Showing posts with label Larry Bryant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Larry Bryant. Show all posts

Monday, March 31, 2025

The U.S. Intelligence Community Monitors UFO Researchers’ Activities: (Redux)


Implemented by the CIA in 1953, the Practice Continues Today


"By the early-1980s, the involvement of the FBI, the CIA, and the NSA in the collection of UFO-related data had been firmly established."

(Originally published on Wednesday, July 31, 2013)


     In 1973, when I began interviewing former/retired U.S. military personnel regarding their UFO experiences at nuclear weapons facilities, I didn’t give much thought to the possibility that the intelligence community would take an interest in my activities [ad].

At that point, the CIA’s “Robertson Panel” Report—which recommended surveillance of American UFO-research advocacy groups—was still classified. Indeed, as far as the public knew, the only component of the U.S. government responsible for UFO-related matters was the Air Force.
Robert Hastings - www.theufochronicles.com
By Robert Hastings
The UFO Chronicles
3-30-25

However, that myth slowly faded away as classified documents began to be pried loose for public inspection via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). By the early-1980s, the involvement of the FBI, the CIA, and the NSA in the collection of UFO-related data had been firmly established.

My own naiveté regarding what I considered to be the remote possibility of covert surveillance of my own activities was shattered in early 1982, shortly after I first went out on the American college lecture circuit to report my findings. Those public programs resulted in media coverage by numerous newspapers, including the New York Times, as well as the Associated Press and United Press International.

Apparently, FBI also took notice.

In 2012, veteran UFO researcher and Freedom of Information requestor Larry W. Bryant sent me a letter he had received from the FBI—in response to an FOIA request on my behalf—in which the bureau acknowledged that their records indicated the existence of files on my UFO-related activities. However, according the letter, a search for those files was unsuccessful because they were supposedly “missing”. Neither Bryant nor I believe that to be the case.

The first indication I had that someone was monitoring my research activities came within months of my first national publicity. It was/is my practice to tape record my interviews with the military veterans—who have described observing UFOs maneuvering near or hovering over ICBM sites, nuclear weapons storage areas, or similar locations. Beginning in February 1982, after each and every telephone conversation with one of those individuals, recorded with their permission, it became clear that someone was tapping my phone.

After each interview, only moments after hanging-up, I received a mysterious call from someone who said nothing, even though I could hear background noises, who then hung-up after 30 seconds or so. I stress that this odd pattern only occurred after I had spoken with this or that veteran, who was divulging dramatic information about one nukes-related UFO incident or another. It never happened after one of my calls to my family or friends, or at any other time. The pattern continued for several months.

Obviously, someone was attempting to intimidate me or, at the very least, was just letting me know that they were aware of who I was talking to. As I have repeatedly said over the years, I guess I was too stupid to be scared because I continued with my efforts to learn what the U.S. government was hiding from the public, relating to UFO activity at nuclear weapons sites.

I now have more than 140 U.S. military veterans on-the-record—I just spoke with a new source earlier today, a former Minuteman missile Electro-Mechanical Technician who sighted a UFO at Minot AFB in 1968—and I am happy to report that the FBI has never contacted any of those guys. In other words, regardless of who was tapping my phone, there were no repercussions for the persons who had agreed to speak with me. And, to date, no one has ever shown up at my door either.

That said, in one recent case, someone did learn about my telephone and email communications with a retired Air Force missile targeting technician who had made a few inquiries on my behalf, relating to a widely-publicized missile communications-disruption incident at F.E. Warren AFB, in Wyoming, on October 23, 2010.

That individual was in touch with a few of the active duty missile maintenance personnel who had responded to the problem, during which 50 ICBMs became temporarily unavailable because the base could not communicate with the launch officers who controlled them. Officially, the disruption had lasted 59 minutes and was caused by an improperly-replaced computer card in a weapons-control processor.

However, what my retired Air Force contact learned about the incident, from the missile maintenance techs who had responded to it, was much different: The event involved an intermittent communications disruption that actually lasted more than a day, not a mere 59 minutes, as the Air Force claims.

More importantly, several independent maintenance teams returned to the base reporting their sighting of a huge, cigar-shaped object in the sky above the missile field. My contact was told that the entire missile maintenance squadron had been unexpectedly assembled and admonished by its commander not to speak about “the things they may or may not have seen” in the sky. Clearly, the aerial object was not a blimp.

Unfortunately, I was later informed by my contact that two of those missile technicians, upon retiring in June 2011, were informed by their superiors that a “flag” had been placed in their Air Force service records, relating to their unauthorized disclosures about the incident. Obviously, someone had been monitoring their emailed conversations with my go-between, who later forwarded their comments to me. This development meant that the two men would have difficulty finding work in the aerospace field after leaving the service.

I of course felt very badly about this development, even though my contact has said that the two individuals had been fully informed that he was passing information on to me about an apparent UFO maneuvering above F.E. Warren’s nuclear missiles during the communications-disruption incident.

In this type of situation—where active duty Air Force personnel leak information about UFOs near nuclear weapons sites to outsiders—the Pentagon becomes trapped by its own deceptive policy of claiming that UFOs pose no threat to U.S. national security. (It was this official stance—UFOs, even if they exist, are not a threat—that was used to justify the closure of the Air Force’s UFO study, Project Blue Book, in 1969.)

The two individuals who reported multiple sightings of the huge cigar-shaped craft by missile maintenance teams at F.E. Warren AFB in October 2010—at a time when 50 ICBMs were effectively offline—cannot be prosecuted for divulging classified information because, among other repercussions, the Air Force higher-ups would have to openly admit that they took the UFO reports seriously and went so far as to admonish an entire missile squadron not to talk about the incident.

In short, any open prosecution of the two men would risk turning a media spotlight on the whole affair, thereby raising public awareness about the true nature of the event—something the Pentagon definitely does not want to happen.

