ASIO and DIO on distribution list for FBIS material

UFO Twitter

Thanks to the eagle eye of Twitter user @tploft2008, it has come to light that some distribution lists of the former Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS); where the subject matter was UFOs, had the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and the Australian Defence Intelligence Organisation (DIO) on that list. 

What was the FBIS?

The FBIS was an open source intelligence component of the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) Directorate of Science and Technology. Its role was to monitor, translate and distribute the contents of foreign broadcasts to various components of the US government. The FBIS was dissolved in November 2005, and became the CIA Open Source Center (OSC.) For some of its life, its headquarters was in Reston, Virginia, USA. In 2015, the OSC became the Open Source Enterprise, which monitors radio, television and online. 

Documents

@tploft2008 located a number of such documents including the following examples:

1. A document dated 16 November 2000, where the subject was "Azeri Security Ministry denies Russian reports of UFOs flying over border." Here the distribution list has a line "To RAYWAP/Attorney General."

2. A document dated 25 August 2001, subject "Azerbaijan Aerospace scientist says aliens have 'resesarch base' in Caspian." This distribution list has "To RAYWAP/Attorney General D Branch Canberra ACT AS. Note that the Attorney General D Branch is just another name for ASIO. 

3. A document dated 10 October 2005, subject "ROK's YONHAP watcher reports sighting hundreds of UFOs over Korea." Again this went to Attorney General D Branch.

4. A document dated 25 October 2010, subject "Turkey:Retired general says encountered UFO over Western Aegean 1983." This list contains both Attorney general D Branch, and DIO Canberra. 

Why were they on a distribution list?

So, one question is, why was ASIO, and then ASIO and the DIO, receiving copies of FBIS messages where the subject matter was UFOs, in the period 2000-2010? Did these organisations, ever have an interest in UFOs?

ASIO

There are indications from some sources that ASIO was interested in the topic of "flying saucers" from 1952. In 1956 the Commonwealth Investigation Service, held a file, (NAA file series A1533, control symbol 56/2773 titled "The Australian Flying Saucer Research Society.")

ASIO maintained a file ( NAA file series A6122, control symbol 2155 titled "Queensland Flying Saucer Bureau Volume 1") between 1959-1963. From the contents of these files it became clear that ASIO was interested in individuals within Australian UFO groups who exhibited "Communist tendancies" and monitored them, writing reports on their activities. It is also known that ASIO, inter alia, was keeping an eye on sightings of unidentified aircraft in Papua New Guinea, in 1959. 

DIO

The foreunners for the current Defence Intelligence Organisation (1989-today) were the Joint Intelligence Bureau (1947-1969) and the Joint Intelligence Organisation (1969-1989) . During a search of the NAA I located the following file:  NAA file series JIO63, control symbol 3092/2/000 "Scientific Intelligence - General - Flying Saucers." Date range 1957-1972.

It is also known that the JIB investigated the 1954 "Sea Fury" radar/visual case. 

So, historically,  we know that both ASIO and the DIO maintained files dealing with the UFO subject. However, these are at the latest finished by 1973. Nothing of more recent vintage has been found in the National Archives.

The Australian Department of Defence (RAAF) closed its own UFO investigations in 1996, and today maintains that it has no interest in the subject of UFOs/Unidentified Aerial Phenomena. 

Monitoring the subject

So, who in ASIO and the DIO was monitoring the UFO subject in the period 2000 to 2010? Did they continue to monitor the subject beyond 2010? Indeed, do they continue to do so today? Unfortunately, at present, the answer to this question remains unknown, and probably unknowable, as both these organisations are exempt from the Australian Freedom of Information Act.

Can any readers shed light on this mystery?

Update: 23 October 2022

A search of the Black Vault  using the keywords "FBIS DIO" revealed a number of FBIS documents using the initialism  "UFO" dated 1994 and 1995. In addition, to the distribution list stating "DIO Canberra AS; there is also mention of "ONA Canberra AS" which is the Office of National Assessment (1974-2018 when it became the Office of National Intelligence (ONI.) "ONI all-source intelligence assessments inform Government policy and decision making."

