The CIA has released a half-century-old archive of declassified documents into the public domain. Secret archives of the KGB about UFOs

The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; CIA) has released nearly 13 million pages of declassified documents. Previously, this data could only be accessed from four computers at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland.

Now the archive is available in the online library on the CIA website via electronic database CREST (CIA Records Search Tool) documents. “Access to this historically significant collection is no longer limited by geography,” Joseph Lambert, head of the CIA's Information Management Division, said in a press release, as quoted by CNN.

According to him, before being published online, the department did not classify backdating not a single document, writes BuzzFeed. Lambert also gave an example of a document that was frequently requested from the National Archives. “This is the Berlin Tunnel project, codenamed Operation Gold, a joint undertaking between the CIA and the British Secret Intelligence Service, aimed at spying on the main headquarters Soviet army in Berlin,” the publication reports.

Published documents contain information about activities intelligence agency during several major conflicts of the second half of the 20th century: the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the Cold War. Also released are UFO sightings and a secret Stargate program aimed at researching psychic abilities, including the ability to remotely “see events” and collect information from long distances, and their possible applications.

The archive covers the history of the CIA from its founding in 1947 through the 1990s. At the same time, no new documents were declassified - they were only placed in open access.

Millions of pages in the archive have been edited, but only slightly, said CIA spokeswoman Heather Fritz Horniak. She said light editing was necessary to protect sources and methods of information collection that could potentially be harmful if revealed. national security. “None of this (from published documents. - Note NEWSru.com) was not selected. This full story. With all the good and bad,” said a CIA spokeswoman.

According to a CNN source familiar with the matter, the department began work on creating an online archive of public documents in October 2016. The data was planned to be published by the end of 2017. The work of creating the archive turned out to be quite labor-intensive, but CIA employees completed it ahead of schedule thanks to modern technologies.

The channel assumes that following the publication of an extensive online archive, new research will appear on the activities of the CIA.

The entire archive of documents was formally declassified back in 1995 by decree of US President Bill Clinton, according to a BuzzFeed article. The topics of the published archival information are very diverse, the publication notes: from Nazi war crimes to experiments in mind manipulation and the role of the CIA in the overthrow of the governments of Chile and Iran.

"There are also secret documents about the program for studying telepathy and clairvoyance, which is known as "Stargate", a CIA dossier on some of the funds mass media(for example, Mother Jones magazine), photographs, more than 100 thousand pages of internal intelligence bulletins, reports on agency policy and memos, written by ex-CIA directors,” according to the material translated by the InoPressa website.

As an example of information from a declassified CIA archive that is now available online, BuzzFeed mentions a 26-page document with short name"Explanatory statement addressed to Fidel Castro regarding the assassination." The title of the document about Castro is much more attractive than its content, the publication notes. This is an excerpt from a conversation between American TV presenter Barbara Walters and the Cuban leader in 1977. Walters asked whether Fidel Castro had “evidence” of another CIA attempt on his life.

The CIA notes that transferring the database to the agency’s public website will simplify the work of specialists and all those interested in accessing historical documents.

Old data that everyone knows about

Declassified CIA data on UFO sightings and eyewitness research mostly concern events that have long been known, they were collected from all over the world, including the USSR.

The bulk of the UFO archives are devoted to observations from the early 1950s to the late 1970s. In addition, the minutes of meetings of various commissions were made public, as well as detailed instructions for the US military on UFO observation. Some of this data was already made public a year ago. And then it was emphasized that none of the documents released by the CIA contained evidence of a connection between UFOs and aliens, since most of the documentary data, testimony and evidence did not contain enough material for scientific analysis.

A year ago, journalists, based on these declassified CIA materials, identified seven of the most surreal documents about UFOs. Among them is a note from the assistant director of the department scientific research from 1952 on “the vulnerability of the United States in the light of possible attacks flying saucers", a report on unexplained lights in the sky over Tashkent, a report on the appearance of luminous celestial bodies above uranium mines in the Belgian Congo.

A 1952 CIA report, in particular, calls thousands of reports of UFOs and flying saucers fictitious and fake. But at the same time, all CIA employees were ordered not to talk about this in the press or in public.

Documents from the same 1952 report flying objects seen in eastern Germany, over Spain and northern Africa.

CIA published its archive , consisting of 13 million pages various documents. This was reported by CNN.

Declassified documents that previously could only be viewed on four computer terminals at the National Archives in Maryland are now available online.