And so the game goes on. The Air Force continues to claim that UFOs pose no risk to U.S. national security. Meanwhile, veterans slowly but surely come forward to report UFOs at various nuclear missile bases—as far back as 1962 and as recently as 2010—which often appeared just as some of America’s nuclear missiles mysteriously malfunctioned. Maybe, someday, the public will be let in on the truth.

Last week, Larry Bryant sent me a letter he had composed on my behalf, directed to the National Security Agency (NSA), asking that any and all NSA files containing information regarding my UFO-related activities to be released to me, pursuant to requirements stipulated in the federal law known as the Privacy Act. That missive has been inserted below.

Hastings NSA Letter - www.theufochronicles.com
-click on image to enlarge-

I suspect that, after a lengthy runaround, I will be told by NSA that no such files exist. Or, perhaps, those files will be discovered to be “missing” just like the FBI files on my research activities. Regardless, the agency certainly will not be candid with me, no matter what the facts are.

Tuesday, November 03, 2020

Larry Bryant (RIP) Courts UFOs Whistleblowers and Routinely Files FOIA Requests with the Government (Redux)

Larry Bryant (RIP) Courts UFOs Whistleblowers and Routinely Files FOIA Requests with the Government

The long-distance runner

     You’ve probably never met Larry Bryant but chances are you know somebody just like him, a guy with so much time on his hands, he spends a lot of it making neighbors’ lives miserable. But instead of snapping photos of the derelict boat in your driveway or tape-measuring for easement code violations, Bryant courts UFOs whistleblowers and files Freedom of Information Act requests with the government.

And if, as researcher/author Robert Hastings contends, F.E. Warren
Billy Cox
By Billy Cox
De Void
6-23-11
AFB is ordering its folks to shut up about alleged UFO event unfolding near its nuclear missiles on 10/23/2010, chances are Larry Bryant had something to do with it.

After Hastings began fishing around for sources late last year, Bryant took out an online ad aimed at convincing Warren personnel to man up and jump-start a congressional investigation “charged with overseeing our military’s readiness to cope with any other current or future such events.”

For the 73-year-old Alexandria, Va., resident, needling federal bureaucrats comes as naturally as breathing. “It’s a crusade for openness, accountability and fair play. It’s something that, as Americans, we shouldn’t consider a luxury item. But most people don’t have the time for this. I do. I’m retired, I don’t have much of a social life, but I do have some skills.”

Retirement’s not an excuse; Bryant’s been agitating forever. He got the flying saucer bug in 1957, when he joined the venerable and long defunct NICAP civilian investigation group. He was 19. That was 54 years ago. You’d stand a better chance of convincing Tarzan to give up the vines.

Seriously, check out this guy’s blog. Bryant files FOIAs like most people sling rice at weddings. He knows all the right acronyms and all the right lingo, and he’s all over the board. From “a hostile encounter with a group of malevolent UFOnauts” at Fort Benning in 1977 to “any and all NRO-produced reports of spy-satellite interference from alien spacecraft,” Bryant trolls for minnows and tarpon alike.

His latest project: a deathbed confession form, offered to closeted gatekeepers as a way to clear their conscience on the way out the door. Like so many of his solicitations, this one is posted at classifiedads.com

“I view these ads as political poetry,” he says, “and I intend to keep it up.”

Bryant decided to help Hastings after meeting him for the first time last year during the USAF veterans UFO/nukes press conference in Washington. “He’s a grownup nerd like me, and he’s doing very useful work,” says Bryant. “I admire his stamina. He’s in it for the long run.”

Bryant is still waiting for the USAF to satisfy his FOIA request for an incident report on the 50 nuclear missiles that went offline at Warren last October. He doesn’t expect much to come of it. What he’d really like to get his hands on is military gun-cam footage of a UFO. He’s offering a $2,000 reward, but says the figure is arbitrary, that a video of that nature could probably fetch millions. He wishes porn king Larry Flynt would pony up.

“I don’t know why they’re not putting this stuff out there,” Bryant complains. “These UFOs aren’t hostile, the Air Force already says there’s no national security at stake, so what’s the big deal, right?”

Thursday, June 14, 2018

The UFO Controversy, Richard C. Doty and His Air Force Service Records

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Military Retirement Actions (Richard Doty)

     The UFO controversy contains a handful of individuals who need no introduction. One such figure is Richard C. Doty. Formally with the United States Air Force (USAF), Doty has become somewhat legendary. To some, he is an officially sanctioned disinformation agent. To others, he is the quintessential truth twisting hoaxer. To many, he is an odd combination of these two extremes. I am not going to give yet another synopsis of Doty’s unusual contribution to UFO history. Others have already done so, and they have done it quite well. There are three books that immediately come to mind when pondering the Doty saga. They are, Christian Lambright’s X-Descending, Greg Bishop’s Project Beta: The Story of Paul Bennewitz, National Security, and the Creation of a Modern UFO Myth, and Mark Pilkington’s Mirage Men: A Journey into Disinformation, Paranoia and UFOs. Further, MJ Banias’s upcoming treatment of UFO subculture will also contain an important Doty discussion.
Paul Dean
By Paul Dean
ufos-documenting-the-evidence.blogspot.com
6-13-18

Over the years, many a researcher has attempted to clarify exactly what Richard Doty did with the USAF, and when, and where. A near total lack of Doty’s USAF service records has presented significant barriers to further investigation, and the few items which have been legally released in recent years are very brief indeed. Just once, though, a dogged investigator got quite lucky.