A similar search for the key words "FBIS and D Branch" found more documents in the date range 2000 to 2002. 

More details to add to the mystery. 

Update: 28 October 2022

I just came across a document titled "Routing Indicator Guide v 6.1" dated July 2013. This lists numerous routing designation codes for a variety of addresses. It icnludes the following:

RAYWAP = Attorney Genral D Branch Canberra ACT AUS

RAYBBK = ASJ Defence Intelligence Organisation/DIO/Canberra/ACT

The latest workshop of the official French government UAP study group

 Background

The official French government UAP study group, GEIPAN (Group for the study of information on Unidentified Aerospace Phenomena) last held a workshop (CAIPAN, Collection and Analysis of Information on Unidentified Aerospace Phenomena) dedicated to UAP, in 2014. This new workshop, was held in Toulouse, France, on 13 and 14th October 2022, with an interesting range of speakers and topics, relating to UAP. It is hoped, that as with the first workshop, that copies of the talks will be made available in due course.

Schedule for 13 October

The schedule of presentations was:

0930hrs The head of GEIPAN CNES, Vincent Costes welcomed participants and outlined the objectives of the workshop.

0945hrs Philippe Lay, Advisory Director CNES Technological & Digital Directorate spoke.

1000hrs "Research on UAP at the Julius-Maximillans University of Wurzburg, Germany" was the title of a talk by Hakan Kayal, Professor of Space Technology.

1020hrs Antoine Cousyn, a GEIPAN investigator talked on GEIPAN investigation and analysis.

1040hrs "Three emblematic cases solved with powerful image analysis software" was the title of a talk by Ruben Lianza, Commodore, Director of the Center for Aerospace Identification, Argentina.

1140hrs Jean-Marc Andre, a committee member of 3AF Sigma 2 spoke on "Use of data crossing in UAP investigations - Application on two cases."

1200hrs Ted Roe, Executive Director of NARCAP presented "Preliminary Findings of the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena, NARCAP and Subsequent Developments."

1220hrs "Observing the sky, observing human beings" by GEIPAN investigator and expert, Gilles Munsch.

1410hrs Yann Vadnais, Director of GARPAN and researcher in History of Ideas & Ancient Literature, from Canada, spoke on "The next steps to consolidate rigorous researches in UFOlogy."

1430hrs Thibaut Alexandre, a GEIPAN investigator talked about an example of GEIPAN investigation and analysis.

1450hrs Jacques Vallee, Documatica Research, USA spoke on "TRINTY- back to a confidential case."

1610hrs From NASA's Science Mission Directorate and their UAP study group, Daniel Evans spoke about the NASA UAP study group.

1640hrs Synthesis of themes of the workshop, and debate.

14 October 2022 

0930hrs Vincent Costes introduced day two of the workshop.

0940hrs Laurent Chabin, GEIPAN investgator - "Augmented Reality for more fidelity in UAP reports and cognitive psychology studies."

1000hrs "Pairing Earth Observations and Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Observations: Towards a new Method to Investigate UAP Scientifically" was the title of a talk by Philippe Ailleris. He is on the AIAA UAPCOI steering committee and founding member, from the Netherlands.

1020hrs GEIPAN expert-META CONNEXIONS, France, Michael Vaillant, and Vincent Costes spoke on "GEIPAN Methodology and Classification."

1040hrs Jean-Marc Wattecamps, Chief of the investigators COBEPS network, Belgium, spoke on "GEIPAN classification with text learning and machine learning."

1140hrs "Characteristics of the Hessdalen Unidentified Aerial Phenomena and methods of observations" was given by A L Kjoniksen and Bjorn Gitle Hauge, Ostfold University College, Norway.

1200hrs Edoardo Russo, Centro Italluno Studi Ufologici, presented a paper titled "Mass sightings as a tool for assessing UFO eyewitnesses' reliability."

1220hrs "Reliability of eyewitnesses during atmospheric reentries of meteorites and satellites" presented by Jean-Pierre Rospars, GEIPAN expert.

1410hrs Jacques Py, Celine Launay & Antione Mourato, GEIPAN experts talked on "How to get and identify useful data from UAP witnesses."