They provide data on CIA activities in Vietnam, the Korean Conflict, and the Cold War.

In addition, the documents refer to alleged UFO sightings and a previously classified military project Stargate , in which Americans conducted research into supernatural human abilities.

Old data that everyone knows about

Declassified CIA data on UFO sightings and eyewitness research mostly concern events that have long been known, they were collected from all over the world, including the USSR.

The bulk of the UFO archives are devoted to observations from the early 1950s to the late 1970s. In addition, minutes of meetings of various commissions were made public, as well as detailed instructions for the US military on observing UFOs.

Some of this data was already made public a year ago. And then it was emphasized that none of the documents released by the CIA contained evidence of a connection between UFOs and aliens, since most of the documentary data, testimony and evidence did not contain enough material for scientific analysis.

A year ago, journalists, based on these declassified CIA materials, identified seven of the most surreal documents about UFOs. Among them are a note from the assistant director of the Department of Scientific Research from 1952 about “the vulnerability of the United States in the light of possible attacks by flying saucers,” a report on unexplained lights in the sky over Tashkent, a report on the appearance of luminous celestial bodies over uranium mines in the Belgian Congo.

A 1952 CIA report, in particular, calls thousands of reports of UFOs and flying saucers fictitious and fake. But at the same time, all CIA employees were ordered not to talk about this in the press or in public.

Documents from the same 1952 report flying objects seen in eastern Germany, over Spain and northern Africa.

Opinions

Cosmonaut Alexey Leonov expressed his opinion about this news. He called the released CIA documents “complete nonsense.”

“This is all nonsense. No one has ever seen anything like it. This is all nonsense of the press. What kind of CIA is a serious organization? She does what is profitable. The CIA is an organization that carries out any order. I'm the closest person to them, talked to them over the years, worked in Houston, and I didn't see this.

And my very tall comrade Tom Stafford and CEO Edwards base doesn't know this either. This is all the speculation of the press. This is chatter, none of this happened,” Leonov said in an interview with the website of the Zvezda TV channel.

He emphasized that similar documents you don't have to believe it because official confirmations There are no meetings of the American military with UFOs.

“The only thing we can talk about is the formation of absolutely correct geometric shapes in the fields of Stavropol and Kuban. Overnight, giant pictures appear, and no one can say what it is,” said the famous astronaut.

And here cosmonaut Vladimir Titov became interested in materials from documents. Vladimir Titov, commenting on reports of the declassification of the CIA UFO archives, said that he would be interested in looking into them.

“It’s difficult for me to assess objectivity, for this you need to study the archives. In general, the fact that everyone has access to the materials is interesting, maybe someone will find and analyze something, but it’s difficult to speak for all the materials, they’re probably there there are objective and not very objective,” Titov said in an interview with the Narodnye Novosti agency.

Based on media materials

Declassified CIA documents contain entire collections of internal letters relating to the UFO phenomenon. Some documents date back to the 1960s and 1970s, that is, they appeared after the official US government project “Blue Book” was closed as unpromising. One of the documents also mentions the participation of the International Aviation Committee (IAC). In it, the CIA admits that at least 20% of UFO sightings cannot be explained.

“The IAC is studying the issue of unidentified flying objects, which is being vigorously discussed in the media and is a subject of some concern to the government. Since 1947, we have received about 1,500 official reports of such incidents, of which about 20% cannot be explained,” the undated document says.

• cia.gov

This is not the first time the CIA has published archival documents associated with the UFO phenomenon. In January 2016, five documents were published that related to observations of unknown objects in the area of ​​uranium mines in Africa. Then the agency timed the publication to coincide with the release of the new season of the legendary series “The X-Files.”

The famous Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov commented on the released CIA archive and called the information in the documents about UFOs “complete nonsense.”

“This is all nonsense. No one has ever seen anything like it. This is all nonsense of the press. What kind of CIA is a serious organization? She does what is profitable. The CIA is an organization that carries out any order. I'm the closest person to them, talked to them over the years, worked in Houston, and I didn't see this. And my very tall comrade Tom Stafford, general manager of the Edwards base, doesn’t know this either. This is all speculation from the press. This is chatter, none of this happened,” Leonov said in an interview with the Zvezda TV channel.

• cia.gov

In addition, according to documents, in the early 1970s, the CIA showed interest in human paranormal abilities and the phenomenon of extrasensory perception. Agency specialists began the Stargate project, studying the possibility of using people with paranormal abilities for military or intelligence purposes.

