The search through Australian government UAP records - 2012 to 2016

Introduction

After the success of the Disclosure Australia Project (2003-2008) in locating and arranging to have digitised, a large number of Australian government UAP files, I returned to the search in 2012 to locate further such files.

In 2013, I was joined in this search by Melbourne researcher Paul Dean. This blog post aims to provide readers with a summary of what  has been found in the period 2012 to 2016.

1. File series A9755

In 1994, when the Royal Australian Air Force got out of the UAP business, RAAF bases across the country closed off their UAP files and sent them off to RAAF HQ. Once bundled together, the 24 files were sent in one batch to the National Archives of Australia (NAA.)

The NAA 'top numbered' these files, and they became NAA file series A9755 part1 through to 24. During 2012 to 2016, I requested that this series be examined by the NAA, opened and digitalised. Paul Dean and I paid for this digitisation. Thus, almost all of the papers on these files, some as late as 1994, are today, available for anyone to view, via the NAA's website.

However, there were some documents on this file series, which were outside of the date range available through the Archives Act. I therefore submitted a series of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to the Department of Defence for those papers with a date range such that they were available under that Act. I received copies of many of these files and reported on their contents in a series of posts on this blog. About 95% of all the papers in this series are now publicly available. The other 5% still sit on the files, outside the date range of the Archive Act, but inside the date range of the FOI Act. The reason I have not obtained these pages is that in 2015/2016 the Department of Defence wished to charge the fees to provide them to me, which I felt was an unreasonable amount. In due course as the years go by, they will fall inside the date range of the Archive Act and thus become available in this way.

Anyway, we already know the details of the contents of all these files, as in the mid 2000's, Dominic McNamara and I, spent 18 hours at Edinburgh RAAF base in Adelaide, going through these exact files. We reported on the contents in a series of Disclosure Australia Newsletters, published at the time.

2. Previously unknown files

During the 2012-2016 time period, Paul Dean and I located a number of previously unknown NAA UAP files. These included:

1. NAA files series J63, control symbol 5/51/Air - about radar sightings from the Townsville area.

2. K95, control symbol 1986/871 - A Western Australian Aviation Department file.

3. Uncited file - A collection of already known papers, but being collected by someone in the DOD at Woomera, up to as late as 2006 (remembering the DOD got out of the business in 1994.)

4. M1148, control symbol "Unidentified Flying Objects" - The personal papers of the Rt. Hon. R G Casey, former Australian Prime Minister.

In addition, under the FOI Act, I located a Bureau of Meteorology file, date range 1982-2006.

Previous blog posts have reported on the contents of all the above files.

3. Files concerning the disappearance of Frederick Valentich

Despite the fact that the Department of Transport had advised me in 2004, that they believed that the main file relating to the disappearance of pilot Frederick Valentich, in 1978, had been destroyed by the NAA, I found it, and two others in the NAA. The files were:

1. NAA file series B1497, control symbol V116/783/1047.

2. B638, control symbol M116/783/1047 part 1.

3. B638, control symbol M116/783/1047 part 2.

Melbourne based researcher Andrew Arnold located another Valentich file:

4. A4073, control symbol 1978/1205.

4. FOI Act requests

During the period, I also submitted FOI requests to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB); Air Services Australia (ASA); and the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) asking for any documents they held on "Unidentified Flying Objects."

CASA responded that they had no such file holdings. ASA provided correspondence between themselves and various outlets, plus between themselves and a private individual seeking aircraft movements as possible explanations for sighting reports. The ATSB provide me with a number of proforma on incidents reported to them. However, I already had most of these details from an earlier ATSB FOI request. I posted about these requests earlier in this blog.

Paul Dean also submitted a number of FOI requests to the ATSB; ASA, and the Department of Defence, again, seeking documents relative to UAP. In addition, he submitted FOI requests to the DOD seeking documents about current areas of the DOD which might be concerned with tracking unknown objects over Australia. The DOD responded and provided numerous internal documents and manuals concerning tracking 'contacts of interest.' Paul has reported his findings in a series of posts on his blog.

5. A listing

An updated listing of Australian government UAP files may be found on the Project 1947 website.

6. Current situation

Paul Dean and I, and sadly no other Australian researchers, continue to look for further NAA UAP files. One I recently found was file series A4090, control symbol 529/1/16 part 1 titled 'DSTO records of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena' with a date range of 1974-196. I have a request in with the NAA to have this examined, (its current status is 'closed;' 'with held pending advice'), opened and digitised.

There is no doubt, that other NAA files on UAP are yet to be located within the NAA. It would be good if other Australian researchers contributed to this work.

Update as at 26 September 2016.

No sooner had I written the above, then a new file pops up.

http://ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com.au/2016/08/the-national-archives-of-australia.html