Broadcasting Board of Governors FOIA #16-041: UFO Keyword Search Results

This document is a formal response from the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request submitted by John Greenewald, Jr. The request sought records of all news stories from the Agency's archive containing the keyword 'UFO'. The Agency's response, dated July 19, 2016, indicates that a search was conducted and that 62 pages of releasable documents were provided on an enclosed CD-ROM. The Agency withheld 540 pages of VOA program scripts created for overseas dissemination prior to the July 2, 2013, effective date of the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act, citing FOIA Exemption 3 in accordance with 22 U.S.C. §§ 1461, 1461-1a. Additionally, 649 commercially-available news stories were withheld in their entirety under FOIA Exemption 4, as they consisted of copyrighted materials obtained via license agreement. The document includes a comprehensive index of the 649 newsfeed stories identified by the keyword 'UFO', covering a wide range of topics from 1990 to 2013. These entries include reports on the Roswell UFO incident, sightings in Texas, Mexico, and the United Kingdom, as well as unrelated stories that happened to contain the keyword, such as reports on the 'International Realian Movement' (described as a UFO religious sect), various entertainment news, and political events. The index also contains scripts for news segments, such as a report on a clitoral repair hospital in Burkina Faso that mentions the Realian Movement, and a report on the CIA's acknowledgment of the Area 51 test site. The document concludes by informing the requester of their right to appeal the decision to withhold documents within thirty calendar days.