Thus, much attention was paid to the Israeli magician Uri Geller, who claimed to have real psychic abilities. In the early 1970s, Geller appeared on many television programs in the United States and Western Europe, where he demonstrated how he supposedly bends a metal spoon with the power of thought. The CIA planned to use Geller to "remotely monitor" various classified sites using his abilities.

According to the documents, the CIA conducted several experiments with the participation of Geller from August 4 to August 11, 1973, after which they became convinced that the Israeli magician really had paranormal abilities. However, it is worth noting that just three days before the start of the experiments, Geller, being an invited guest on the popular American television program Tonight Show, was unable to demonstrate his talents on the props provided by host Johnny Carson. The release of this program was reused in various documentaries, talking about quackery.

The documents do not indicate exactly when the Stargate program was shut down. According to unofficial data, it was closed in 1995 due to the lack of any results.

Some 13 million pages of declassified documents that were previously accessible only from four computer terminals at the National Archives in Maryland are now publicly available online. Some of the documents concern UFOs. We have studied part of the posted archive.

Some of the materials released may shed light on the activities of the CIA in the context of the Cold War and the fight against terrorism, as well as reveal the interest American intelligence agencies to unidentified flying objects and paranormal phenomena.

The collection of 775 thousand documents is part of the CREST (CIA Records Search Tool) database. "Access to this collection, which has historical meaning, is no longer limited by geographic boundaries,” CIA Director of Information Joseph Lambert said in a press release. That is, now in order to get acquainted with the materials, it will no longer be necessary to go to College Park (Maryland), but just go to the website.

This became possible largely thanks to non-profit organization MuckRock, which helps people write requests to authorities to comply with the Freedom of Information Act. Although the CREST base has become open to society Even under President Bill Clinton in 1995, it was practically inaccessible to researchers.

“None of this was specially selected,” assures official representative intelligence agency Heather Fritz Hornyak. – This is the full story. The good and the bad." And this story covers the period from the 1940s to the 1990s.

At the same time, the most “sensitive” information in the materials, of course, has been cleaned up - you just come across a survey of a citizen who saw a UFO, and the most interesting lines are covered in black.

In general, from the archive one can form an opinion about the methods of work of the CIA of those years: it is clear that analysts, for example, studied in detail the messages of the Soviet media - they translated messages from TASS, APN, publications in scientific journals. Reports with detailed press reviews are sent from US embassies in various countries.

Some declassified documents relate to the mysterious mind control project Star Gate (codenamed secret unit US Army, established in 1978 at Fort Meade, Maryland, to study the potential of physical phenomena for military and intelligence purposes). They say that this whole project arose from the conviction of the Americans that Soviet Union allegedly spent 60 million rubles annually on a “psychotic” war. However, it is impossible to extract any special secrets from the published materials - many of them are devoted, for example, to the very procedure of declassifying papers.

And of course, special interest The public enjoys materials related to UFOs. However, in most cases, these documents cannot be called particularly secret. For example, this could be a story from the Boston Herald or a translation from English articles, published in a Greek newspaper, about “flying saucers” seen over East Germany.

As an example, we translated one of the typewritten documents about “flying saucers”, dated August 1, 1952. The paper was signed by Edward Thoss, acting as the weapons and equipment department of the Office of Scientific Intelligence.

“INFORMAL. Deputy Assistant Chief of the Office of Scientific Intelligence. Acting head of the weapons and equipment department.

"Flying saucers"

1. According to your request regarding overall assessment"flying saucers" and related messages, the following is relevant:

a) Of the 1000 to 2000 such messages received by ATIC (Air Technical Intelligence Center), a large percentage are obviously dummies. An equally large percentage can be satisfactorily explained as known flights of current US technology (airplanes, balloons, etc.), and many other cases are undoubtedly natural phenomena (meteorites, clouds, light aberrations caused by temperature inversions or reflections, etc.).

b) Less than 100 reasonably plausible reports remain “unexplained” at this time”; There are no specific sizes, configurations, features, options or locations for these messages. Probably if it were available full information according to currently “unexplained” reports, they could also be classified into the categories indicated in paragraph “a” above.

2. Notwithstanding the foregoing preliminary facts, since the series of reports remains "unexplained" (interplanetary aspects and alien origins cannot be completely discounted), prudence requires that intelligence continue to study the topic.

