UFO group's request given typical UFO treatment?
3/20/2000
Written by Wiggz...also known as the AlienZoo prohibitor of dullness.
A document search made by Department of Defense (DoD) didn.t address the item in question, contends Citizens Against UFO Secrecy (CAUS) Director Peter A. Gersten.
The UFO lawyer announced today that he received affidavits from the DoD revealing the keywords that the military group used to search for information regarding a mysterious flying triangle. While CAUS asked DoD for information regarding a flying triangle .-- like the one seen in the Hudson Valley in the 1980s .-- DoD in turn searched for less specific items.
CAUS sued the DoD last year claiming that DoD did not perform a thorough document search related to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that the UFO group submitted. By seeking information regarding a large flying triangle, CAUS felt it was not making a typical FOIA request for UFO documents. Such requests usually result in prepared responses from DoD; rarely do FOIA requests yield relevant information.
On February 18, U.S. District Court, Judge Stephen M. McNamee ordered DoD to provide a detailed account of how they searched for documents. The account was to cover keywords used in any potential electronic search. DoD had until March 17 to explain its methods.
CAUS's request was filtered to two DoD agencies: the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. An affidavit from Thomas M. Hillin, FOIA program director at DARPA, shows that DARPA's Information Management division sought records regarding a craft described as: "delta, boomerang, triangular or v-shaped: ranging in size from a house to a football field; ability to move slowly or appear to float; little or no sound; and with several lights (usually at the corners but also seen along the sides) including, on occasion, either a red trailing light centered underneath the craft."
An e-mail circulated by DARPA FOIA officer Tricia Rohrkemper among DARPA employees told staff, "I have a xerox copy of the photos and sketches of the craft if you need to see them."
Likewise, an affidavit of Edmund F. McBride, chief of the Information Management Division of the Joint Secretariat, Join Staff, conducted a search using the following terms, which are listed in order: "UFO, unidentified flying object, spacecraft, alien craft, flying saucer, v-shaped, delta, boomerang, triangular, triangle, size, house, football field, big, large, appear, float, hover, sound, soundless, quiet, lights, corner, sides, underneath, underside, bottom, several, red, centered, multiple, and trailing."
In its request, CAUS provided DoD with sketches, detailed descriptions of the unexplained craft, and supporting photography.
Naturally, Gersten is disappointed by the results.
.I don.t think they took the request seriously,. Gersten told AlienZoo. .I think they treated it like any other UFO request, and they performed accordingly..
Gersten also questioned why DARPA employees weren't shown images of the flying triangle. Merely, they were told of the availability of related photos and sketches.
Gersten has until March 24 to submit a response to Judge McNamee.
The judge refused any further oral argument in court, Gersten added.
CAUS has been searching for UFO .truth. through Freedom of Information Act requests for the past two decades. CAUS vs. DoD is the group.s most successful in recent memory. In the early 1980s, CAUS broke ground in its cases against the National Security Agency (seeking roughly 135 UFO documents) and the Central Intelligence Agency (requesting 57 documents).