CREST Background The following is the background information on CREST, as supplied by the CIA. The automatic declassification provisions of Executive Order 13256 (formerly EO 12958, as amended) require the declassification of nonexempt historically valuable records 25 years or older. The EO was originally issued in April 1995 and via amendment established 31 December 2006 as the first major deadline for automatic declassification under the “25-year program”. By that date, agencies were to have completed the review of all hardcopy documents determined to contain exclusively their equities. For CIA, the 2006 deadline covered the span of relevant documents originally dating from the…
Author: John Greenewald
Background From 1947 – 1969, the United States Air Force conducted an “investigation” into the UFO phenomena. It began as Project Sign, Grudge and later became known by its more popular name as Project Blue Book. After only a few years into the project, the Air Force continually discredited UFO witnesses, cases and told the public most cases were generally explainable as swamp gas, the planet Venus, hoaxes, etc. But one man did not believe the explanations given, and in 1966, began pushing for Congressional hearings on the topic. His name? Gerald Ford. Although more popularly referred to as the…
Pioneer Program Background The Pioneer program is a series of United States unmanned space missions that were designed for planetary exploration. There were a number of such missions in the program, but the most notable were Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11, which explored the outer planets and left the solar system. Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 carry a golden plaque, depicting a man and a woman and information about the origin and the creators of the probes, should any extraterrestrials find them someday. Early Able Tests The earliest missions were attempts to achieve Earth’s escape velocity, simply to show it…
The following documents have been received under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and contain the “Congressional Correspondence Logs” for all communications between Congress, and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Each log outlines who the correspondence was with, the date, and topic of the letter. Declassified Congressional Correspondence Logs Congressional Correspondence with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Calendar Year 2013 [6 Pages, 0.6MB] Background on the CIA The Central Intelligence Agency was created in 1947 with the signing of the National Security Act by President Harry S. Truman. The act also created a Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) to serve…
Background For last approximately 20 years, the Drug Enforcement Administration(DEA) has created a report with thousands of documents, in a database known as the “Intelligence Production Database.” However, this database is not complete, as it does not include the DEA Intelligence Briefs. But, this document is helpful in understanding the massive scope of drug enforcement efforts in the United States and other nations. Declassified Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) Intelligence Production Database Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) Intelligence Production Database, 1997-2015 [30 Pages, 11.3MB] https://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/dea/DEA-Production-Database-1997-2015.pdf