1430hrs "Clinical perspective for Unidentifed Aerial Phenomena" by Thomas Rabeyron and Helene Lansley from the University de Lorraine, Interpsy (Psyclip), France.

1450hrs Francois Louange, a consultant to GEIPAN addressed "Where are we with photos and videos?"

1550hrs Pierre Lagrange, GEIPAN expert talked on "Does the history of the debate on the existence of meteorites enlighten that of UFOs?"

1610hrs UFO FOTOCAT Manager, Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos from Spain spoke on "The Soucoupe Volante Problem: A radical pragmatic approach."

1630hrs Synthesis and debate on workshop themes.

1720hrs Conclusion.

Comments

1. As we can see from the above schedule, there are representatives from a wide range of countries - France, Germany, Argentina, the USA, Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Italy and Spain, among others.

2. Interestingly, there are speakers from official UAP study groups of a nation, i.e. France, the USA, and Argentina.

3. There are academics, aerospace specialists, and established civilian UAP researchers.

4. We all look forward to being able to view videos of each of the presentations.

Update: 28 October 2022

On the 28 October 2022, the debrief media outlet carried an article by one of the CAIPAN attendeees, Baptiste Friscourt.

Update: 13 January 2023

Videos of the presentation are now available.

CSIRO may have 22,500 relevant documents to an FOIA request re UAP

 Introduction

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is "Australia's national science agency."  Between 1952 and 1989 the CSIRO maintained files on the topic of UAP; e.g. National Archives of Australia (NAA) file series A9778 control symbol M1/F/31 (date range 1952-1957) and NAA file series A8520 control symbol HM1/30 (date range 1959-1989.) 

Freedom of Information request

On 29 August 2022, I submitted an FOIA request to the CSIRO, as follows:

"I seek all emails, sent to/from or cc'd, CSIRO staff, including any attachments, for the period 1 June 2021 to 29 August 2022; which contain keywords "Unidentified Aerial Phenomena;" and/or "UAP" and/or "UAPs" and/or "Unidentified Flying Object" and/or "UFO."

A response letter, dated 20 September 2022, FOI 2022/46, included the following reply:

"CSIRO's FOI team has conducted internal enquiries to ascertain how many potentially relevant documents CSIRO might hold that relate to your request and the work required to search for, identify and collate those documents, prior to reviewing them and preparing a decision in response to your request.

Given the amount of work we estimate that would be required, I have decided that I need to send you this notice of an intention to refuse access to the documents you have requested...

The results of our searches todate indicate that CSIRO is likely to hold at least approximately 22,500 items including emails and attachments, that may be relevant to your request...

I estimate that we would need to review at least 22,000 documents before a determination could be made regarding relevant documents that fall within the current scope of your request. I estimate that this would mean CSIRO would need to dedicate at least 80 hours to process your request...

In accordance with s24AB(6) of the FOI Act, you have 14 days from the date you receive this notice to either:

a) withdraw your request

b) make a revised request (amend the scope of your request), or

c) indicate you do not wish to revise your request..."

My decision

This is the first time, in my years of using the Australian FOIA, that I have received an FOIA request response which looked to refuse access to documents based on the fact that my request would "substantially and unreasonably" divert the resource of an Australian government department or agency, from its other operations.

Given the nature of my request, I was totally surprised that in a 14 month period, the CSIRO might have 22,500 items relevant to a request about UAP. I can't imagine how one government agency, which overtly has nothing to do with UAP, could accumulate such a large number of items. However, the FOI response, in short, was that I was not going to be able to view any such documents. 

So, on 20 September 2022, I decided to reduce the scope of my request, to a much simpler one, namely:

"Copies of any internally generated CSIRO research/discussion papers, on the sighting of, and/or nature of; and/or origin of, Unidentified Aerial Phenomena between 1 June 2021 and 29 August 2022."

 In a response letter dated 28 September 2022, CSIRO advised that "Searches were conducted by relevant CSIRO staff in Space and Astronomy as well as staff within CSIRO's Records Department and Library, and it was confirmed that CSIRO does not hold any documents relevant to the scope of your request."