Sometime in late 1987, or early 1988, UFO researcher Larry Bryant submitted a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force (OSAF) for copies of Richard Doty’s USAF service records. Soon after, Special Agent Cecil W. Fry, the Chief of Information Release at Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) Headquarters, Washington DC, made the decision to withhold all existing records related to Doty. On the 21st of Feburary, 1988, Bryant wrote back to the OSAF appealing AFOSI’s verdict. On the 31st of October, 1988, Mr. Steven A. Thompson, who was with the OSAF’s Office of Administration, replied to Bryant’s appeal letter, and, thankfully, enclosed a number of records, albeit with redactions. While all this was going on, Bryant was also corresponding with Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico. On the 8th of September, 1988, Bryant submitted an FOI request to Kirtland asking for any service paperwork they held on Doty. It is unknown who initially handled his request, but two weeks later it was forwarded to the 1606th Air Base Wing. On the 27th of September, 1988, Mr. A. Albert Sanchez, who was the FOI Manager at the 1606th ABW, released a significant number of records to Bryant. Put together, the OSAF and the 1606th ABW released some twenty-five pages of Doty’s service files.

We don’t know how many more pages may exist. Even the USAF may not have a central Doty service file. Further, some of the documents, as I have mentioned, are redacted. Whatever the situation, the records Larry Bryant did manage to obtain have, to my knowledge, seldom seen the light of day. I do not intend to analyse this material. Other researchers can do that, and no doubt some will. So, with that, Doty’s service file, or at least some of it, is imaged below.

Friday, March 21, 2014

Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit Summary - July 22, 1947


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Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit Summary

By Kevin Randle
A Different Perspective
3-19-14

      The other night as I was cursing the cable I blundered into another of those UFO programs filled with hysterical narration and a belief that nearly every outrageous claim is based in reality. In this case they were talking about the Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit as if the documentation existed to prove that the Army had, at one time, investigated UFOs under that unit title. They flashed some documentation but in today’s world with nearly everyone and her brother creating UFO documents for fun and profit you would think that a little caution would be called for. But there was really nothing in the documentary to suggest that this wasn’t true other than a mention of the “controversial MJ-12” documents.

I had thought that it had been fairly well established that this IPU information had been discredited and was a little surprised to see it being used as evidence that MJ-12 was real, as was the Roswell UFO crash along with a similar event over on the Plains of San Agustin (or more accurately, a point to the southeast of Socorro, but more on that later). So I wondered just what do we know about the IPU and where did that information originate.

It seems that in 1977 Larry Bryant had filed a somewhat generic FOIA request with the Army asking about their gathering of UFO reports. Eventually, in response, the Army said that their records had been sent to the Air Force in 1962 so they no longer had anything related to UFOs. If you look at the timing here, you’d see that the Air Force was also attempting to get rid of the UFO investigation or relegate it to the Secretary of the Air Force Office of Information (SAFOI), so the Army, having the perfect place to dump their UFO material, did so. All this means that at the time no one wanted to get stuck with the UFO problem.

Bryant filed another request and in 1978 the Army came back with what they termed an “institutional memory,” which was their way of saying they’d asked an older member of the team what he could remember. He said that in 1958 the UFO reports were processed by the Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit. This was set up in 1958 after the launch of the Soviet satellites in late 1957. According to the institutional memory, all the material gathered was sent to the Air Force in 1962. The IPU was abolished at that point.

Brad Sparks believed that the actual name was probably something like the Intelligence Processing Unit and the function was that of gathering all sorts of intelligence reports about all sorts of things to be distributed to the various commands and activities where that information could be exploited. According to Sparks, based on his review of various organizational charts and other documentation, he found the name of the IPU was actually Input Processing Unit, and if Sparks was right about its function, then this name makes more sense than the more exciting Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit.

And while you could argue that Sparks has gotten this wrong, though the evidence supports him, there seems to be one fact that is not in dispute. The IPU did not begin to function until 1958. There is no evidence that it existed prior to that.

But then documents from the IPU began to surface. They seemed to come from a man named Timothy Cooper who received them from a fellow named Thomas “Cy” Cantwheel which is a pseudonym so that he can’t be traced and his claims about his background can’t be independently verified. One of the documents that relates to the IPU is labeled Top Secret and it mentions only those with “Majic access may have access.” This strikes me as a rather wishy-washy way to say that “Access to the document is restricted to those with Majic clearance,” but then, that’s just my personal opinion.

The document is the “Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit Summary,” and it is classified as “Top Secret – Ultra.” There is a problem with this as well. A classified project known as “Ultra” existed during World War II. Ultra was an attempt to gather and decrypt Nazi communications at the highest level. By the end of the war this was an Allied effort that was of significant importance and certainly contributed to the defeat of the Nazis. But the point is, the classification for the project was Top Secret Ultra and that was for that specific project which has nothing to do with UFOs.

Overlooking this, the document lays out the “facts” about the Roswell UFO crash. The problem here is that investigations as outlined in these documents have been superseded by new and better information. It places a part of the crash at Site LZ - 2 (which I suppose is Landing Zone 2) some twenty miles southeast (that’s right, southeast) of Socorro, which moves it from the Plains of San Agustin to “Lat. 33 – 40 – 31, Long. 106 – 28 – 29, with Oscura Peak being the geographic reference point.” Overlooking the fact that the coordinates would have been listed as 33.40.31N and 106.28.29W (33° 40' 31" N, 106° 28' 29" W), those coordinates are not on the Plains of San Agustin, but southeast of Socorro. While the Barnett story is questioned and certainly does not relate to the Roswell crash, it was clear that he was talking about the high country meaning the Plains and not someplace to the southeast.

For those keeping score at home and who don’t have Google Earth on their computers, those coordinates, along with Oscura Peak, are on the White Sands Missile Range near the Trinity site. It’s difficult enough to get onto the debris field found by Mack Brazel since it is private property surrounded by BLM land. No one is going to drive out onto the missile range to dig on that site, let alone get near the Trinity site without permission. As far as I know, no one has been there to see what might have been left behind.

Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit Summary (pg 2)
In fact, that leads to another question. Why is it that they have the coordinates for LZ – 2, but not for the Brazel ranch site? I suspect the reason is that when this document was created, the coordinates of the Brazel site were known to very few people and if the document had the wrong coordinates, that would call its legitimacy into question. The hoaxer just didn’t know those coordinates.

