From Foo Fighters in 1944 to declassified government archives in 2026.
Things everyone laughed at are now on a .gov website.
Reports emerge of bright, fast-moving aerial objects tracking Allied and Axis aircraft over Europe. The 415th Night Fighter Squadron documents multiple encounters. An FBI report filed in 1957 includes an interview with a witness who described watching a "large, circular, vertically-rising vehicle" near a German military compound in 1944. Now officially in PURSUE Release 01.
"They called them 'Foo Fighters.' They thought the other side was flying them. Neither side was." — Esh
Declassified SHAEF messages and memorandums related to "night phenomena (foo fighters)," flak rockets, unidentified cylindrical objects, and blinking lights. Multiple references to observations from the 415th Night Fighter Squadron. Now public via war.gov.
Memorandums and correspondence released in PURSUE confirm that flying disc and saucer sightings were formally logged as a matter of concern for the Air Materiel Command. This is the year of the Roswell incident, the Kenneth Arnold sighting, and the modern UFO era's beginning. The government has always known. The files confirm it.
"They started a whole office just to write reports about things they couldn't explain. Classic." — Esh
A two-page Department of State memorandum from July 1952 discusses the dramatic increase in UFO reports, possible explanations, and official U.S. Air Force positions. The memo is thoughtful, analytical, and demonstrates that senior government officials were taking this seriously long before any public acknowledgment.
Hundreds of incident reports filed under USAF Flight Service Regulation 200-4. Military witnesses, CAA sources, standardized reporting forms. Date, location, weather, altitude, descriptions of appearance and movement. Decades of documentation. Officially concluded in 1969 with "nothing to see here." The files in PURSUE suggest that conclusion was premature.
"They closed it in 1969. That was — optimistic." — Esh
A memo from the Executive Office of the President, National Aeronautics and Space Council, dated July 18, 1963 — discussing "thoughts on the space alien race question," plans "if alien intelligence is discovered," the possibility of life on Mars, and diplomatic policy for potential contact. In 1963. On White House stationery. Now public.
"They had a diplomatic policy in 1963. Nobody told me. Though I did notice the extra surveillance that year." — Esh
Astronauts James Lovell and Frank Borman, aboard Gemini 7, report a "bogey" and a debris field to mission control in Houston. The communication transcript is now part of PURSUE Release 01. An audio excerpt was also included. Borman, who would later command Apollo 8 and orbit the Moon, described seeing an unidentified object with matter-of-fact military professionalism.
"'Bogey' is a very polite word for what he was looking at." — Esh
The Apollo 12 Technical Air-to-Ground Voice Transcription includes two documented periods of crew reports of unidentified phenomena on the lunar surface. Accompanying photographs (NASA-UAP-VM1 through VM5) show highlighted "areas of interest" in the lunar sky. These photographs had been previously released. DOW has now formally opened a case to investigate them.
The Apollo 11 Technical Crew Debriefing (Volumes 1 and 2) documents three separate observations: an object on the way out to the Moon, flashes of light inside the cabin, and a bright light on the return trip that crew tentatively attributed to a laser. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. On the way to the first Moon landing. Logged, debriefed, and now declassified.
"They were polite enough not to mention us by name. I appreciated the discretion." — Esh
A photograph from the final Apollo Moon mission captures three "dots" in a triangular formation in the lower right quadrant of the lunar sky. Clearly visible upon magnification. No consensus on what they are. DOW has opened a formal case. NASA-UAP-VM6. The last humans on the Moon photographed something unexplained. Then humanity didn't go back for fifty years.
Technical crew debrief excerpts from all three Skylab crews document observations including light flashes, "a satellite in similar orbit," and "another object with a reddish hue to it." The station's first crew reported light flashes. The second crew added an orbit-pacing observation. America's first space station was apparently not alone.
A U.S. Embassy cable from Port Moresby to USCINCPAC in Honolulu reports that Papua New Guinea's intelligence services formally inquired about "high-altitude, high-speed aircraft" in their airspace on January 24, 1985. Missionary and indigenous witnesses corroborate the observation. The U.S. Embassy documented it. Filed it. Classified it. Now released.
A Tajik pilot and three American citizens aboard a 747 at 41,000 feet encounter "a bright light of enormous intensity" approaching from the east at great speed and much higher altitude. The incident was reported through State Department channels. Embassy cable. January 31, 1994. Dushanbe to the Secretary of State.
"Kazakhstan. Long flight. Beautiful country. Great visibility at that altitude." — Esh
The earliest CENTCOM video reports in PURSUE Release 01 date to 2013 (PR-38: 1 min 46 sec, infrared, no description) and 2016 (a P-8A pilot observes an object in "sea skim mode" near Latakia, Syria, traveling at approximately 500 knots on a southeasterly heading). Military documentation of anomalous aerial phenomena is becoming routine.