LANDMARK COURT SETTLEMENT REQUIRES NASA TO RELEASE DOCUMENTS ON MYSTERIOUS UFO CASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:                     
Contact: Leslie Kean                        
October 26, 2007                         

LANDMARK COURT SETTLEMENT REQUIRES NASA TO RELEASE DOCUMENTS ON MYSTERIOUS UFO CASE                           

New York, N.Y. — On the heels of the news of NASA’s
attempt to withhold survey data on aviation safety problems, the
Coalition for Freedom of Information (CFi) today announced the
unprecedented settlement of a lawsuit against the space agency in U.S.
District Court for the District of Columbia.

As result
of NASA’s refusal to release its records concerning the 1965 Kecksburg,
PA UFO incident and subsequent stonewalling, CFi filed a Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit in December, 2003, as part of a broader
FOIA campaign supported by SCI FI Channel.

Presiding U.S. District Judge Emmett G. Sulliivan approved a
settlement that requires NASA to comb through hundreds of documents in
specified locations and provide copies to Leslie Kean, investigative
journalist with CFi and plaintiff in the lawsuit, under the watchful
eye of the courts. NASA is required to declassify relevant documents,
explain any redactions, and to pay Kean’s legal fees as part of the
settlement.

John Podesta, former Chief of Staff for President Clinton and
President of the Center for American Progress, who has supported Kean’s
FOIA effort since 2002 commented, "The time to pull the curtain back on
this incident is long overdue. Leslie Kean’s victory is a triumph for
open government and the spirit of inquiry."

Kean’s attorney, Lee Helfrich, of the Washington firm Lobel,
Novins & Lamont, had made the case that NASA was recalcitrant in
its response to Kean’s requests under the Freedom of Information Act.
"It is unprecedented to have achieved success at forcing an agency to
do  this kind of extensive historical search under FOIA without
Congressional intervention," Helfrich stated.

Kean has been seeking documents about the crash of an unknown
object in Pennsylvania that occurred over forty years ago.  Witnesses
described seeing a fireball in the evening sky, a controlled landing
and a systematic military recovery of a spacecraft-like 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 of the incident other than to dismiss it as a
meteor.

"Finally,
we hope to acquire the relevant documents about Kecksburg that are
required by law," says Kean. "I look forward to working with NASA on
the resolution of the terms set out by the court and to providing the
public with the information it has been waiting for."

The US government has for years resisted releasing records on
unidentified flying objects when requested under the FOIA.  CFi does
not make any assumptions about the origin of the Kecksburg object, but
defines UFOs simply as airborne phenomena that have not been identified
or explained. 

Additional information on the Kecksburg incident and the NASA lawsuit, including the settlement document, can be found at: www.freedomofinfo.org.

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