These few things should be enough for those paying attention to reject this document as fraudulent. It should be enough to prove that this document is a forgery and a not very clever one at that. It does nothing to support the idea of the Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit because the document is an invention created in the 1990s, after the publication of the various books about the Roswell crash, but the forger didn’t seem to have looked at a map, which proves the forgery. (Or maybe I should say he did look at a map and picked the location because of its highly restricted access. He didn’t have to worry about someone going there to see what they might find.)

In fact, I can date it even better than that because it does mention Mogul and no one was talking about Mogul until the early 1990s. It is unlikely that a report created in 1947 would refer to the balloon project by that name. It probably would have referred to it as the New York University balloon project or the constant level balloons rather than Mogul, if mentioned it at all. More likely it would have just mentioned weather balloons if it was felt necessary to make that connection. All that does is allow us to date the time of creation for the document and point to another flaw in it.

But, remember, the IPU, by whatever name, didn’t exist in 1947 and wouldn’t exist for another decade according to the best information available. This document does nothing to prove that the name of the organization was the Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit because the document is a fake.

In fact there is no real documentation confirming the existence of such an organization at all. It was the “institutional memory” who created the name based on what he remembered. That “institutional memory” was Craig Hunter who, some two decades after the fact, mentioned all that he remembered about the IPU. There is no official document with the Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit name on it…

Oh, I know what you’ll say. There are letters to researchers that prove the Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit existed, or exists, because it is referred to as the Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit in these official communications. In one of those, written by Lieutenant Colonel Lance R. Corine, it says, “As you note in your letter, the so-called Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit (IPU) was disestablished…”

In other words, Corine is not actually confirming the existence of the IPU as the Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit because that is the name of the unit used by William Steinman in his letter to the Army. Steinman gave them the name. Yes, the IPU existed but it was not the Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit. It was the Input Processing Unit, which certainly isn’t the same thing.

And, yes, this is splitting a fine hair, but the point is, other than the “institutional memory” of the name, the letters cited as proof seem to be responding to information included in the FOIA requests. I’d like to see a document from a government source (other than MJ-12, of course) that uses the name Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit on it. Brad Sparks said that he’s seen organizational charts with IPU on them, but not that particular name.

The evidence for the Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit is one man’s memory that seems to be contradicted by the documentation from official sources, which you all are now free to reject because it is from official sources and is all part of the bigger conspiracy. Everything, including to those letters to researchers, points to the creation of the IPU in 1958 which means that a document that was allegedly created in 1947 using the name Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit is a fake. And if it is a fake then those using it in a documentary to support another aspect of the UFO phenomenon have failed to prove their point. A fake document proves absolutely nothing and shouldn’t be used as evidence for the existence of something else.

Oh, I do get it. Those producing documentaries don’t have the comprehensive knowledge needed to understand what is going on. They must rely on the “experts” to understand what they are being told… and too often there are competing points of view. Sometimes the information is easily available and the evidence of fraud is almost overwhelming but they still use it to bolster their case. They want to believe just as badly as some of those in the field want to believe so the negative evidence is reduced to a single sentence or phrase that is almost mumbled. The “controversial” comment is misunderstood by many, suggesting that there is still an open question. In this case, with this organization, the IPU, and this particular document, there is no real controversy. The results are in and the document is a fake.

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Veteran Researcher, Larry Bryant & UFO Group Picket Outside GAO Office | UFO CHRONICLE


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UFO Group Picket Outside GAO Office - Roswell Daily Record 3-30-1995

By Roswell Daily Record
3-30-1995


See Also:

Dick D'Amato Unveiled as The Government Offical Who Met with Jesse Marcel Jr; Verifies Roswell Event & Government Cover-Up!

“Is Anyone Accountable for Records?”

The Air Force Remains Consistent about Roswell after 64 years





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Friday, August 02, 2013

U.S. UFO Intelligence Leaks? Tough Road for Government


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U.S. UFO Intelligence Leaks

By Roger Marsh
The Huffington Post
8-1-13

      U.S. intelligence leaks involving UFO activity seem to be a bit of a quandary for federal government agencies. How do you publicly admonish someone who is passing along information that the same government denies?

UFO-Nukes researcher and author Robert Hastings is putting the odd puzzle together, according to a July 30, 2013, press release issued from his website.

Hastings' research goes back to 1973 when he began interviewing former U.S. military personnel about UFO activity. In 1982 he went on the college circuit to reveal his findings. He now understands that the FBI had an interest in his research and possibly in the fact that he was disseminating that information around the country.

"In 2012," Roberts writes:
"veteran UFO researcher and Freedom of Information requestor Larry W. Bryant sent me a letter he had received from the FBI -- in response to a FOIA request on my behalf -- in which the bureau acknowledged that their records indicated the existence of files on my UFO-related activities. However, according to the letter, a search for those files was unsuccessful because they were supposedly 'missing'. Neither Bryant nor I believe that to be the case."
During the same time period in 1982, Roberts believes that his telephone calls to military veterans were tapped.

Two technicians who had private communications with Roberts by email or telephone were contacted by their superiors. . . .

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

The U.S. Intelligence Community Monitors UFO Researchers’ Activities: First Implemented by the CIA in 1953, the Practice Continues Today


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The U.S. Intelligence Community Monitors UFO Researchers’ Activities

By Robert Hastings
www.ufohastings.com
7-30-13

     In 1973, when I began interviewing former/retired U.S. military personnel regarding their UFO experiences at nuclear weapons facilities, I didn’t give much thought to the possibility that the intelligence community would take an interest in my activities.

At that point, the CIA’s “Robertson Panel” Report—which recommended surveillance of American UFO-research advocacy groups—was still classified. Indeed, as far as the public knew, the only component of the U.S. government responsible for UFO-related matters was the Air Force.

However, that myth slowly faded away as classified documents began to be pried loose for public inspection via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). By the early-1980s, the involvement of the FBI, the CIA, and the NSA in the collection of UFO-related data had been firmly established.

