by Charles Lear
At this point in time, most people interested in UFOs are probably used to being able to look at official government documents if they want to do some research. The C.I.A., F.B.I. and N.S.A. all have UFO related documents available online and there is, of course, the enormous collection amassed by John Greenewald Jr. on his site, The Black Vault. One might think that the three letter agencies listed above would have been reluctant to make such documents readily available. This was certainly the case in the early 1970’s when researchers began to use a new tool at their disposal known as the Freedom of Information Act. The F.O.I.A. was passed in 1966 and required that government agencies release documents, not exempt according to the statute’s guidelines, to any citizen upon request. Part of the idea was to provide citizens with insight into the operations of government agencies in the hope that they could play a part in making them more efficient. The act was amended in 1974 and now offered citizens a judicial review if they felt a request had not been responded to satisfactorily. Bruce Macabee, an optical physicist and UFO researcher, was one of the first to take advantage of the act but it was a private group, Ground Saucer Watch, that made headlines after successfully acquiring over 900 pages of documents from the C.I.A. GSW was dissolved shortly thereafter in the midst of financial difficulties but some of its members had already formed Citizens Against UFO Secrecy. CAUS went on to acquire documents from many agencies, and it was because of the efforts of these early adventurers who fearlessly confronted monstrous bureaucracies that we have the resources that are available today.
Ground Saucer Watch was formed in 1957 and its members included scientists, engineers and technicians. William Spaulding, the group’s director, was an aerospace quality control engineer who worked at a company called AIResearch. GSW was based in Arizona and was one of the first groups to respond to the 1975 Travis Walton incident. They achieved national notoriety thanks to a lawsuit filed against the C.I.A. in 1977. Spaulding was seeking the release of requested documents and had retained the services of New York attorney, Peter Gerston who offered his services pro bono. In order for C.I.A. to win, they had to establish that UFOs were a matter of national security (contrary to repeated statements of organizations such as the Air Force) and that they had legal authority to investigate UFOs. While they awaited the outcome, in 1978, GSW members, Todd Zechel, Brad Sparks and others, along with Gerston, formed CAUS in order to “open the war on UFO secrecy on other fronts.” Near the end of that year, the C.I.A. released almost 900 pages of documents and on January 14, 1979, an article appeared in The New York Times detailing some of the revelations.