Air Force UFO files land online

X-Files fans and conspiracy theorists everywhere have reason to rejoice this month. The 130,000 pages of declassified Air Force files documenting thousands of UFO sightings and reports have now been made available online in a free, easily searchable database.

The government declassified the files from Project Blue Book—an Air Force program which ran from 1947 to 1969—many years ago. But until recently, they were only available for viewing on microfilm at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Now, after nearly two decades and thousands of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, 33-year old UFO enthusiast John Greenewald has made the complete set of Project Blue Book files available on a website called The Black Vault, where the files are searchable by both year and keyword.

“This is as accessible as they’ve ever been,” Greenewald told The Washington Post. “It’s a very comprehensive way of looking at the documents.”

Greenewald said he was motivated by curiosity after reading about a 1970 UFO incident in Iran, shortly after Project Blue Book ended.

“It defied explanation, and 5,000 FOIAs later my curiosity hasn’t gone away,” he told CNN. “I’m a history buff. I think this stuff should be accessible.”

The Air Force decided to discontinue Project Blue Book after a study by the University of Colorado and a review by the National Academy of Sciences. In a 1985 fact sheet, the Air Force laid out its conclusions:

“(1) no UFO reported, investigated, and evaluated by the Air Force has ever given any indication of threat to our national security; (2) there has been no evidence submitted to or discovered by the Air Force that sightings categorized as ‘unidentified’ represent technological developments or principles beyond the range of present-day scientific knowledge; and (3) there has been no evidence indicating that sightings categorized as ‘unidentified’ are extraterrestrial vehicles.”

Although the Air Force “closed the book” on Project Blue Book and has gotten out of the business of investigating UFO sightings, that doesn’t mean all of the incidents are explained. Of the 12,618 sightings mentioned in the documents, 701 reported “unidentified flying objects” are still unidentified, which intrigues Greenewald.

“Look at these cases and see—there really was something to this,” he told CNN. “From a scientific point of view, you can’t omit 2 percent of your evidence. You still have those few that defy explanation. You still can’t let those go.”

One of the unexplained cases singled out by Greenewald was the Thomas Mantell incident, a 1948 sighting in which an Air National Guard pilot crashed, allegedly while chasing a UFO across Kentucky. But perhaps the most famous and controversial UFO incident—the 1947 Roswell, New Mexico sighting—is not documented in the Project Blue Book files.

Now that the files are freely available and searchable, perhaps “crowd-sourced” explanations will emerge as people reach their own conclusions about the unexplained cases.

“Is it alien or not?” Greenewald asked The Washington Post. “Your guess is as good as mine … but goes to the heart of a true government cover up—that they don’t want us to know what is going on with this topic.”