My own naiveté regarding what I considered to be the remote possibility of covert surveillance of my own activities was shattered in early 1982, shortly after I first went out on the American college lecture circuit to report my findings. Those public programs resulted in media coverage by numerous newspapers, including the New York Times, as well as the Associated Press and United Press International.

Apparently, the FBI also took notice.

In 2012, veteran UFO researcher and Freedom of Information requestor Larry W. Bryant sent me a letter he had received from the FBI—in response to an FOIA request on my behalf—in which the bureau acknowledged that their records indicated the existence of files on my UFO-related activities. However, according to the letter, a search for those files was unsuccessful because they were supposedly “missing”. Neither Bryant nor I believe that to be the case.

The first indication I had that someone was monitoring my research activities came within months of my first national publicity. It was/is my practice to tape record my interviews with the military veterans—who have described observing UFOs maneuvering near or hovering over ICBM sites, nuclear weapons storage areas, or similar locations. Beginning in February 1982, after each and every telephone conversation with one of those individuals, recorded with their permission, it became clear that someone was tapping my phone.

After each interview, only moments after hanging-up, I received a mysterious call from someone who said nothing, even though I could hear background noises, who then hung-up after 30 seconds or so. I stress that this odd pattern only occurred after I had spoken with this or that veteran, who was divulging dramatic information about one nukes-related UFO incident or another. It never happened after one of my calls to my family or friends, or at any other time. The pattern continued for several months.

Obviously, someone was attempting to intimidate me or, at the very least, was just letting me know that they were aware of who I was talking to. As I have repeatedly said over the years, I guess I was too stupid to be scared because I continued with my efforts to learn what the U.S. government was hiding from the public, relating to UFO activity at nuclear weapons sites.

I now have more than 140 U.S. military veterans on-the-record—I just spoke with a new source earlier today, a former Minuteman missile Electro-Mechanical Technician who sighted a UFO at Minot AFB in 1968—and I am happy to report that the FBI has never contacted any of those guys. In other words, regardless of who was tapping my phone, there were no repercussions for the persons who had agreed to speak with me. And, to date, no one has ever shown up at my door either.

That said, in one recent case, someone did learn about my telephone and email communications with a retired Air Force missile targeting technician who had made a few inquiries on my behalf, relating to a widely-publicized missile communications-disruption incident at F.E. Warren AFB, in Wyoming, on October 23, 2010.

That individual was in touch with a few of the active duty missile maintenance personnel who had responded to the problem, during which 50 ICBMs became temporarily unavailable because the base could not communicate with the launch officers who controlled them. Officially, the disruption had lasted 59 minutes and was caused by an improperly-replaced computer card in a weapons-control processor.

However, what my retired Air Force contact learned about the incident, from the missile maintenance techs who had responded to it, was much different: The event involved an intermittent communications disruption that actually lasted more than a day, not a mere 59 minutes, as the Air Force claims.

More importantly, several independent maintenance teams returned to the base reporting their sighting of a huge, cigar-shaped object in the sky above the missile field. My contact was told that the entire missile maintenance squadron had been unexpectedly assembled and admonished by its commander not to speak about “the things they may or may not have seen” in the sky. Clearly, the aerial object was not a blimp.

Unfortunately, I was later informed by my contact that two of those missile technicians, upon retiring in June 2011, were informed by their superiors that a “flag” had been placed in their Air Force service records, relating to their unauthorized disclosures about the incident.

Obviously, someone had been monitoring their emailed conversations with my go-between, who later forwarded their comments to me. This development meant that the two men would have difficulty finding work in the aerospace field after leaving the service.

I of course felt very badly about this development, even though my contact has said that the two individuals had been fully informed that he was passing information on to me about an apparent UFO maneuvering above F.E. Warren’s nuclear missiles during the communications-disruption incident.

In this type of situation—where active duty Air Force personnel leak information about UFOs near nuclear weapons sites to outsiders—the Pentagon becomes trapped by its own deceptive policy of claiming that UFOs pose no threat to U.S. national security. (It was this official stance—UFOs, even if they exist, are not a threat—that was used to justify the closure of the Air Force’s UFO study, Project Blue Book, in 1969.)

The two individuals who reported multiple sightings of the huge cigar-shaped craft by missile maintenance teams at F.E. Warren AFB in October 2010—at a time when 50 ICBMs were effectively offline—cannot be prosecuted for divulging classified information because, among other repercussions, the Air Force higher-ups would have to openly admit that they took the UFO reports seriously and went so far as to admonish an entire missile squadron not to talk about the incident.

In short, any open prosecution of the two men would risk turning a media spotlight on the whole affair, thereby raising public awareness about the true nature of the event—something the Pentagon definitely does not want to happen.

And so the game goes on. The Air Force continues to claim that UFOs pose no risk to U.S. national security. Meanwhile, veterans slowly but surely come forward to report UFOs at various nuclear missile bases—as far back as 1962 and as recently as 2010—which often appeared just as some of America’s nuclear missiles mysteriously malfunctioned. Maybe, someday, the public will be let in on the truth.

Last week, Larry Bryant sent me a letter he had composed on my behalf, directed to the National Security Agency (NSA), asking that any and all NSA files containing information regarding my UFO-related activities to be released to me, pursuant to requirements stipulated in the federal law known as the Privacy Act. That missive has been inserted below:

Request for Hastings' NSA Files
- click on image to enlarge -

I suspect that, after a lengthy runaround, I will be told by NSA that no such files exist. Or, perhaps, those files will be discovered to be “missing” just like the FBI files on my research activities. Regardless, the agency certainly will not be candid with me, no matter what the facts are.

Thursday, May 16, 2013

UFO FOIA Requesters Make Our Government More Transparent

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FOIA

How UFO believers make our government more transparent

By Dana Liebelson
theweek.com
5-16-13

      "Every major military agency receives an enormous amount of requests about UFOs."

