National Security Agency
NSA Technical Journal: ‘Maybe It's Related to the Phase of the Moon…’ (1972)
Study · written 1972 · released 16 September 2026
Why this matters
A heavily redacted 1972 NSA Technical Journal article, released in 2026 more than nine years after the FOIA request of 6 August 2017. The title alone invites speculation about what an intelligence agency found worth studying. A specimen of how much remains hidden even in 50-year-old technical papers.
Read the original
https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/nsa-releases-heavily-redacted-1972-technical-journal-article-after-nine-year-foia-wait/
Hosted by The Black Vault
Tags
Part of a collection · step 5 of 9
Cold War Signals Intelligence
A 1972 technical paper that is still mostly redacted fifty years on.
Cite
National Security Agency. "NSA Technical Journal: ‘Maybe It's Related to the Phase of the Moon…’ (1972)." 1972. Released 16 September 2026. https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/nsa-releases-heavily-redacted-1972-technical-journal-article-after-nine-year-foia-wait/ (accessed via The Quiet Archive, QA-0143).
Shelved nearby
- 1966 QA-0133NSA · Study
NSA Technical Journal: ‘Coupon Collecting and Cryptology’ (1966)
A mathematical paper by Marie Capozza from the Fall 1966 NSA Technical Journal, applying the classic 'coupon collector' probability problem to cryptology.
- 2010 QA-0135NSA · Study
NSA ‘Point Forecasts’: technology forecasting studies (brain–network interfaces, terahertz, energy harvesting)
Eight NSA technology-forecasting studies on privacy and anonymity, brain–network interfaces, advanced antennas, terahertz electronics and energy harvesting, released in 2026 in response to a FOIA request filed on 25 May 2011.
- 1995 QA-0015NSA · Official history
American Cryptology during the Cold War, 1945–1989 (Thomas R. Johnson)
The NSA's own four-volume classified history of U.S. signals intelligence from the end of World War II to the fall of the Berlin Wall, by agency historian Thomas R. Johnson.
- 1992 QA-0137NSA · Correspondence
NSA records on the Pentagon's 1992 search for missing Cold War reconnaissance aircrews
Records released by the NSA in September 2025 and published in October 2026, detailing a 1992 Pentagon effort to work out whether crews of shot-down Cold War reconnaissance flights had been captured by the Soviet Union, China or others.