What the Navy's Scott Bray UAP email FOIA released, and what it withheld

This brief quotes the response letter and four opened chains. It is not a summary of 1,019 pages. The extractor window does not authorize that kind of close.

Host file, verified this run: PDF 1.7, 1,325 pages, 47,925,504 bytes, not encrypted. Created September 23, 2026. Modified September 24, 2026. The Navy's responsive count is 1,321. Do not swap the host page count with the letter count. A public host label of 1,324 pages does not match pdfinfo. Do not print 1,324.

Letterhead: Department of the Navy, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations. Serial JL/26U106709. Date: September 23, 2026. The signature block is signed for R. Strong, Director, Navy FOIA/PA Program Office. The name of the person who signed for Strong is not in the text layer. Do not invent it.

The request was dated May 24, 2022, and received the same day. Tracking number DON-NAVY-2022-008648. It asked for emails sent to, from, cc'd, or bcc'd Scott Bray, then Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence and Director, Naval Intelligence Activity, containing UAP, UFO, UAPTF, AATIP, AAWSAP, and the related phrases named in the letter.

To locate records, the FOIA office contacted the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Warfare (OPNAV N2N6) for the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force. N2N6 searched its electronic files and reported 1,321 responsive pages.

After review, 302 pages are exempt in their entirety. The remaining 1,019 are exempt in part. The letter lists exemptions (b)(2), (b)(3), (b)(4), (b)(6), and (b)(5). It does not give a page-by-page withhold log. Do not assign one exemption to all 302 pages.

The extractable block is one table. Read the row before you merge it with the next row.

Layer | What the record is | What it is not

September 23, 2026 letter | 1,321 located, 302 withheld in full, 1,019 released with cuts. Signed for R. Strong. Serial JL/26U106709. | A case-resolution card, or a reading of every released page.

(b)(5) in that letter | The worked example is predecisional talk about FOIA exemptions and redactions in an active FOIA case that was not final. | A finding about craft, beings, or origin.

(b)(3) / 10 U.S.C. § 130(a) | Technical data with military or space application, in the possession or under the control of the Department of Defense. | Proof of non-human technology.

September 2020 legislative review | Dates and committee names for classified briefs. Bray's reply is Thanks, Alexi. | A transcript of what was said in those briefs.

August 20, 2020 aliens mail | A redacted writer says a reporter kept using investigating aliens after correction to unidentified or UAP. | Bray's finding, or proof the task force was hunting aliens.

August 14, 2020 public release | Norquist approved the task force on August 4. Navy leads under the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security. Mission is detect, analyze, and catalog. | The text of the August 11 draft attachment.

The request is a keyword net around one official's mail. A page lands in the package because a term matched, or because it was attached to a thread that matched. That is retrieval. It is not Navy endorsement of every sentence in the thread.

News clips, press queries, and forwarded drafts sit in the same file as official coordination. Quote the document type before you quote the claim.

Exemption (b)(2) is internal personnel rules and practices. Exemption (b)(4) is trade secrets or commercial or financial information that is confidential or privileged. Exemption (b)(6) is personal privacy. None of those three is an origin finding.

Exemption (b)(3) is invoked through 10 U.S.C. § 130(a). The letter's gloss is technical data with military or space application in the possession of, or under the control of, the Department of Defense. Military or space application is the statute's category. It is not a recovered-craft finding, and it is not a finding that the data are non-human.

The letter's (b)(5) paragraph is specific. It says release would reveal internal predecisional deliberations about application of the FOIA exemptions and redactions in an active FOIA case that was not finalized at the time of the discussions. That worked example is about the FOIA process. It is not a UAP origin finding.

Other pages in the package also carry (b)(5) marks, including draft talking points marked pre-decisional. A mark is not a content list. Do not read every black box as the letter's FOIA-process example, and do not read any black box as hidden extraterrestrial findings.

On August 20, 2020, a redacted writer told a thread that included Jay Stratton and Matt Cummings that news media kept linking the UAP Task Force to investigating aliens, and that it would be good to tamp that down.

The same note says an otherwise serious major network reporter stood at the writer's desk, trying to get more about the task force and to set up an interview, and kept saying the Navy was investigating aliens. The writer says the correction, repeated, was unidentified or UAP. The reporter still used aliens.

The writer's name is redacted. Do not attribute the correction to Bray. Do not name the network. The page does not name it.

That sentence is a complaint about media wording. Quote the correction. Stop there. It is not Bray confessing that the task force was hunting aliens. It is also not a universal denial of every UAP report. Unidentified is the word the writer says they used. Unidentified is not extraterrestrial, and it is not nothing.

A later note in the same thread, August 21, says the sender tried to stay with neutral language, including in person with Sue, and that Cummings would not listen. Do not expand Sue. Cummings's own reply body in the opened window is withheld. A characterization of Cummings is not Cummings's text.

Bray's August 21 reply on that thread says he concurred completely, that it was not appropriate to reach any conclusions at that point because the task force had just officially been assigned to them the week before, and that they should stick to what they had said before. That is a limit on conclusions. It is not a case resolution, and it is not the August 11 press-release chop.

The public release is a different document from the email chop. Keep the names on the documents that use them. The 2020 mail says Department of Defense, DepSecDef, and OUSD(I&S). The 2026 letter says Department of the Navy. The public release says Department of Defense.

