The Open Files
Browse, search, and pull any file from the index. Every document below links to a primary source.
FORMERLY TOP SECRETProject MKULTRA
CIA's covert program of human mind-control experimentation involving LSD, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, and torture (1953–1973).
TOP SECRET — DECLASSIFIEDOperation Northwoods
1962 Joint Chiefs proposal to stage false-flag terror attacks on American civilians and blame Cuba to justify war.
PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE — UNCOVERED 1972Tuskegee Syphilis Study
40-year U.S. Public Health Service experiment that knowingly withheld syphilis treatment from 399 Black men in Macon County, Alabama.
FBI — EXPOSED 1971COINTELPRO
FBI's covert and illegal program to surveil, infiltrate, discredit, and disrupt domestic political organizations (1956–1971).
ARCHAEOLOGICAL — c. 100 BCEThe Antikythera Mechanism
An ancient Greek hand-powered orrery — the world's oldest known analog computer, predicting astronomical positions and eclipses decades in advance.
CIPHER — UNSOLVEDThe Voynich Manuscript
A 15th-century illustrated codex written in an unknown script that has resisted every cryptanalytic attempt for over 600 years.
OUT-OF-PLACE ARTIFACTThe Baghdad Battery
Parthian-era clay jars containing copper cylinders and iron rods — possibly the world's first galvanic cells, predating Volta by 1,800 years.
ARTIFACT — DISPUTEDThe Saqqara Bird
A wooden bird-shaped artifact from c. 200 BCE Egypt whose aerodynamic profile some claim resembles a glider.
HISTORICAL FIGURE — 1869–1916Grigori Rasputin
The 'Mad Monk' of the Romanov court — a Siberian peasant mystic who held alleged healing powers over the Tsar's hemophiliac son and survived multiple assassination attempts.
OCCULTIST — 1875–1947Aleister Crowley
Self-styled 'Wickedest Man in the World' — occultist, ceremonial magician, founder of Thelema, and alleged British intelligence asset.
ORDER — 1119–1312The Knights Templar
Medieval Catholic military order suddenly arrested en masse on Friday the 13th, 1307, on charges of heresy — their suppressed trial records found in Vatican archives in 2001.
SECRET SOCIETY — 1832–PRESENTSkull and Bones
Yale's most exclusive secret society — initiates have included three U.S. presidents, multiple CIA directors, and Supreme Court justices.
ACKNOWLEDGED — 2013Area 51 (Groom Lake)
USAF facility at Groom Lake, Nevada — officially denied for 58 years until the CIA released a declassified history acknowledging its existence in 2013.
PRIVATE — DOD STUDIEDSkinwalker Ranch
512-acre Utah ranch with documented decades of anomalous phenomena — formally studied by the Pentagon's AAWSAP program (2008–2010).
PARTIALLY OPEN — 1881The Vatican Apostolic Archive
85 km of shelves containing 12 centuries of papal records — renamed from 'Secret Archive' in 2019, with much still restricted.
SOVIET — REOPENED 2019The Dyatlov Pass Incident
Nine experienced Soviet hikers found dead on Kholat Syakhl in 1959 — case reopened in 2019 and officially attributed to an avalanche in 2020.
DECLASSIFIEDOperation Paperclip
Secret U.S. program that recruited 1,600+ Nazi scientists, engineers, and technicians for government employment after WWII.
U.S. NAVY — DISPUTEDThe Philadelphia Experiment
Alleged 1943 naval experiment to render the USS Eldridge invisible — officially denied; primary source Carlos Allende's letters held at the Office of Naval Research.
FBI: 'BOGUS' — DISPUTEDMajestic 12
Alleged top-secret committee of scientists and military leaders convened by President Truman in 1947 to investigate UFO crashes — known via leaked documents the FBI labeled 'completely bogus' but which remain debated.
NEOLITHIC — c. 3000 BCEStonehenge
5,000-year-old megalithic ring in Wiltshire whose construction methods, purpose, and exact astronomical function remain debated.
DECLASSIFIED 1996The Ghost Army
1,100-soldier U.S. Army unit that used inflatable tanks, sound effects, and fake radio traffic to deceive the Wehrmacht — classified until 1996.