Judge forces NASA to take a giant leap in FOIA suit

After four years of foot dragging, NASA must conduct a thorough search of its agency files for evidence of a UFO landing 40-years-ago in rural Pennsylvania, a federal district court judge has ruled, according to a story in the Chicago Tribune.

Leslie Kean, a freelance reporter working with support from the SciFi Channel, filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit back in 2003 seeking to force the space agency to turnover documents related to an incident in 1965, in which an unidentified object allegedly fell from the sky and landed in Kecksburg, Pa.

After drawing the ire of federal district court judge Emmet Sullivan for its lack of diligence in responding to Kean’s FOIA request, NASA agreed to extensively search for the requested records and pay $50,000 in attorney’s fees and costs, the Tribune reports.  NASA is due back in court next week to update the judge on its progress.