impact on public access to government information.

When EFR reached out to the FBI’s National Press Office to inquire about the cause and scope of the service gap, the agency initially responded that it was unaware of the issue and requested a link to the affected portal. By the time EFR had replied, the portal was back online. In a follow-up message, the FBI simply declined to comment on the circumstances surrounding the disruption, offering no details about the root cause, whether the incident was part of routine maintenance, a technical failure, or potentially something more serious.

This episode exemplifies recurring concerns around the FBI’s approach to FOIA accessibility. Over the past decade, the Bureau has moved away from more flexible channels like email submissions in favor of its online portal, despite criticism that these changes make it harder for the public to obtain government records. Past modifications to the portal have added restrictions such as daily submission caps, limited the types of requests accepted, and imposed character limits—although some of these limitations have been lifted following public outcry. Nevertheless, incidents like the recent outage reinforce criticisms that the FBI’s FOIA infrastructure is both fragile and resistant to meaningful transparency.

The Bureau’s refusal to clarify what happened—and its pattern of declining comment on technical or procedural problems—raises ongoing questions about accountability and openness at one of the nation’s most powerful law enforcement agencies. For transparency advocates, researchers, and journalists, the silence surrounding unexpected FOIA system outages punctuates a broader frustration: while access to public records is a legal right, practical barriers and lack of meaningful agency communication too often leave the public in the dark.

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See Also:

	EFR Announces Online UFO Archive
	Mind Control Files Included in FOIA Response
	The CIA’s Actual Involvement with UFOs: The Agency’s Public Statements are Deliberately Deceptive

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EFR Announces Online UFO Archive

Expanding Frontiers Research (EFR) is set to launch an online archive about UFO reports and investigators. The Salt Lake City nonprofit organization will publish the archive

By EFR 9-14-2023

Thursday, Sep. 14, at its website, Expanding Frontiers Research dot org. Records spanning decades will be freely accessible to researchers and anyone interested in browsing and downloading the material. Historic documents and audio recordings reflecting events surrounding UFO investigations, correspondence between high-profile researchers, the intelligence community and much more will be featured.

EFR Executive Director Erica Lukes says the timing of publishing the archive couldn't be better, given all the recent interest in UFOs and what some are calling UAP. “With the UFO hearings in Washington and all the public interest,” Lukes said, “the archive launch comes at an exciting and critical time to look at this subject, understand its history, and see the potential for disinformation and spy games, all while considering the possibility of life out there.”

Lukes began collecting UFO memorabilia several years ago. People started donating their personal collections to her growing file cabinets of material. Donors included investigators who spent lifetimes compiling case files and correspondence. Lukes now maintains a substantial physical collection making up one of the most important UFO archives in the United States. She subsequently co-founded Expanding Frontiers Research in 2022 and got to work scanning records and preparing them for posting.

The online archive will include selections from the special collections of the late UFO research pioneers Ann Druffel and Gordon Lore, as well as records donated by longtime archivist Barry Greenwood. Work and correspondence with scientists J. Allen Hynek and James McDonald, as well as famous alleged alien abductee Betty Hill, will be featured. “While UFOs can be a fun and fascinating topic to explore, it's important for people to get a complete view of the individuals who made up the UFO subculture over the decades,” Lukes explained. “When we can browse the notes made by investigators and their contacts for ourselves, it better informs our perspectives than when we are limited to cherry-picked data that promotes a single point of view. At EFR we strive to publish reliable information that helps peel back some layers and show what's really been happening. That includes the good, the bad, and the ugly.”

The Emma Woods Special Collection will be among the sections maintained in the online archive. “Emma Woods,” a pseudonym, became a controversial figure in the UFO genre after she voiced objections to the actions and methodologies of UFO investigator and author David Jacobs. Her complaints arose out of her 2002-2007 interactions with Jacobs which included his highly questionable uses of hypnosis. Woods has been contributing records to the EFR archive for publication.

The archive will also highlight records obtained from intelligence agencies through the Freedom of Information Act. This includes FBI documents pertaining to intelligence officers who were active in the UFO community throughout their careers. EFR conducts FOIA requests as an ongoing part of its standard operations.

“More clearly understanding the past helps us more accurately understand the present,” Lukes explained, “and there are no better ways of learning the past than through official documents and going right to the original sources.”

Browse the Expanding Frontiers Research archive when it goes live Sep. 14 and learn more about the organization's activities at expandingfrontiersresearch.org.

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'Expanding Frontiers Research' is Born

Our Mission

Expanding Frontiers Research is dedicated to sharing information and resources that most effectively embody best research practices. Our organization takes a multi-tiered

By EFR Sept. 2022

approach to providing the public reliable information on a broad and diverse range of topics.

Expanding Frontiers Research was primarily born out of the ongoing research collaborations of Erica Lukes and Jack Brewer. A longtime investigative researcher and outspoken activist on a number of social issues, Lukes became increasingly interested in what researchers could discern from special collections of archived material. She sought the able guidance of experienced archivist Barry Greenwood in not only exploring such collections but mentoring her as a curator to amass and properly preserve materials, ultimately for public benefit.

Writer and researcher Jack Brewer sought input from Erica Lukes on a number of occasions with stories he pursued as a blogger and author of nonfiction books. Their investigations led them to independently conclude that relevant information was often obstructed from the public while dubious narratives were spun under questionable circumstances. They became increasingly committed to respecting credible standards of evidence, forming Expanding Frontiers Research, and dedicating the organization to providing reliable information through proven research practices.

Making Change Possible

Expanding Frontiers Research is committed to facilitating the sharing of information, guidance, and similar resources that most effectively embody best research practices. Our organization takes a multi-tiered approach to providing the public reliable information on a broad and diverse range of topics. This approach includes both archiving historic material and presenting original research.

Archiving is conducted for the purposes of preserving historic records and making them accessible. Such records include donated special collections representing the work of UFO investigators, official documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act on numerous subjects, and other materials of interest to researchers and the public at large.

Our organization is additionally dedicated to publishing original research on a wide range of topics. This is accomplished through respecting universally recognized standards of evidence. Such standards and best practices are promoted through our actions, resulting work, public events, and all phases of operation.

Expanding Frontiers Research is a Utah nonprofit corporation. It is tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code.

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