A day after SCI FI Channel announced its unprecedented support for legal action against the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to release its records on the 1965 UFO incident in Kecksburg, PA, NASA informed Lee Helfrich, attorney for the Coalition for Freedom of Information (CFi), that it is releasing 36 pages of documents connected to the incident.
After ten months of pursuing the records in Washington, D.C. through the Freedom of Information Act, NASA has finally responded to public pressure. The Department of Defense and the U.S. Army have yet to release any records.
"For more than four months we have received no response from NASA," said Lee Helfrich of DC based Lobel, Novins and Lamont, "but one day after John Podesta, President Clinton's former chief of staff and member of the Moynihan Commission, and Bonnie Hammer, President of SCI FI Channel, called on government agencies to make public records that are over 25 years old, lo and behold, NASA responds."
"I think its fair to say that we have truly entered the realm of science fiction in Washington, D.C.," said Podesta at a national press conference this week, "when it's fair game to disclose the identity of a clandestine CIA agent but not the records of an unexplained crash in Kecksburg, Pennsylvania that occurred 38 years ago."
"We don't know what is in the documents," said Kean. "They may not be responsive to our specific requests or relevant to our investigation. However, we are cautiously optimistic."
"What we receive will determine our next steps," said Helfrich.
On December 9, 1965, witnesses described seeing a fireball in the evening sky, a controlled landing and the systematic military recovery of an object. As reported by local radio and newspapers, U.S. military personnel cordoned off the area, investigated the site, and left without ever providing a full report.
A hard-hitting expose on the Kecksburg UFO Incident entitled THE NEW ROSWELL: KECKSBURG EXPOSED, hosted by Bryant Gumbel, premieres exclusively on SCI FI Channel on Friday, October 24 at 9PM (ET/PT).
NASA Continues to Stonewall on Kecksburg: Newly Released Documents Raise More Questions, Say SCI FI and CFi
Lawyers for the Coalition for Freedom of Information (CFi) said today that they have concluded NASA is still refusing to comply with a 10-month old FOIA request to release its records on the 1965 UFO incident in Kecksburg. This announcement comes after CFi's careful review of 36 pages released by NASA hours after SCI FI Channel announced its unprecedented support for legal action against the government agency.
"The documents released shed little light on the incident, but are indicative of how hard NASA is trying to prevent the public from finding out what really happened on December 9, 1965," said CFi attorney, Lee Helfrich with the Washington, DC firm of Lobel, Novins, and Lamont.
In another development, last week the National Archives notified researchers for CFi and SCI FI that the U.S. Air Force had declassified some of the records requested. "Our researchers are now poring through these 2800 pages to determine if any are relevant to the Kecksburg incident," said Ed Rothschild, Director for the Coalition for Freedom of Information.
According to Helfrich, "The day after CFi's press conference (October 21) and on the eve of the airing of SCI FI's Kecksburg documentary (October 24), a NASA official contacted me to say the agency was forwarding 36 pages of documents responsive to our FOIA request and apologized somewhat too profusely that it had 'overlooked' sending out the results of its research at an earlier date."
"CFi was determined to give NASA the benefit of the doubt and to assume that the agency conducted a reasonable, good faith search -- especially given that NASA itself had decided back in June that its initial response to CFi's FOIA request was woefully inadequate," continued Helfrich. "But our trust in NASA's reliability proved to be far too generous. It is difficult not to conclude that NASA's response was simply a ploy to undercut the force of CFi's press conference and the audience for its documentary on Kecksburg."
"NASA's stonewalling leaves us no choice," said Rothschild. "We intend to file a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in the coming weeks -- as soon as our attorneys tell us that we have officially exhausted all administrative procedures so as to comply with the requirements of the court."
SCI FI Channel's Hammer also announced that on Friday, November 21 at 9-11 PM (ET/PT), SCI FI will broadcast "Kecksburg UFO: New Evidence," a new special on the Kecksburg UFO incident with updates on the lawsuit, as well as new information and interviews that shed more light on the mysterious 1965 crash.
10-28-2003 03:16 AM
