How FBI FOIA Searches Omit Responsive Records

Expanding Frontiers Research received a final response Friday from the FBI, stating it was unable to identify records subject to the FOIA on Alexander "Lex" Mebane. This blogpost explores reasons an FBI search for records might sometimes overlook material that can be reasonably surmised to exist and is, in fact, responsive to a request.

The late Lex Mebane was well-known in the mid-20^th century UFO community, acting in leadership roles and editing publications for civilian groups that included the New York Saucer Information Bureau. The request submitted by EFR stemmed from a 1963 FBI memo obtained through a previous FOIA request which indicated the FBI interviewed a popular UFO personality, Ivan Sanderson, who identified Mebane as someone who could potentially assist the Bureau in an espionage investigation. Clearly, results of an FBI search for records responsive to Mebane should at least include the 1963 memo already in hand.

“Partially this is limitations of how the FBI's filing processes work, but partially they default to what is easier for them, which is a much less comprehensive search,” wrote Michael Morisy, co-founder of transparency advocate MuckRock, in a Saturday email when asked to comment on the Bureau search process. His understanding is that a more thorough search would require significantly more resources, as the FBI does not have everything fully indexed in a way we might expect by this point in time. The result is a lot of "no responsive documents" responses where common sense, documentation and public knowledge would suggest otherwise, Morisy explained.

The same 1963 FBI memo referenced above also includes mention of Isabel Davis, a UFO investigator and staple of the genre during her era. As was the case with Mebane, FBI documented Sanderson referenced her by name as someone who might help it locate a person of interest.

Two FOIA requests submitted to FBI on the late Davis, most recently in 2025, resulted in no records. This would obviously be another circumstance in which FBI search procedures overlook responsive documents.

From the 1963 FBI memo obtained via the Freedom of Information Act:

'No records' responses received from FBI on individuals named in the above memo:

Although the response to the Davis request acknowledged potentially responsive records were destroyed, it nonetheless seems reasonably apparent FBI search functions rely on some type of index rather than the text of documents themselves. The index may not always contain all the names and other proper nouns that might be referenced in Bureau memos and documents, so sometimes existing responsive records are overlooked.

Morisy generally agreed, suggesting a broad, underlying problem for some time now has been that personnel only perform some specific search methods that generally look for indexed terms. The situation was discussed in a 2014 MuckRock interview with Ryan Shapiro.

A public records expert who had over 600 FOIA requests on file with FBI at the time of the interview, Shapiro described to MuckRock how FBI responds to basic FOIA requests with a search restricted solely to its Central Records System. That's a limited database that may not include all records of interest. Moreover, Shapiro asserted, the primary means by which FBI searches for records is deliberately designed in a way to routinely fail.

“I've often found they do a more comprehensive search on appeal,” Morisy advised EFR, “but haven't found a way to get the more comprehensive search on the first pass.” Researchers may find more success if they request files on a group that the individual was in, he added, or a specific event or investigation the individual got caught up in, concluding, “but it's all more of a black box than it should be.”

The FBI material referenced above is part of an ongoing EFR investigation into the intersection of the mid-20th century FBI, informants and subjects of interest in the murky UFO subculture. See the recommended blogposts below for more information and records received thus far as results of multiple lines of ongoing FOIA requests.

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EFR extends a sincere 'thank you' to supporters for making the holiday GoFundMe campaign a success! Valuable funds were raised to help with reproduction fees required by the National Archives for FBI records already identified through our FOIA requests. If you haven't already done so, please consider joining our supporters at the EFR Patreon or with a donation at our GoFundMe nonprofit page. Lots more in store for 2026!