There is a group of people in America that may be more committed to prying documents from the government than just about anyone else: People who believe that Unidentified Flying Objects are real.

UFO believers have been dutifully trying to prove the existence of alien lifeforms for decades, largely by submitting countless Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. These requests are so exhaustive, they've actually spawned new laws for how government decides to give up its other (more mundane) secrets.

"There are individuals who file FOIA requests every single time a new report of a UFO comes in, asking all the relevant agencies to look for mentions of a triangular object" says Kel McClanahan, an attorney specializing in national security and privacy law. "Every major military agency receives an enormous amount of requests about UFOs."

One of those FOIA requesters is 32-year-old John Greenewald Jr., a television producer and writer in North Hollywood, Calif. He says he's filed hundreds of FOIA requests about UFOs. He filed his first request when he was 15, and received a four-page document detailing the 1976 Tehran UFO encounter that read "like an X-Files episode." After that, he says he "was hooked," and has since amassed more than 700,000 pages of government documents, most of which he's posted online.

He's not the only one. Larry Bryant, who spent decades writing for U.S. Army publications, claims that he has "filed more UFO-related lawsuits in federal court than has anyone else in the entire universe."

It's not unusual for a UFO FOIA case to make it to court. In a 1981 case, Ground Saucer Watch v. CIA, William Spaulding, head of a small UFO group, alleged that the CIA was hiding information about the "Robertson panel," a government intelligence advisory committee that met in 1953 to investigate a spate of UFO sightings. The group filed a FOIA lawsuit, which forced the CIA to conduct a search of all UFO-related documents — even if it was a piece of paper stuck under a secretary's desk. . . .

Friday, June 24, 2011

"[Larry] Bryant Courts UFOs Whistleblowers and Files Freedom of Information Act Requests with the Government"


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Larry Bryant
The long-distance runner

By Billy Cox
De Void
6-23-11

     Billy CoxYou’ve probably never met Larry Bryant but chances are you know somebody just like him, a guy with so much time on his hands, he spends a lot of it making neighbors’ lives miserable. But instead of snapping photos of the derelict boat in your driveway or tape-measuring for easement code violations, Bryant courts UFOs whistleblowers and files Freedom of Information Act requests with the government.

And if, as researcher/author Robert Hastings contends, F.E. Warren AFB is ordering its folks to shut up about alleged UFO event unfolding near its nuclear missiles on 10/23/2010, chances are Larry Bryant had something to do with it.

After Hastings began fishing around for sources late last year, Bryant took out an online ad aimed at convincing Warren personnel to man up and jump-start a congressional investigation “charged with overseeing our military’s readiness to cope with any other current or future such events.”

For the 73-year-old Alexandria, Va., resident, needling federal bureaucrats comes as naturally as breathing. “It’s a crusade for openness, accountability and fair play. It’s something that, as Americans, we shouldn’t consider a luxury item. But most people don’t have the time for this. I do. I’m retired, I don’t have much of a social life, but I do have some skills.”

Monday, March 28, 2011

Secret US Intelligence Agency Holds UFO Answers

NRO Logo



By Anthony Bragalia
The UFO Iconoclast(s)
© 3-21-11

     A US intelligence agency that denied its very existence for decades has likely already determined the true nature of the UFO phenomena, and has kept its discoveries from the public for over a half-century.

This agency has the ability to “see” anything anywhere at any time as it is happening - even outside of our atmosphere. They have detected airspace intrusions of all kinds – including most assuredly, those of Unidentified Flying Objects. The degree of precision with which they operate is so astounding -and the scope of their global coverage is so vast - that there is only one conclusion that can be drawn about this ultra-secret agency: If extraterrestrial craft have entered the Earth’s realm, they are aware of them and they have filmed them.

These images – and their accompanying technical analysis- have never been released to the public. The stunning reasons why this is so are now revealed - including those found in a USAF letter about UFOs from the 1970s. The letter (directed to this author) denied the existence of the agency in question and warned me away by threatening prosecution by federal authorities.

Now many years later, this author has again picked up on the trail to expose the deep UFO secrets of the most secret organization in the world- the National Reconnaissance Office.

THE AGENCY THAT DARE NOT SPEAK ITS NAME

Aerial Shot of NRO HeadquartersThough it has been active for over 50 years, the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) was only officially acknowledged about 15 years ago. Before this acknowledgement, its employees could be imprisoned or even put to death under the Espionage Act if they were to reveal its name or even its mere existence. Since 1961 the NRO has quietly employed tens of thousands of people and it has spent hundreds of billions of dollars.

Officially part of the US Department of Defense, its stated mission is to design, build, operate and maintain global spy satellites and to control and to collect the information and images that are gathered from them. It tracks and monitors all traffic entering and leaving the Earth’s atmosphere. The agency secretly constructs and launches these ultra-advanced satellites in cooperation with NASA. The NRO also maintains a planetary-wide network of ground stations which process and analyze signals, photos and filmed images.

The NRO, headquartered in Chantilly, VA, has a waiver for “open competition” requirements. This means that the agency does not need to comply with the US government contracting laws that apply to all other federal departments and agencies. Contractors and vendors do not compete for business with the NRO. The NRO uses who they want. It is not obligated to advertise its requirements or to make Requests for Proposals.

Only recently was it compelled by a lawsuit to make its budget available to the public - but only the “unclassified” portions of the agency’s budget. This means that the financial expenditures for most all of the activities and departments of the NRO will never be known. The Washington Post in September 1995 reported that the NRO appears to have a multi-billion dollar budget and that billions per year were being hoarded by the agency as “unspent funds” of which the Pentagon and the Congress were never made aware. The Directors of the NRO are named without confirmation by Congress by the US Secretary of Defense. And the agency is worrisomely independent. Though it is chartered to collaborate with other select agencies and departments, the NRO often refuses to share gathered intelligence or technological breakthroughs with the larger US defense and intelligence communities. Simply put, the NRO does not play by anyone’s rules but it’s own.

