UFOs: The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Collection

Below you will find a collection of CIA related UFO records. The Black Vault’s connection to the CIA in getting some of these UFO documents released goes back to 1996.

Originally, the CIA would only release about 1,000 pages that had been previously disclosed after a FOIA court case in the 1980s. They never addressed the records that were dated in the years after the case.

Photo of the CD-ROM, as received from the CIA by The Black Vault.

The Black Vault spent years fighting for them, and many were released in the late 1990s. However, over time, the CIA made a CD-ROM collection of UFO documents, which encompassed the original records, along with the ones that took years to fight for.

In an effort to make sure The Black Vault stayed up to date, in mid 2020, this CD-ROM was purchased to have one particular data dump available for all users of The Black Vault. You will find this below for download in its original state, along with a converted/searchable .pdf format. (Although the CIA claims this is their “entire” collection, there may be no way to entirely verify that. Research by The Black Vault will continue to see if there are additional documents still uncovered within the CIA’s holdings.)

(Please note: Some media channels are reporting I filed 10,000 FOIA requests to get these documents. That is untrue. Over the years there were quite a few, but the reference is The Black Vault has filed 10,000 FOIA requests TOTAL to amass the 2.2 MILLION pages in this entire archive. Not just for the below documents. I’ve submitted corrections to Vice et al for that, but have heard no response yet.)

Entire CIA UFO Collection CD-ROM (2,780 Pages)

The links below offer two downloads. The contents of the original CD-ROM, as received, which is the multi-page .tif files (not searchable) with corresponding text files which are largely useless.

The second link is the converted records, wherein The Black Vault converted each .tif file to .pdf, and made it searchable. This is, by far, the more popular way of downloading and searching, but both are available for download.

 Original CIA UFO Collection CD-ROM Contents [149MB] – This is the entire collection, zipped up, with zero processing. This is in its original form.

 CIA UFO Collection CD-ROM Contents – Searchable .pdf Conversions – [342MB] – This .zip file contains all of the above files, however, they have been converted to searchable .pdf documents. Keep in mind, searchable .pdfs are NOT perfect. Many of these documents are poorly photocopied, so the computer can only “see” so much to convert for searching. However, through various tests, the search capability is MUCH better than the above CD contents with only .txt outputs.

(scroll down for individual file downloads)

Individual File Downloads (Searchable .pdfs)

Descriptions below are a work in progress. All documents are available, but all descriptions are not yet filled in.

Original Releases – Archived

The following are the original releases going back to about 1997. The above CD-ROM should include the records below as well, but they are archived here for reference.

 PDF File #1 (32 Megs) |  PDF File #2 (35 megs)

 Central Intelligence Agency releases multiple documents after a request was filed to the DIA in 2009 [65 Pages, 1.37MB] Released September of 2009 – These records prove the CIA is still collecting intelligence in regards to UFOs, and that material from just the past few years is considered a threat to our national security.