Uncensored in Declassified CIA Documents "KWBAIL" What Is It?

I'm really surprised nobody recognized this earlier. KWBAIL is a cryptonym, or code word, used by the CIA. Each cryptonym contains a two-character prefix called a digraph, which designates a geographical or functional area. KU was a CIA department, as may be the case with KW.

The rest of the cryptonym is either an arbitrary dictionary word, or occasionally the digraph and the cryptonym combine to form a dictionary word (e.g. OXCART) or simple phrase. Cryptonyms may be written with or without a slash after the digraph (ZR/RIFLE or ZRRIFLE).

Examples include:
DBACHILLES – a 1995 effort to support a military coup in Iraq
HTAUTOMAT – Photointerpretation center established for U-2 imagery
MHCHAOS – Surveillance of antiwar activists during the Vietnam War

Well, in the last hour, Google just doubled its search results for KWBAIL =P

We were kind of in the middle of the Vietnam war - seems like a pretty likely place to put SR-71s in my opinion. I don't know our political status was with the KWB place but worth checking maybe...

I love solving (or attempting to solve) mysteries like this

reply to post by Thermo Klein


Well, according to some random website, the SR-71 needs 3,600 feet to land and 5,400 feet to take off. The runway at KWB is only 2,950ish feet. If the takeoff distance is accurate, then there's no way they were landing at KWB.

I love figuring these things out too.

Just an FYI, the CIA maintains another database called CREST whose documents are not online. The documents are declassified, but can only be viewed at NARA. Go to the 3rd floor, enter the library, ask the desk for the CREST terminals. There are two banks of terminals based on different years of coverage, so you physically have to search from two different CREST terminals. No electronic retrieval, just laser printer output. At least the CIA provides the paper, and a good thing given the size of some of these reports. Needless to say, you will be on camera while at the terminals.

You can search CREST online, but not see the documents. Really annoying if you ask me!

CREST

I have a number of OXCART Vietnam related documents from CREST print outs and will look for your keywords.

reply to post by gariac


That's great! I've never heard of CREST. So, you can take the printouts with you, then? So if I wanted to mosey in there and print the entire database I could? =D

Edit:
There's a document in that database titled "WANTED: A 51ST STATE FOR OUT-OF-BOUNDS AMERICANS" haha

[edit on 8-6-2010 by shmuu]

reply to post by shmuu


I've got a pile of declassified documents from CREST. Taking them is the idea of the exercise. The procedures at NARA are quiet entertaining. The word "classified" has to be crossed out on every document you print BY YOURS TRULY. Oh, and pencil only. No pens allowed in NARA. Oh, don't bring any paper to take notes. Let's not even mention a thumb drive.

So when you are done for the day, you take your papers to the librarian who verifies you did your crossing out of "classified", then the papers are locked up in a document carrier of sorts. You take the carrier to a security desk which then unlocks it for you so you can take the papers out of the building. So I guess the idea is nobody walks the halls with lose paper on them.

There are actually two levels of security. The first level is the usual magnetometer deal you've seen at every court house. On your first visit, once past the first level of security you need to get a NARA photo ID and take a training course (death by Power Point). Once you have a NARA ID, you can get past the 2nd level of security. At that point, nobody seems to be on your case, though I'm sure there are cameras following you. Not everyone in NARA knows about CREST, so you really need to follow the instructions I posted. [Gp tp the 3rd floor, then the library, ask for CREST.]

Needless to say, someone else told me about this database, so basically I'm giving you the same info that was given to me, though the envelope deal was something I wasn't told about.

Now the deal with CREST on the internet is you can at least search for the existence of the papers before taking your trip to College Park (MD), even though you can't see the papers until you are on site.

College Park is a pleasant enough college town with of course no parking to be found anywhere. Some of the hotels in town share a bus that will take you to NARA, though in spite of the NARA website warnings, I found plenty of parking at NARA. It's just in the town of College Park everything is metered, and even then you are lucky to find a spot.

It's not a bad little geeky vacation. If you get bored with NARA, there is a DC Metro station in town, so you can visit all those DC museums.

I took a quick tour of NASA Godard visitors center while in town, but there isn't really much to see there.

reply to post by gariac


If you can really take them home, as much as you want, I don't understand how they aren't all on the Internet right now. I Googled a bunch of random documents by their titles from CREST and consistently got 0 results. You'd think there would be enough people interested in this mountain of formerly classified CIA documents that virtually no one outside the CIA has seen that a few of them would have already gotten them, scanned, and uploaded them as pdfs to some online database by now. Are you not allowed to make them public when you have them? Are they still NOFORN? Is that why nobody's done it yet? Is this a fourth consecutive question?

Well let us see.

Hmm.K-W-B?

In relation to The Vietnam war and aerial photography, SR-71 Blackbird.

How about.....

Kadena
White
Beach
Aerial
Intelligence
Liaison

Not a code word,but an acronym.

Military loves to use them.

Kadena was one of the places SR-71's into .

We called them Habu.

Guys, don't over think something.


[edit on 9-6-2010 by Oneolddude]

[edit on 9-6-2010 by Oneolddude]

We kind of solved this one already but the solution has been roundly ignored in favor of more rampant speculation.

KWBAIL is a cryptonym, or code word, used by the CIA. Each cryptonym contains a two-character prefix called a digraph, which designates a geographical or functional area. KU was a CIA department, as may be the case with KW.

The rest of a cryptonym is either an arbitrary dictionary word, or the digraph and the cryptonym are combined to form a dictionary word (such as OXCART) or simple phrase. Cryptonyms may be written with or without a slash after the digraph (ZR/RIFLE or ZRRIFLE).