It is believed that the prime contractors to the NRO are Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Orbital Sciences Corporation. Engineers at these companies working on NRO projects of any kind must attain Top Secret/SCI (Sensitive Compartmented Information) security clearance, a process often taking years. They are made to take polygraphs routinely and without notice. Many NRO employees work under Draconian conditions. This often includes working in underground windowless offices; being scanned regularly (including full-body and retinal scanning) and surrendering all cell phones, personal technology and writing instruments. Often NRO employees require escort when moving through offices. They work alongside individuals whose actual names are sometimes unknown to them and with whom they are never to discuss anything personal or work-related. For decades (until the US Government acknowledged its existence in late 1992) the people employed by the NRO were unable to say precisely for whom they worked or what they did, not even to their wives or children. IRS records would only reflect their employment as being with the “Department of Defense.” NRO employees became “indentured” forever to the intelligence/defense communities. They were unable to mention their employment by the NRO or their experience attained there. Because of this, they could only work for other similar agencies such as NSA or theCIA or their associated contractors.

UFOS AND OUR SECRET EYES IN SPACE

Secret Satellites in Space
The satellite technology that is designed and maintained by the NRO is so technologically extraordinary that it is believed that the agency can “see” any selected human, ground or airborne “target” that it wishes to observe. With literal pinpoint accuracy (and with astonishing clarity and resolution) it can image anything that is visible on the planet or that is coming to or leaving the Earth, as it occurs. It is able to detect signals of all kinds that are generated anywhere on Earth or its orbit. Wholly unacknowledged – but accepted by industry insiders - is that some of the NRO’s satellites are also equipped with experimental “beam” weaponry with offense and defense applications.

The full capabilities of such super-satellites are not acknowledged by the US government. Even NRO satellite’s numbers and names are generally classified. The NRO occasionally will announce when a new satellite goes into orbit - though it is not obligated to do so, and no substantial details are ever given about such launches. It is known through defense industry insiders that the capabilities and technical sophistication of these satellites far exceeds those of commercial satellites. It is said that NRO technology provides constant real-time data, surveillance and reconnaissance about everything around the world all of the time. Resulting reconnaissance photos and films are said to be of remarkably high quality and imaged in extraordinarily fine detail. New information indicates that this technology may even be able to detect ‘signatures’ and image objects and people through walls and enclosures.

Through its many decades of being our “secret eyes in space” it is inconceivable that the NRO has not had several incidents of detection of “uncorrelated observations.” In fact, this is one of the NRO’s very missions: to detect, image and identify unidentifieds in the air and atmosphere!

The agency is unquestionably the one arm of government that is the most uniquely positioned to possess close-up images of UFOs in airspace or in orbit - or that have perhaps even landed.
Objects that are unidentified have surely been encountered buzzing our skies - or upon entering or leaving the atmosphere - on innumerable occasions. And they may have even spotted landings. More than that - given the advanced optics systems onboard these satellites - these UFOs have to have been filmed by NRO and later analyzed by ground station photographic experts. The NRO has acknowledged recently that its first orbiting satellite (called Corona) alone collected more than 800,000 images. With the dozens of such satellites rumored now in orbit, the sheer volume of images captured by the NRO must be in the multiple millions.

THE GOVERNMENT’S THREATENING “LETTER OF LIES” ABOUT UFOs AND THE NRO

On December 27, 1974 (as a young pre-teen admittedly obsessed with UFOs) I sent a registered letter to the then President of the United States, Gerald Ford. I had several questions that I wished answered relative to UFOs and any associated military and intelligence studies and what the precise nature was of an agency with which I had become familiar. That agency, I had learned, was called the “NRO” or the “National Reconnaissance Office.”

Though in the 1970s the NRO was not officially or publicly acknowledged, I had become aware of its name through a very brief (and perhaps slipped) mention of it that was made in an obscure publication circulating at the time. A UFO researcher had mentioned the NRO in an article that appeared in a UFO magazine in 1973 or 1974. I am entirely uncertain how the writer knew of this agency at that time. In fact, he may well have been the very first private individual to have ever named the agency in print.

My request of President Ford for UFO information was routed to the US Air Force. My letter was received (and presumably read) by White House staffers first though, as the registered return receipt was signed by the White House and they would have to have read it to know to whom to route it. My mention of the NRO agency was prominently placed at the beginning of the letter and it is likely that White House staffers read the name of the agency in my communication. On January 6, 1975 a reply came from Colonel James J. Shepard of the USAF. He begins the letter, “On behalf of President Ford, I am acknowledging your recent letter to him and placing the matter in the hands of appropriate officials for their careful consideration. You will receive a further reply as soon as possible.”

On January 23, 1975, a “further reply” was received. This time the letter’s author was Colonel M.L. Sorrentino of the USAF. He states, in part, “On behalf of President Ford, this is in further reply to your December 27 letter regarding the investigation of UFOs.” He continues (after having indicated that such UFO study terminated with Project Blue Book) that:

“Moreover, officials are unaware of any federally-sponsored studies regarding UFO phenomena, and have no knowledge of the existence of a ‘National Reconnaissance Office.’”

Sorrentino then continues by citing JANAP 146, an official Joint Army, Navy Air Publication (JANAP) for providing procedures for reporting unexplained aerial activity by military personnel. Sorrentino then warns me:

“Due to the strictly military nature of these matters, both JANAP-146, as well as the reports which it prescribes, must remain with official channels. Therefore, Chapter 37, Title 18 of the United States Code stipulates that any person who makes an unauthorized transmission or disclosure of such a report is liable to prosecution.“

Given that I had mentioned the name of an unacknowledged Intelligence Agency (the NRO) in a letter to the President of the United States, and that I had inquired about its possible detection and filming of UFOs by its satellites, Sorrentino’s admonishment to me was clear. It can be taken that they were concerned that I may at some point say something publicly about the NRO or about its military/intel UFO reports. It could have been taken as a threat. I can tell you that as a young boy at the time, it was indeed.

