Tier 2finding · orphan-pdfs
Orphan PDFs still served at predictable URLs
Four PDFs are present on the public server but no longer referenced by the live manifest. Earlier versions remain quietly accessible.
The pattern — that the Department of War still serves earlier versions of files at predictable URLs — is itself the finding. **Update 2026-06-15:** one of these orphans (the no-bracket SP 16 [7.18.1963]) just turned out to be the only existing pre-change snapshot of a file the DoW silently OCR'd and republished overnight. See [june-15-silent-ocr-republish](/findings/june-15-silent-ocr-republish).
Evidence
Files present on disk but not referenced by the current uap-data.csv:
dow-uap-d20-mission-report-southern-united-states-2023.pdf** — byte-identical to the Iraq version (see Finding 1, *d20-location-swap*).59_214434_sp_16_7.18.1963.pdf** — was byte-identical to the bracketed version that *is* referenced (md56039f96c52e566b69f3a3d774b7653fa). On 2026-06-15 the catalogued bracketed version was silently replaced with an OCR'd, smaller version (new md56d2e59fa…). The orphan twin was *not* touched — it still holds the pre-change file at md56039f96c…, making it the only public chain-of-custody record of the pre-OCR version.serial 5 redacted_redacted.pdf** (with a literal space in the filename).18_100754_ general 1946-7_vol_2.pdf** (leading space inside the filename).
Sources
www.war.gov/medialink/ufo/release_1
Disk listing diffed against catalog