John Greenewald Jr.
| John Greenewald Jr. | |
 John Greenewald Jr.. Image: Max Moszkowicz, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikipedia. | |
| Born | April 17, 1981 United States |
|---|---|
| Occupation | FOIA researcher, author, podcaster |
| Known for | Founding The Black Vault (1996, age 15) |
| Notable works | Beyond UFO Secrecy (2008); Inside The Black Vault (2019); Secrets from the Black Vault (2020) |
| UAP involvement | |
| Role | FOIA requests on Immaculate Constellation (Dec 2024); cited at the Nov 2024 hearing |
| Status | Researcher |
John Greenewald Jr. (born April 17, 1981) is an American researcher who runs The Black Vault, a digital archive of U.S. government documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) [1]. He started the project in 1996 at age 15 and by 2015 had filed more than 5,000 requests [1].
He is relevant to the Immaculate Constellation story because he was cited by Michael Shellenberger at the November 2024 House hearing and later filed FOIA requests about the alleged program [2][3].
Early life and The Black Vault
Greenewald grew up in the San Fernando Valley and attended Alemany High School in Los Angeles. He has said his interest began after reading online about a 1976 UFO incident over Iran; he filed a FOIA request and received the document from the Defense Intelligence Agency [1]. The Black Vault became an online repository that The Washington Post has called a civilian repository of such records [1]. ABC News and Vice credited him with posting about 130,000 declassified Project Blue Book pages [1]. He does not describe himself as a journalist and, according to Vice, pays FOIA fees himself, funding research partly through crowdfunding [1].
UAP-related FOIA work
In April 2020 he asked the Navy for more Pentagon UFO video; the government later confirmed more footage existed but withheld it on national security grounds [1]. He appeared in the 2021 documentary series UFO [1].
Immaculate Constellation
At the November 2024 hearing, Shellenberger cited Greenewald as saying the government had increasingly restricted UAP information since 2017 [2]. On December 3, 2024, Greenewald filed a FOIA request with the National Security Agency for records on Immaculate Constellation as part of a broader check of several agencies. NSA replied on December 6 with a Glomar response citing FOIA exemptions 1 and 3, an appeal filed December 9 was upheld, and The Black Vault reported the denial on September 17, 2026. He wrote that a Glomar response is not evidence that the program exists, and that the Pentagon said it has no record of it [3].
Assessment
Greenewald’s role as a documented FOIA researcher is well established; his archive is a primary source for many PURSUE-era and earlier UAP records. The Immaculate Constellation responses he reported show official non-confirmation, not confirmation or disproof.
Selected works
- Beyond UFO Secrecy (2008)
- Inside The Black Vault (2019)
- Secrets from the Black Vault (2020)
See also
- Immaculate Constellation
- NSA
- November 2024 House Oversight UAP hearing
- Michael Shellenberger
- Matthew Brown
- PURSUE Release 01
References
- ^ “John Greenewald Jr.,” Wikipedia (cites Washington Post 2019, Vice 2015 and 2018, ABC News 2025, Columbia Journalism Review 2020). en.wikipedia.org
- ^ “House Hearing on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Transcript,” Rev.com. rev.com
- ^ John Greenewald Jr., “Pentagon Says It Has No Record of ‘Immaculate Constellation’ — NSA Denies Appeal and Won’t Say Whether It Does,” The Black Vault, September 17, 2026. theblackvault.com