I have never mentioned this episode to anyone ever, until now. And until now, I have never told this: After I wrote to the President mentioning the NRO and UFOs, I believe that our family’s home phone was tapped and that I was followed for a period of months by unknown persons.

There can be little doubt that the US Air Force deliberately lied to me and deceived me about their knowledge of the NRO. This is because today, on the NRO’s own website, it acknowledges that over its history it has worked closely with the military (including the USAF) in providing valuable intelligence. And of course both the USAF and the NRO are part of the Department of Defense. The distinct implication is that if government officials were lying to me by denying the very existence of a federal agency of which they were actually well aware, they were also likely openly lying about the claim that no official UFO studies were ever conducted after Project Blue Book.

See scan of this historical letter below:


Reply  From Colonel James Re NRO Inquiry By Anthony Bragalia- click on image(s) to enlarge -

THE ONE AND ONLY TIME THE NRO SPOKE OF UFOS

Gerald HainesThe single instance that anyone associated with the agency has ever publicly spoken about the subject of UFOs was in 1997. Gerald K. Haines was employed by the NRO when he released an article that was published in the journal Studies in Intelligence that was entitled “A Die Hard Issue: CIA’s Study of UFOS, 1947-90.”

Prior, however, Haines has been associated with the Central Intelligence Agency and his treatise relates to the CIA’s activities surrounding UFOs, not the NRO’s dealings with the phenomenon. It remains unclear why a present-day NRO employee would be authoring and releasing another intelligence agency’s UFO information. It is also unclear whether the NRO authorized this release and whether it agreed with the conclusions that were reached by its employee Haines.

In his whitewash report, he determined that although the CIA was concerned about UFOs until the early 1950s, it has since “paid only limited and peripheral attention to the phenomena.” Second, he maintained that “more than half” of alleged UFO sightings in the US through the 1960s were actually of classified aircraft such as the U-2 and SR-71. Haines’ statements are disingenuous. And they not coincidentally coincide with the USAF’s debunking Roswell Report. If what Haines said is correct, he is himself revealing a state secret that he should not be. He is “blowing the cover” of a “technique” that lets people believe that they are seeing UFOs, when in fact they are seeing experimental US aircraft.

And Haines is deliberately lying with claims about the U-2 and SR-71 being the cause for most all UFO sightings. Such experimental craft are extremely restricted in just where they can fly. Such vehicles are rarely if ever flown along commercial flight paths- or low over dense civilian populations. The reason for this are obvious - it would compromise classified technology. And Haines fails to mention that the US Government was examining the UFO phenomenon (i.e. ghost rockets and foo-fighters) as early as 1944 - well before the advent of such jets.

Due to his rich background in US Intelligence, Dr. Haines was not asked by journalists why he –as an NRO employee by then - was speaking out about the CIA and UFOs. But what is curious is why these journalists (Haines’ report was widely carried in the press) did not ask him about his current agency (the NRO) and their involvement the phenomena? If the CIA studies UFOs, didn’t the NRO? Why did they not inquire of him if his agency’s super-satellites have ever detected signals from UFOS or if they had ever photographed or filmed UFOs? In one move, Haines had minimized the CIA’s interest in UFOs and at the same time had deflected any interest or inquiry about the NRO’s own UFO involvement.

EXPOSING THE NRO’S UFO SECRETS

Strictly speaking, the NRO is not exempt from FOIA or the Freedom of Information Act. The reality however is that the agency routinely denies FOIA requests of all kinds by indicating that to honor such requests would reveal confidential or sensitive “sources and methods” that would place national security at risk. An organization that does not acknowledge its budget, contractors or mission details (and that did not even admit it’s very existence for decades) is an organization that has surely developed strategies to counter FOIA requests that it deems “troublesome.” Adding further difficulty to FOIA requests to the NRO is that one needs to have appropriate and adequate “identifiers” to make such a request. Without details such as reference numbers, launch names or dates of occurrences, it is very hard to pinpoint specific documents and images to request for public release.

It is also even very difficult to gain information on prior FOIA requests to the NRO on UFOs. It is evident that very few researchers have ever attempted such requests, in part due to the fact that they are not even aware of the agency’s existence! The “Black Vault” (an online repository of FOIA-related and other government documents on UFOs and other phenomena) has no records of such FOIA requests to the NRO. Researcher Timothy Good complained in one of his books that he “drew a blank” when it came to the NRO and UFOs- no information was obtainable. This author has conducted an in-depth review of FOIA Case Logs online (and on the NRO website) to see if anyone has ever requested UFO-related information from the NRO. It appears that only twice this has been done. The first request was made on May 7, 1998 and another time was on April 27, 2001. The responses from the NRO to these requestors is unknown. No information appears to have ever been forthcoming In subsequent years about any results from these requests that may have provided answers to questions about the NRO’s involvement with the UFO phenomenon.

This author is implementing a three-pronged approach to coax information on the NRO and UFOs:

I have teamed with preeminent, long-time UFO researcher Larry Bryant on this matter. Mr. Bryant is widely acknowledged to be the UFO community’s expert on constructing and submitting FOIA requests. We are currently working on the appropriate terminology –and with the specificity required- to make an effective FOIA request.

Additionally, Mr. Bryant will be running “whistleblower solicitation ads” to induce former NRO employees or contractors to confidentially come forward with any relevant information on the agency’s dealings with UFOs.

Finally, this author has made the recent acquaintance of a former agency employee now retired and living nearby in Florida in ill health. This intelligence officer has tacitly indicated that clear, detailed and revealing images of Unidentified Flying Objects have indeed been obtained by the super-satellites of the NRO - and that many of them are not made by man.

More information is hoped to be forthcoming soon about this most covert and cryptic intelligence agency - and it’s no doubt astounding UFO secrets.