President Joe Biden has announced that he has accomplished his “final certification” of files to be released regarding John F. Kennedy’s assassination, despite the fact that 4,684 documents are still kept secret in whole or partially.
The National Archives has already released hundreds of confidential documents related to the November 1963 assassination of then-president Kennedy. The documents include information from the CIA, FBI, State Department, and other agencies on topics corresponding to assassin Lee Harvey Oswald’s contacts with Soviet and Cuban officials, anonymous suggestions and threats, and investigations into the shooting itself.
One in every of the newly released documents revealed the name of the CIA official who intercepted Oswald’s mail within the months before JFK’s killing: Reuben Efron. It seems Efron had a UFO encounter in 1955 when he was on a train journey through the Soviet Union with Senator Richard Russell, Democrat of Georgia, and an Army colonel. All of them saw what a CIA report called two “alien craft,” though skeptics later argued that they were Soviet aircraft. Russell was among the many Warren Commission members who interviewed Marina Oswald, Lee Harvey Oswald’s wife, in 1964.
Some conspiracy theorists see a connection between Efron and the Kennedy assassination and wonder if he knew greater than he let on. In addition they hope that a bipartisan bill to declassify UFO records will reveal more in regards to the government’s knowledge and involvement in unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs).
“People say there’s nothing significant in these files?” Jefferson Morley, the editor of the blog JFK Facts, told The Latest York Times. “Bingo! Here’s the guy who was reading Oswald’s mail, a detail they did not share until now. You don’t need to be a conspiracy theorist to think it’s suspicious.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is backing a bipartisan bill that would unveil government records on so-called UFOs and unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs). The bill would amend the National Defense Authorization Act and require the federal government to compile all records on UAPs and share them with the general public, unless a review board justifies keeping them secret.
The method mirrors the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, which ordered all files on Kennedy’s murder to be released by the National Archives by 2017. But among the files remain hidden, sparking ongoing public curiosity and a lawsuit by JFK scholars.
Schumer is teaming up with Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.)—the highest Republican on the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity for the Armed Services Committee—to support the amendment. It also has the backing of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.), and Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.).
“Our goal is to make sure credibility with regard to any investigation or record keeping of materials related to Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs),” Sen. Rounds said in a news release. “Relevant documents related to this issue needs to be preserved. Having a central collection location and a good review board to take care of the records boosts the credibility of any future investigations.”