Examples include:
DBACHILLES – a 1995 effort to support a military coup in Iraq
HTAUTOMAT – Photointerpretation center established for U-2 imagery
MHCHAOS – Surveillance of antiwar activists during the Vietnam War

reply to post by shmuu


I scanned a number of the documents I got from the CREST system.
CREST Documents

I have quite a bit more I haven't uploaded. One is a document regarding A-12 flights over Asia, but I didn't find anything relevant to the original poster's question. Another is some U-2 related test or mod that is so redacted you have to wonder why it was even released. It involved setting up a test site for the project in the China Lake range. Other documents I have are related to the AF-12, which sounds like an Air Force version of the A-12. Also a list of press released regarding Walt Ray's death and various lies about what he was flying. I have way more EG&G payment documents from the CIA than I uploaded, but they really don't reveal much of anything.

The question is not why people don't upload the documents. Hey, that is work. Rather the question is why doesn't the CIA just put this stuff on line since they already have it in electronic form. It is as if the CIA is mandated to make the documents public, so they release them in a manner where it is a lot of work to view the documents.

====================
My idea of a conversation at CIA HQ:

"Are the documents released?"

"Yes sir. Just visit the NARA, pass first level security, take the crash course on document handling, get a photo ID, pass second level security, go to the 3rd floor, find the CREST terminals, show up on CIA candid camera, print the documents, use the locked document carrier to leave the library, have security unlock the documents."

"Ah, good job! Glad to hear the public is being served."

reply to post by Shadowhawk

It hasn't been been ignored. Nor has their been any conclusion that it's a cryptonym. The only evidence it's a cryptonym is that chopping off the first two letters makes a word. That's a pretty good piece of evidence to start with, but that's not enough to conclude anything. I mean the Knox/Waldo Regional Economic Development and the Kitchener Waterloo Linux User Group meet the same criteria, but they're not cryptonyms; they're acronyms. I haven't been able to find anything else that used the KW digraph, nor could I find it in any of 4 partial lists I found, so that's a strike against it. It could certainly be a cryptonym, but it could also be an acronym or abbreviation. We've found AIL used in to mean "Airborne Instruments Laboratory", "Advanced Imaging Laboratory", or "Applied Imagery Laboratory" in other acronyms. So, to reiterate, while it's certainly possible that KWBAIL is a cryptonym (I mean, these guys do use them a lot), it could just as easily be an acronym or something else. If you have any other details that lead you to believe it's a cryptonym (like another project or facility with the same digraph), then maybe we can lean towards saying that that's probably what it is, but I don't personally believe simply meeting the cryptonym criteria is enough to say that.

[edit on 9-6-2010 by shmuu]

reply to post by gariac


So exactly how much are the JPEG 2000 people paying you? ;P
I kid.

Yeah, I imagine that's precisely why they do it that way. They're doing a damn good job of it too. I'd never even heard of CREST until yesterday.


By the way, thanks for uploading all those documents. I'm going to D.C. this weekend, maybe I'll swing up to Maryland and visit the magical mystery room. How long is the training and is it a scheduled thing?

[edit on 9-6-2010 by shmuu]

reply to post by shmuu


I use jp2000 to keep the file size small and quality high. I've done djvu in the past and got more complaints that jpeg2000.

The training is 10 to 15 minutes. Your ID card is good for a year, and of course it is a cool item to have in your wallet.

I have my doubts about the online CREST being the same as the CREST at NARA since there are two CREST computers at NARA with different databases. As I mentioned elsewhere, a complete search means you do the same keyword search on each server. However, I see no harm in doing CREST searches before you get there, but I suspect searching the real servers is different than on line.

From memory, if you were to view the CREST setup from the interior wall to the window, it goes like this. There is a black metal ventilated box on the floor holding the server, all locked up of course. Then there is a table with 4 PCs on it and 4 laser printers. The PCs say "property of the CIA", which of course adds to the coolness factor. Then there is another table with a similar set up ( 4 PCs and 4 laser printers). Then another server in a box on the floor. Each table is served by one server, and each server has a unique database, hence the need to do searches on both systems.

I was the only person there, so I hopped from table to table and used multiple PCs at the same time. My recollection was that retrieving a page for viewing was slow, so it was far less work just to print everything out. Remember, the CIA is paying for the paper. NARA would never let you bring paper into the facility. Also on the banned list are pens and flashlights. [I have a small flashlight on my key chain and you would think I brought a nuke into the facility given the reaction of the guards.]

NARA rules

reply to post by shmuu


first time posting not sure of the procedure! if are goverments are trying to hide the fact that they know of aliens then there doing a better job of that than anything else they seem to do, and that may be why we are governed so badly because they are covering up stuff so well that the public arent reciving enough attention who knows! why they try and cover it up fatherms me, there is definitley intellgent life out there. if god created the univirse then the amount of space occupied by the earth must be childs play to him. we occupy such a small percentage of the universe so i cant understand that were the only intellegent species in such a vast cosmos!

reply to post by shmuu


first time posting not sure of the procedure! if are goverments are trying to hide the fact that they know of aliens then there doing a better job of that than anything else they seem to do, and that may be why we are governed so badly because they are covering up stuff so well that the public arent reciving enough attention who knows! why they try and cover it up fatherms me, there is definitley intellgent life out there. if god created the univirse then the amount of space occupied by the earth must be childs play to him. we occupy such a small percentage of the universe so i cant understand that were the only intellegent species in such a vast cosmos!