3. It is recommended that CIA surveillance of the subject matter, in coordination with appropriate authorities, primarily ATIC, be continued. It is urged, however, that no indication of CIA interest or attention reach the attention of the press or public, due to their tendencies to perceive similar interest as “confirming” the veracity of “undisclosed facts” held by the US government.”

If we're talking about about interviews with eyewitnesses who noticed a UFO - these stories are not much different from similar stories of our compatriots. Judging by some archive files, cases of “flying saucers” appearing in the United States were indeed thoroughly investigated. If someone was ready to show a photo of “aliens,” then the agents, for example, wrote down all the camera parameters.

About declassified CIA archives regarding unidentified flying objects. During her election campaign, Hillary Clinton promised to tell the whole truth about UFOs if she won.

I believe that, as in everything else, she was very cunning: she just Clinton was aware that the CIA intended to declassify part of the archives relating to UFOs, and therefore could quite painlessly make such a promise.

Among the released CIA documents are files on cases in which eyewitnesses reported UFO sightings.

However, as one might expect, the whole truth about UFOs was not and could not be in the declassified archives. The most sensitive information remained behind seven seals.

But Special attention those who are convinced that the Earth has long and often been visited by alien beings have been drawn to the CIA website. Ufologists have calculated: 1,783 documents have been posted on the topic of interest to them (a total of 775 thousand documents have been posted), in the period from the 40s to the 90s of the last century.

Photos from declassified CIA materials

The collection consists mainly of observations of unusual phenomena in different parts of the world. For example, six cases of UFO sightings in the skies over India, the Kingdoms of Bhutan and Nepal.

"The object was moving at high speed, had an elongated shape and emitted red and green rays. They were so powerful that they brightly illuminated the observation area. A few seconds after the object appears above locality A loud sound resembling a clap of thunder was heard in Chholam.”

Most of the cases collected in the archive were explained by the test new technology, rare natural phenomena, sometimes just hallucinations.

However, according to CIA employees, not everything can be dismissed as unhealthy fantasies.

"Since 1947, we have received about 1,500 official reports of similar incidents, of which about 20% cannot be explained."

And yet, despite a solid array of declassified documents, ufologists and all those who closely monitor the activities of the American intelligence services were left disappointed. The US government has never admitted that it has evidence of contact with extraterrestrial civilizations.

From declassified CIA materials: “Since 1947, we have received about 1,500 official reports of such incidents, of which about 20% cannot be explained.”

American ufologists scanned this information very quickly. They really didn't find anything new. And no reports appeared in the American press that this array of information was something fundamentally new and unknown to anyone.

Basically, the cases described were already known to enthusiastic people. And today, in general, it’s enough to create a search query on UFOs on the Internet and you can get hundreds of amateur videos on this topic.

Here's one of the latest.

“Over the Miraflores area in the province of Lima (Peru), an unidentified disc-shaped flying object was spotted. Videos have appeared online showing this UFO.

Hundreds of Peruvians, as well as a congressman, witnessed the appearance of a strange object over the province of Lima Renzo Reggiardo and members of his film crew, who, by the way, shot one of the videos.”

“The film crew was just about to start filming the program “Alto al crimen” with Renzo Reggiardo, when suddenly one of the operators noticed an oblong object floating in the sky and everyone immediately turned their attention to it.”

One and a half thousand official reports in CIA materials and not a single explanation.

This is despite the fact that in the 1940s, the open project “Blue Book” was already working in the United States - a collection of facts about unidentified flying objects. The project was officially closed after 15 years, as it did not confirm their extraterrestrial origin, but the topic continued to be studied until after the end of “ Cold War“The CIA has not completely cooled down on her.

And then experts in cosmic mysteries began to think about political mysteries.

What is the reason for this information generosity?

First idea: Obama, who signed the declassification decree, decided to simply leak the most insignificant papers onto the Internet, leaving something very important in the archive.

Some ignorant people probably decided that the president simply went crazy in the end, but, in fact, this is an absolutely thoughtful and very simple, from a logical point of view, step. Of course, not all documents are declassified, and they are declassified in large denominations.

You can be absolutely sure that there are still some databases, somewhere deep in storage rooms, deep in secret safes, which are still waiting in the wings.

Almost every presidential candidate promises to disclose secret data on UFOs, but, having come to power, everyone either seems to forget about it, or laughs it off, like Barack Obama on a TV show.

