PURSUE Release 4 Is Here
The U.S. Department of War's fourth declassified UAP release has been processed, researched, and added to the archive. This time it turns to the roots of the subject: the founding documents of official UFO study from the 1940s and 1950s, alongside NASA's 1996 STS-80 photographs and a new wave of AARO videos.
Release 4 adds 15 new bilingual research articles drawn directly from the documents, plus 19 AARO videos, four Apollo debriefing audio recordings, and three Space Shuttle photographs. We read every page, wrote original English research and translated it into Hebrew, and folded all of it into the existing archive. Here is what was added.
What's New in Release 4
- ▪15 new bilingual research articles, written directly from the documents.
- ▪The founding documents of UFO study: the Project Sign progress report (1948) and the Top Secret joint USAF/ONI Intelligence Study No. 203 (1948-1949).
- ▪The O'Brien Committee file reviewing Project Blue Book (1966-1967), which includes a sanitized copy of the CIA-sponsored 1953 Robertson Panel report, and the 1955 Blue Book correspondence file.
- ▪The 1949 Los Alamos conference on the green fireballs, with Dr. Edward Teller and Dr. Lincoln LaPaz, and the KC-97 Newfoundland incident.
- ▪New media: three NASA STS-80 photographs, 19 AARO videos, and four Apollo 14 and Apollo 17 astronaut debriefing audio recordings.
The Headline Findings
Intelligence Study No. 203: "Some Object Has Been Seen"
The first comprehensive joint USAF/ONI intelligence assessment of the UFO phenomenon, classified Top Secret. It reviews ~210 incidents, concludes an object was seen but cannot be identified, and weighs a domestic or Soviet origin. Released in both its 1948 draft and its 1949 revision.
→The Los Alamos Green-Fireballs Conference, 1949
A transcript of the 1949 Los Alamos conference on aerial phenomena, at which Manhattan Project scientists debated the "green fireballs" seen over the laboratory. Dr. Edward Teller suggested an "electron phenomenon"; Dr. Lincoln LaPaz said nothing like it had ever been observed in meteorite falls.
→The Founding Files: All Documents
Intelligence Study No. 203 (1949)
The April 1949 revision of the Top Secret joint assessment.
Intelligence Study No. 203 (1948 draft)
The earliest known edition, with a 1951 order to destroy all extra copies.
Project Sign Progress Report (1948)
An initial Air Materiel Command report on the first official UFO program, tabulating 100 sightings.
The O'Brien Committee (1966-1967)
The review that led to the Condon study, with the CIA-sponsored 1953 Robertson Panel report bound in.
Project Blue Book Correspondence (1955)
A 220-page file: the Sylacauga meteorite, the FY1955 statistics, and hundreds of public letters.
US-Canadian Aviation Projects (1954-1955)
The Avro "saucer" project and the KC-97 Newfoundland radar-visual incident, classified UFOB.
The STS-80 Photographs
Three film frames from the windows of Space Shuttle Columbia (1996), released officially under the heading "unidentified object."
Read about the STS-80 photographs →Across the Rest of Release 4
Beyond the founding documents, the release expanded several existing categories with both historical and modern documents.
New Media
Three STS-80 photographs, 19 AARO videos of unidentified sightings, and four Apollo crew debriefing audio recordings have been added to the archive.
Why It Matters
- ▪The joint Intelligence Study No. 203 (USAF and Navy, Top Secret) is the first comprehensive assessment of the UFO phenomenon, committing to writing that "it appears that some object has been seen" but cannot be identified.
- ▪The O'Brien Committee file documents, in the participants' own words, how the committee that led to the Condon study and the closure of Project Blue Book was conceived largely as a public-relations remedy, and it includes the CIA-sponsored Robertson Panel report on the "training and debunking" program.
- ▪The STS-80 photographs are original orbital imagery released officially as an "unidentified object," and the KC-97 incident is one of the earliest documented radar-visual cases in the collection.