The archive, cut a different way.
The six pillars sort files by subject. Collections sort them by question — and they cross pillar lines, because the interesting groupings usually do. A collection is a curated reading list, not a tag: every file in one was put there deliberately.
Unexplained
Cryptids 17 files
Animals reported but never catalogued — the apes in the treeline, the necks in the lake, the winged things over the bridge.
The Mothman of Point Pleasant (1966-1967)
The November 1966 first sighting by four witnesses at the TNT area. Approximately 100 subsequent reports through 1967. The December 1967 Silver Bridge collapse.
The Cottingley Fairies (1917-1920)
Five photographs by cousins Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths near Cottingley Beck. Promoted by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in his 1920 Strand Magazine article.
The Patterson-Gimlin Film (1967)
The 59.5-second Bluff Creek 16mm film of an apparent large bipedal hominoid. The 1998 Heironimus and 2004 Morris confession claims.
Unexplained
Unsolved Murders & Serial Cases 17 files
Killings the record documented in full and the law never closed — the ciphers that named no one, the victims who were never identified.
The Zodiac Killer
Five confirmed Northern California murders 1968-1969 by an unidentified killer who sent taunting letters and ciphers. Z408 solved 1969; Z340 solved December 2020.
The Somerton Man (1948): The Tamám Shud Case
An unidentified man found dead on an Adelaide beach in 1948. Identified July 2022 via DNA genealogy as Carl 'Charles' Webb. Cause of death still unknown.
The Hinterkaifeck Murders (1922)
Six members of a Bavarian farm family killed with a mattock over the night of March 31, 1922. Strange events preceded the killings. Still officially unsolved.
Declassified
Government Human Experiments 16 files
The collection where the conspiracy theory is the documented history: what U.S. agencies did to people who had not agreed to it.
MK-Ultra: The CIA's Twenty-Year Mind-Control Program
What the surviving documents prove, what was destroyed before disclosure, and what's still classified about the agency's experiments on civilians, soldiers, and prisoners from 1953 to 1973.
Project ARTICHOKE: The CIA Interrogation Program That Became MK-Ultra
A 1950-1953 CIA program of chemical, hypnotic, and physical interrogation research, run out of the Office of Security under Morse Allen and absorbed into MKULTRA in April 1953.
The Tuskegee Syphilis Study
The US Public Health Service's forty-year experiment on 600 Black men in Macon County, Alabama. Penicillin became standard care in 1947 and was deliberately withheld.
UFOs
Government UFO Programs 16 files
The official investigations, from the 1948 Project SIGN estimate through to the Pentagon's current office — the paper trail, not the sightings.
Project Blue Book (1952-1969)
The USAF investigation that reviewed 12,618 reports and classified 701 as unidentified. Ruppelt, Hynek, the Robertson Panel (1953), the Condon Committee (1968-69).
Project SIGN (1947-1949)
The US Air Force's first UFO investigation, at Wright-Patterson. The post-Arnold 1947 wave, the Mantell and Chiles-Whitted cases, the disputed 'Estimate of the Situation' favoring an interplanetary origin, and General Vandenberg's rejection of it.
Project GRUDGE (1949-1952)
Project SIGN's debunking-oriented successor. The 1949 Grudge Report concluding UFOs posed no threat, the period of institutional neglect, and Edward Ruppelt's revitalization that produced Project Blue Book.
Ancient
Lost Treasures 9 files
Riches that demonstrably existed and then went missing — looted by an army, sunk with a ship, sealed in a tomb nobody has reopened.
The Oak Island Money Pit
Discovered 1795 in Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia. 230 years of excavation: Onslow Company (1804), Truro Company (1849), Old Gold Salvage with FDR (1909), Triton Alliance.
The Beale Ciphers (1885)
Three ciphertext documents published in 1885. B2 decrypted using the Declaration of Independence as key; B1 and B3 undeciphered after 140+ years.
The Amber Room
The ~6-ton amber chamber built 1701-1707 for Frederick I of Prussia, given to Peter the Great in 1716, looted by Nazis from Tsarskoye Selo 1941 and last documented at Königsberg Castle 1944.
Conspiracies
WWII Anomalies 7 files
The period that generates more anomaly stories than any other, and the specific reason it does: real secret programmes, running alongside real rumour.
The Roswell Incident (July 1947)
The crash near Corona, NM. Mogul balloon explanation (1994 USAF report) vs. continued speculation about the recovery.
The Philadelphia Experiment (1943)
The alleged Navy invisibility experiment on the USS Eldridge. Origin: 1955 letters from 'Carlos Allende' to Morris Jessup. Allen's 1980 admission to Moore.
The Battle of Los Angeles (February 1942)
The pre-dawn anti-aircraft barrage over Los Angeles less than three months after Pearl Harbor. ~1,440 rounds fired. Secretary Knox: 'false alarm.' Secretary Stimson: '15 aircraft.'
Other ways in
Start here — twenty files chosen to show how the archive works, sorted by how each case actually ended.
Browse — every file, filterable by pillar, era, topic and status.
Dispatches — what changed in the record recently.