Official FOIA Record
A six-page CIA record shows how to audit a dramatic archive find
Worth Revisiting: the Reading Room entry for ‘Flying Saucers’ exposes the identifier, original date, release date, page count, collection, and source scan needed for a traceable citation.
Briefed August 17, 2026 · Aliens in the Clouds
Worth Revisiting
The CIA Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room hosts a six-page document titled ‘Flying Saucers,’ numbered 0000015343 and dated August 1, 1952. The catalog entry records its placement in the ‘UFOs: Fact or Fiction?’ collection and an October 5, 1978 release date, while providing the original PDF rather than only a modern description.
Those metadata fields are the start of an investigation, not its conclusion. A released intelligence document can contain reporting, a translation, correspondence, preliminary assessment, or material collected for awareness. The disciplined path is to read all six pages, identify the author and audience, compare related records, and preserve the document number when quoting it.
Why it matters
Document-level metadata lets readers verify that a file is real while resisting the common mistake of treating CIA custody or release as CIA agreement with every claim it records.
What the source establishes
Confirmed: the CIA hosts the record and its source scan. The catalog entry establishes provenance and release history, not the truth of every observation or interpretation in the document.
Published by Aliens in the Clouds. These AI-assisted summaries link to their sources and distinguish reported claims from established findings. Skinny Ed is a fictional mascot; High Thoughts are comedy. Send a correction with its source.