Landmark court settlement requires NASA to release documents on mysterious UFO case

The Coalition for Freedom of Information has secured what it calls a landmark settlement against NASA.

As result of NASA’s refusal to release its records concerning the 1965 Kecksburg, PA UFO incident and subsequent stonewalling, CFi filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit in December, 2003, as part of a broader FOIA campaign supported by SCI FI Channel.

Presiding U.S. District Judge Emmett G. Sulliivan approved a settlement that requires NASA to comb through hundreds of documents in specified locations and provide copies to Leslie Kean, investigative journalist with CFi and plaintiff in the lawsuit, under the watchful eye of the courts. NASA is required to declassify relevant documents, explain any redactions, and to pay Kean’s legal fees as part of the settlement.

Kean has been seeking documents about the crash of an unknown object in Pennsylvania that occurred over forty years ago. Witnesses described seeing a fireball in the evening sky, a controlled landing and a systematic military recovery of a spacecraft-like object. As reported by local radio and newspapers, U.S. military personnel cordoned off the area, investigated the site, and left without ever providing a full report of the incident other than to dismiss it as a meteor.

“Finally, we hope to acquire the relevant documents about Kecksburg that are required by law,” says Kean. “I look forward to working with NASA on the resolution of the terms set out by the court and to providing the public with the information it has been waiting for.”

The full press release can be viewed here (PDF).

A short promotional video for The Coalition for Freedom of Information

Skies to be swept for alien life

The switch has been thrown on a telescope specifically designed to seek out alien life, the BBC reports.

Funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, the finished array will have 350 6m antennas and will be one of the world's largest.

The Allen Telescope Array (ATA) will be able to sweep more than one million star systems for radio signals generated by intelligent beings.

Its creators hope it will help spot definite signs of alien life by 2025.

The ATA is being run by the SETI Institute and the Radio Astronomy Laboratory from the University of California, Berkeley.

"For SETI, the ATA's technical capabilities exponentially increase our ability to search for intelligent signals, and may lead to the discovery of thinking beings elsewhere in the universe," said Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the SETI Institute in a statement.

On 11 October the first 42 dishes of the array started gathering data that will be analysed for signs of alien life and help with conventional radio astronomy.

My personal view is that this is a waste of time and money. I believe the evidence is overwhelming that extraterrestrials have conquered the problems of interstellar travel and are visiting Earth, and their presence has been covered up for decades.