August 4, 2020: Deputy Secretary of Defense David L. Norquist approved establishment of the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force. That date is in the August 14 immediate release, not in a sentence this brief lifts from the unopened draft attachment.

August 11, 2020: a redacted sender told Navy recipients that DepSecDef had directed DoD public affairs to issue a press release on the official standup, that a draft release and related questions and answers were attached for Navy chop, and that the sender would anticipate release the next day, Wednesday. A draft was attached. This brief does not quote the attachment. It was not extracted.

Jay Stratton's August 11 reply says he concurred with Rear Adm. Kelly Aeschbach's recommendation, other than that it looked good to him, and that he was standing by for any guidance from Mr. Bray. A standby line is not Bray's approval.

Bray's August 11 reply the same evening includes a withheld block, then says that if they proceeded with a press release, he recommended the changes in the attached, and that he could give a rationale at the classified level. The closer is All the best, Scott. If we do proceed is conditional. The attachment text is not in this brief. The closer is not approval of the public wording.

August 12 mail acknowledges perspectives and says Bray's comments included Aeschbach's concerns. The opened window does not paste those concerns. Do not invent them.

August 14, 2020: the public immediate release. Navy leads the task force under the cognizance of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security. The mission line is to detect, analyze, and catalog UAPs that could potentially pose a threat to U.S. national security. That is the official mission sentence. It is not the August 11 draft, and it is not an extraterrestrial finding.

Do not merge August 4, the anticipated Wednesday, and August 14 into one clock. Anticipated is not posted.

On September 27, 2020, Bray replied Thanks, Alexi to a legislative-review forward. The surname on the from-line is redacted. Do not complete it.

The review's UAP lines, as written: on September 22, UAP Task Force representatives gave a classified briefing on unidentified aerial phenomena to Reps. Reschenthaler, Armstrong, Garcia, and Tiffany, at the request of Rep. Reschenthaler's office. On September 23, N2N6 gave a classified update to Senate Select Committee on Intelligence professional staff. On September 24, Navy representatives gave a classified update to Senate Armed Services, House Armed Services, Senate Appropriations defense, House Appropriations defense, Senate intelligence, and House intelligence staff.

Those are dates, offices, and names. They are not transcripts. A classified briefing notice does not become a public record of what was said.

Thanks, Alexi is a receipt. It is not concurrence with a finding, and it is not a substitute for the May 17, 2022 open hearing.

On June 23, 2020, Jay Stratton forwarded a press inquiry and told Bray it was the first time he had seen that language, and that he knew the Senate Armed Services Committee was proposing language in the classified annex.

Bray replied Ditto. Read it as I had not seen it either. Do not read it as agreement with an alien claim. The note does not contain an alien claim.

The classified-annex text itself is not in the opened window. Do not quote it. Do not reconstruct it from a later hearing or from a secondary writeup.

A pasted block in the query is committee-report language about collection, reporting, and a director of national intelligence report. That paste is not the classified annex, and this page does not reprint it. The point of the exchange is the Ditto fence, not a second copy of the statute talk.

Name the product: Department of the Navy FOIA response, serial JL/26U106709, case DON-NAVY-2022-008648, September 23, 2026, signed for R. Strong, Director, Navy FOIA/PA Program Office.

Name the counts in one clause: 1,321 responsive pages, 302 withheld in full, 1,019 released with cuts. If you mention the host file, say 1,325 pages and 47,925,504 bytes. Do not print 1,324.

If you mention aliens, keep the August 20 date, the redacted writer, and the correction to unidentified or UAP in the same sentence. Do not put the sentence in Bray's mouth.

If you mention the standup, keep August 4 as the approval date in the August 14 public release, August 11 as an anticipated Wednesday, and August 14 as the posted release. Quote the mission as detect, analyze, and catalog. Do not quote the unopened draft.

If you mention the 302 pages, say the letter withholds them in full and lists exemptions, and that it does not itemize which exemption covers which pages. The worked (b)(5) example is FOIA-process deliberation, not origin.

Keep this page off the May 17, 2022 hearing. Use /intelligence/hpsci-may-2022-uap-hearing for what Bray said in open session. A 2020 email cache is not that hearing, and that hearing is not this withhold log.

Safe citation: On September 23, 2026, the Navy said a keyword search tied to Scott Bray's mail located 1,321 pages, withheld 302 in full, and released 1,019 with cuts. The letter's (b)(5) example is redaction talk in an open FOIA case. An August 20 note, writer redacted, corrects investigating aliens to unidentified or UAP. The August 14, 2020 public release is a separate document and does not identify the phenomena as extraterrestrial.

Unsafe upgrade: the Navy admitted it was investigating aliens, Bray approved the August 12 wording, the 302 pages hide craft, technical data with space application means non-human technology, or this FOIA closes a UAP case.

Do not merge this package with KONA BLUE, Immaculate Constellation, the 2021 intelligence-community reverse-engineering expansion, PURSUE Release 06, or the 2010 injury study paper. Those are other trails. This letter does not adjudicate them.

Do not treat a signoff as concurrence. All the best, Scott on August 11 is a closer after a conditional sentence and a withheld block.

Do not feature the desk phone in Bray's signature block. It is not a finding.

Do not guess redacted names. Do not expand Sue. Do not spell a surname the page does not print.

Do not import a secondary line about who led the task force for the Navy unless you open that sentence in the package and can read a clean header. This brief does not use that line. A dirty text layer is not an org chart.