CREST: Millions of CIA Pages Declassified, Yet the UFO Story Remains Behind a Door

On January 17, 2017, the CIA placed more than 12 million declassified pages online, about 930,000 documents in total. Before that release, many records could be viewed only at four computers in the National Archives reading room in Maryland. A researcher had to travel there, search by file code, and photograph or print the material. When the collection moved to the CIA website, the public could finally search reports about the Cold War, reconnaissance aircraft, terrorism, economics, UFOs, and the remote-viewing programme.

The collection is called CREST, short for CIA Records Search Tool. It is not the entire history of the CIA. It is the portion reviewed under the 25-year declassification programme. Executive Order 13526 requires U.S. agencies to review old records, while still allowing them to keep material that exposes intelligence sources, collection methods, or national security information. Every record on CREST therefore raises a question: what was opened, what was blacked out, and what never entered the collection?