Newly unearthed documents reveal just how seriously - and evasively - the White House handled UFO record requests in the late 1980s
📜 The Request That Rattled Washington
In May 1987, a persistent citizen named Lee M. Graham submitted a formal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Reagan White House.
His question?
Are these UFO documents authentic - and can I have the uncensored originals?
Included were references to “Project Aquarius,” “MJ-12,” and other controversial documents circulating in aerospace circles - documents that allegedly revealed covert U.S. government contact with extraterrestrial life and secret recovery operations.
What came back was not answers - but a layered wall of bureaucratic denial.
“The White House is not an agency subject to the FOIA,” read the letter from Deputy Counsel Jay B. Stephens, quoting a 1980 Supreme Court ruling.
📪 A Pattern of Deflection
Instead of addressing the authenticity of the documents, the Reagan administration directed Mr. Graham to the National Archives and individual agencies like the CIA or the Department of Defense.
This stonewall mirrored what others had experienced: the White House, though deeply involved in intelligence, refused to authenticate or refute the existence of records tied to MJ-12 or related projects.
“We are not in a position to ‘authenticate’ upon private request documents which purport to be governmental records,” one letter states.
That posture created a paradox: the only people who could confirm the truth were refusing to even engage with the content.
🧠 MJ-12 and the Secret Projects: Buried or Fiction?
The documents included in Graham’s inquiry referenced multiple black-budget programs allegedly related to alien craft and reverse engineering:
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Project Aquarius: said to catalog UFO and alien data into a 16-volume intelligence archive
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Project Sigma: a claimed effort to establish communications with extraterrestrials
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Project Snowbird: said to involve test flights of recovered alien craft
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MJ-12 (Majestic 12): an alleged high-level group overseeing all ET-related government knowledge
Each of these terms has since become legend in UFO circles - but the Reagan-era replies avoid them entirely, other than to say: “That document was not released from offices within our jurisdiction.”
🔒 Classification Above Public Scrutiny
One internal memo from the Department of the Air Force specifically states that certain satellite capabilities referenced in Graham’s request were classified:
“As regards this subject matter, mere existence or non-existence is currently and properly classified… its disclosure would reveal defense capability or lack thereof.”
That line became standard in UFO FOIA responses for decades.
📠 Denials, Diversions, and the UFO Obsession of the 1980s
The broader document reveals just how widespread public interest in UFOs had become by the Reagan years. Requests were pouring in to the White House, Air Force, and even the President’s legal staff.
At one point, a FOIA appeal was directed to White House Counsel Peter Keisler, who forwarded it to Jay Stephens.
Their response emphasized again that no “agency” under FOIA jurisdiction had issued the controversial memos - even though the very subject of the requests (MJ-12, classified projects, executive memos) suggested direct Presidential involvement.
🕳️ A Black Hole of Accountability
The result?
A Kafkaesque loop of denial:
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Citizens sent FOIA requests to the government
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The government denied jurisdiction
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Agencies passed the buck to each other
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No one ever confirmed - or denied - the documents
And yet, with each letter, the paper trail grew.
“The Project was originally established in 1953 by order of President Eisenhower…” one leaked Project Aquarius memo claims.
Whether it’s a forgery or not, the government’s reluctance to address it only intensified public suspicion.
🎯 The Shadow Archive Still Casts a Long One
These letters and memos are not the “smoking gun” UFO believers hope for - but they are evidence of something else: a deep, enduring reluctance to engage with even the possibility of truth.
Rather than clarifying fact from fiction, the Reagan White House contributed to the fog.
It left a paper trail that, even 35 years later, continues to raise more questions than it answers.
