CIA Releases Hundreds of Thousands of Fortean Files

The files include reported instances of UFO sightings.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has released 13 million pages of recently declassified materials online, following lengthy efforts of freedom of information advocates that culminated in a lawsuit against the government agency.  The full archive is made up of close to 800,000 files that had previously only been available at the National Archives in Maryland.  

The records include various UFO reports, and detailed information on the Stargate Project, which dealt with psychic powers and extrasensory perception. Included are records of tests done on Uri Geller in 1973, at the time an established performer, that detail how Mr. Geller was able to replicate pictures drawn in another room with varying degrees of accuracy, leading researchers to write that he "demonstrated his paranormal perceptual ability in a convincing and unambiguous manner".

Drawings made by researchers in a sealed room during the testing of Geller.

The files were released in large part to the efforts of journalist Mike Brown, who raised more than $15,000 to visit the archives and print them manually to be scanned and uploaded online. 

"By printing out and scanning the documents at CIA expense, I was able to begin making them freely available to the public and to give the agency a financial incentive to simply put the database online," said Best.

Source: BBC News