I’ve been on a wild goose chase asking around the National Archives for clarification on the UAP records transfers. I had some emails in limbo for months with no responses and just started getting traction of being referred to various emails. I mainly wanted to confirm the date agencies are expected to comply and I was requesting copies of the metadata spreadsheets that will be provided by each agency. Perhaps coincidentally, NARA just released a new memorandum today confirming September 30, 2025 as the date agencies are expected to transfer records. Keep in mind that NARA would have 30 days after receipt to make records publicly accessible on-site and 180 days to upload to their site.

The memorandum touches on the metadata I’ve been asking about, but still no word on making the full metadata spreadsheets publicly available. The metadata spreadsheets would make it clear what each agency is transferring and help better track compliance. I reached out to projects.researchservices@nara.gov earlier this week, though I’m still awaiting a response.

In the meantime, I’ve been tagging UAP records on their site. I’ve found quite a few records that haven’t been added to their main UAP page. However, I’ve also seemed to reach a limit with their search page. Searching for user tags on their site is buggy, but NARA confirmed their tech team is working on optimizing this search feature. There is also a 10,000 record cap on searches and user tag results aren’t properly displaying total records. This also put a snag in my tagging, since I was going to export all result IDs to match up against search terms to see what records are left to tag. Hopefully their upcoming fix will help with that.

So, a bit of a wait for agencies to comply. Though, some could start trickling in from now until that date. There’s ample that NARA already had online that’s well worth checking until then.