Leading:If I became president, I would immediately review these files. Did you do this yourself?

Barack Obama: No, the aliens wouldn't let you do that.

The secrecy of this topic is not unique to the United States. Colonel General Leonid Ivashov , who served for many years at the most high positions Ministry of Defense of the USSR, recalls that in the Soviet Union, all inexplicable facts were carefully collected and classified as “Top Secret”.

“We had to deal with a lot, including unidentified flying objects. And especially, you know, the sailors reported in detail, a lot about this unknown. For example, there is a nuclear submarine on combat duty in the Indian Ocean. The escort ships all observe that... a bright glow of water, and then a disk jumps out of this thickness of water, rises freely, hovers at about 70 meters and then soars sharply, leaves, turning into a point.” (Leonid Ivashov, President of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems, Doctor historical sciences, Professor).

However, there are other opinions.

Famous Soviet cosmonaut Alexey Leonov commented on the released CIA archive and called the information in the documents about UFOs “complete nonsense.”

“This is all nonsense. No one has ever seen anything like it. This is all nonsense of the press. What kind of CIA is a serious organization? She does what is profitable. The CIA is an organization that carries out any order. I'm the closest person to them, talked to them over the years, worked in Houston, and I didn't see this. And my very tall comrade Tom Stafford, general manager of the Edwards base, doesn’t know this either. This is all speculation from the press. This is chatter, none of this happened."(Alexey Leonov, cosmonaut, twice Hero of the Soviet Union).

This is not the first time the CIA has released archival documents related to the UFO phenomenon. In January 2016, five documents were published that related to observations of unknown objects in the area of ​​uranium mines in Africa. Then the agency timed the publication to coincide with the release of the new season of the legendary series “The X-Files.”

In addition, according to documents, in the early 1970s, the CIA showed interest in human paranormal abilities and the phenomenon of extrasensory perception. Agency specialists began the Stargate project, studying the possibility of using people with paranormal abilities for military or intelligence purposes.

This is what four computers look like, from which it was previously possible to get into the declassified archives of the CIA. Photo Mike Best

So, a lot of attention was paid to the Israeli magician Uri Geller, who claimed to have real psychic abilities. In the early 1970s Geller appeared on many television shows in the USA and Western Europe, where he demonstrated how he supposedly bends a metal spoon with the power of his thoughts. The CIA planned to use Geller for “remote monitoring” of various secret objects using his abilities.

According to the documents, the CIA conducted several experiments with the participation of Geller from August 4 to August 11, 1973, after which they became convinced that the Israeli magician really had paranormal abilities.

However, it is worth noting that just three days before the start of the experiments Geller, being an invited guest on the popular American television program Tonight Show, was unable to demonstrate his talents on the props provided by the host Johnny Carson. The release of this program was repeatedly used in various documentaries talking about quackery.

Be that as it may, but the facts about UFOs (similar to what was told Leonid Ivashov) went to the table of the top leadership of the USSR. From there they often went to research institutes to study and try to discover technologies useful to the country.

In some places, for example, at the Moscow Aviation Institute, a working group, and the goal was set extremely clear: it’s not easy to figure out who flies, why they fly, for what purpose? The most important thing was to find out: due to what (that is, what physical principles, what technical innovations, what technologies were used)?

Both superpowers also feared that super-technologies could fall into the hands of a potential enemy, allowing the owner to occupy dominant position in the world.

Previously, access to declassified documents could only be obtained at the National Archives in Maryland

Today, the most reliable fact is that in 1947 a spacecraft with alien creatures crashed in New Mexico and that the military managed to collect the debris and bodies.

Obviously, the find is still the subject of careful study in order to “split” space secrets, which means it is possible that the new American president may also be interested in the UFO phenomenon.

It is quite possible that the administration Trump maybe when certain conditions start developing these UFO technologies in order to speed up scientific and technical progress in the United States of America and achieve the advantage about which Trump spoke throughout the election campaign.

But against the backdrop of this mystery, as ufologists say, UFO flights look much more open.

P.S. The funniest part of the documents is the collection Soviet jokes 1980s. The header says that they were collected for the deputy director of the CIA, but for what purpose is not explained. It is quite possible that it is just for fun. These are 11 fairly well-known jokes during the USSR.

For example, this: a man leaves a long line for wine with the words “I’ll go kill Gorbachev,” and then returns and stands back with the words “The line is even longer there.”

Victor KOLMOGOROV