The Black Vault
OrgArchiveThe Black Vault
OrgArchiveThe Black Vault is John Greenewald’s independent digital archive of government records, built through decades of Freedom of Information Act requests.
The Black Vault is John Greenewald’s independent digital archive of government records, built through decades of Freedom of Information Act requests.
John Greenewald
The Black Vault is an independent online archive created by John Greenewald to obtain, organize, and publish government records. Greenewald began filing Freedom of Information Act requests as a teenager in 1996 and developed the resulting collection into a broad repository covering defense, intelligence, science, politics, and unexplained phenomena. Its holdings include documents released directly to the requester as well as records gathered from official reading rooms and historical collections.
The project’s central method is documentary rather than testimonial. Requests, agency acknowledgments, search descriptions, appeal letters, redactions, and released files preserve the administrative path by which information becomes public. The Black Vault also reports on delays, destroyed records, exemptions, inconsistent searches, and changes in agency explanations. A FOIA release proves that an agency held and processed a record; it does not necessarily prove the accuracy of every statement contained in the underlying document.
UFO and UAP records are among the archive’s best-known collections. Greenewald has pursued files from defense, intelligence, law-enforcement, aviation, and scientific agencies, often comparing public claims with the paper trail. The archive has published original release packages concerning military videos, AATIP and AAWSAP, AARO, historical sightings, and government communications. Its work has both supported transparency and produced skeptical corrections when a popular claim exceeded what a document actually showed.
The Black Vault’s lasting institutional value comes from continuity and provenance. Government websites change, links disappear, and responses arrive years after a news cycle ends; a maintained independent archive allows later researchers to reconstruct those sequences. Greenewald’s publication of correspondence alongside responsive documents also exposes the precise scope of a request and the agency’s stated search method. Its relationship to FOIA and transparency is intensely practical rather than abstract: the collection demonstrates both what public-records law can uncover and how incomplete, slow, or ambiguous that process can remain.
Deep probes
4Probed ingest of: Newly Released Documents Show UAP “Space Tiger Team” Built Around Space and Transmedium Cases
The Black Vault · May 1Probed ingest of: Pentagon Spokesperson Christopher Sherwood Emails on UFOs, UAP, and more
The Black Vault · Apr 23Probed ingest of: Archive of Luis Elizondo’s “Deleted” Emails
The Black Vault · Apr 2Probed ingest of: NASA Partially Lifts Redactions in James Webb Briefing Records Following Appeal
The Black Vault · Mar 30This UFO video over Iran continues to go viral around social media. Any logical explanations yet? https://t.co/y00vaSva8l
https://t.co/MhpqUaGBt3
Did Weaponized ever follow up and talk about Corso's record, as chronicled by his FBI file I got, showing a history of "distorting" information and one governme [Quoted] He held senior posts. Then he made an extraordinary claim. Archival footage introduces Col. Philip Corso's military record before he recounts why he believed material in his files came from a flying saucer. Watch the exchange from WEAPONIZED, Episode 43. https://t.co/sbznc879gi https://t.co/yJfs1iGXla
NSA Releases Cold War-Era Style “Technology Forecasts” on Brain-Network Interfaces, Terahertz Systems, Energy Harvesting and More
A collection of eight National Security Agency technology forecasting studies, spanning topics from privacy and anonymity to brain-network interfaces, advanced antennas and terahertz electronics, has been released through the Freedom of Information Act after a request that dated back to May 25, 2011. The original FOIA request sought ten documents described as “Point Forecasts issued [...] The post NSA Releases Cold War-Era Style “Technology Forecasts” on Brain-Network Interfaces, Terahertz Sy...
David Grusch's FOIA lawsuit update, compliments of @ddeanjohnson. See below. 👇 https://t.co/Pc3wCqjIRs [Quoted] UPDATE ON DAVID GRUSCH FOIA LAWSUIT The Department of Justice (DOJ), representing the Department of Defense (AKA Department of War) today (September 21, 2026) filed a motion for summary judgment in federal court, which if granted by the judge would end David Grusch's federal FOIA lawsuit against the Department of Defense. In his March 2026 lawsuit (Grusch v. Department of Defense,...
Here is a thread of UAP videos that were just added to NARA's Record Group 615: Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Records Collection, as released by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection. They are headered by their official title in the catalog and archived here for reference.
🚨 Last Friday's UAP/UFO files release from the Department of War have been added to The Black Vault's UFO File search engine. Also available, a .zip archive of the entire release. I also re-processed each PDF to make them more easily searched (OCRd). https://t.co/MAh30edhrk
Damn it. I just catch weeds and rocks when I fish. Some dudes have all the luck. https://t.co/g9pBWS05fQ [Quoted] Shahed-136 Clone Found By Florida Fisherman, Eglin AFB Admits It Lost A Drone The drone hauled in off Florida appears to be of the same family as those used by the U.S. military to strike Iran. https://t.co/rLhcEPrhbU
Some people get mad at me pointing out some UFO files that have been out there for decades, are being branded as "new". They are just excited "new" people are seeing the files. Well, here's my point: If the media was truly doing its job, it would've reported the importance of this topic, along with those files, decades ago. And more people would realize why this is an important topic that doesn't, and shouldn't, go away. Maybe more answers could have come by now, if that was the case. We need...
Also released today: DOW-UAP-PR160, Presentation by Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, 1952 This audio file records a March 1952 presentation by Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, outlining the U.S. Air Force’s reorganized investigation into unidentified flying objects (UFOs). The presentation previews prospective technical methodologies, such as diffraction-grating photography and radar-scope synchronization, that were subsequently incorporated into Project Blue Book, a U.S. Air Force program active from 19...
