The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency has said for more than twenty years that it holds reports of Americans seen alive in enemy hands that cannot be released because they are still under investigation. In the summer of 2026 the agency said the investigations do not exist — and that several of the reports cannot be found. This page reproduces the agency’s own lists, so that a reader can see what is on them. The argument about what they mean is on the Classified! page.
Since at least 2004 the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) has said it holds numerous generic live-sighting reports of Americans held prisoner in Vietnam and Korea. Generic means a report that is not associated with a specific, named missing man. Because the reports were under investigation, the Pentagon said, they had to remain classified until the investigation was complete — even though it has held some of them for decades. The oldest was received in November 1979.
The lists below are the agency’s own, published on dpaa.mil and captured from the site in July 2026.
“As a matter of policy, all firsthand live sightings remain classified while being analyzed or investigated. Once a sighting is resolved, the initial report and all associated documents are reviewed for declassification, and as appropriate, released.”
Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, generic case file for the Vietnam War, dpaa.mil
The Vietnam page lists nineteen reports. The reason for classification given against every one of them is Ongoing. The same page states that “Documents being withheld were last reviewed for declassification on 27 May 2004,” and it is headed “LAST UPDATED: DECEMBER 2004.” A list published on a government website in 2026, describing records withheld because they are under active investigation, had not been updated in twenty-two years.
| Index | Date of report | Topic | Reason for classification |
|---|---|---|---|
| 412 | 091641ZNOV79 | Americans in North Vietnam | Ongoing |
| 18786 | 250401ZMAY92 | Caucasian POWs in hospital | Ongoing |
| 20032 | 230628ZMAR98 | Caucasian at hospital | Ongoing |
| 20608 | 090850ZAUG99 | Americans in Lao cave | Ongoing |
| 21195 | 190016ZJUN03 | Westerners in Cambodian prison | Ongoing |
| 21196 | 272311ZMAY03 | American in southeastern Cambodia | Ongoing |
| 21197 | 161723ZJUN03 | Westerners in Cambodian prison | Ongoing |
| 21212 | 151709ZJUL03 | American in central Vietnam | Ongoing |
| 21315 | 041812ZSEP03 | American in Cambodian jail | Ongoing |
| 21316 | 041745ZSEP03 | Americans in the Western Highlands of Vietnam | Ongoing |
| 21498 | 042042ZMAY04 | Americans in north central Laos | Ongoing |
| 21505 | 271930ZMAY04 | Americans in north central Laos | Ongoing |
| 21527 | 242110ZJUN04 | American captured by Khmer Rouge | Ongoing |
| 21549 | 131951ZSEP04 | American captured in coastal Cambodia | Ongoing |
| 21— | 032057ZNOV04 | U.S. POWs in Cambodia | Ongoing |
| 21— | 151900ZNOV04 | U.S. soldiers captured in Cambodia | Ongoing |
| 21— | 182308ZNOV04 | Three U.S. POWs in Cambodia | Ongoing |
| 21— | 242206ZNOV04 | Three U.S. POWs in Cambodia | Ongoing |
| 21— | 242202ZNOV04 | Three U.S. POWs in Cambodia | Ongoing |
The second is the Korean War list. Here the reason changes: for seven of the eight reports it is not Ongoing but Foreign Govt Info — the material is withheld because a foreign government supplied it. Every one of these reports concerns Americans in North Korea, and they run from 2002 to 2006, half a century after the war ended. The Korean page also states that “Documents being withheld are undergoing a declassification review which started in June 2008” — a review still unfinished eighteen years later.
| Index | Date of report | Topic | Reason for classification |
|---|---|---|---|
| 020402 | 220601ZAPR02 | U.S. servicemember in North Korea | Ongoing |
| 020804 | 070655ZAUG02 | U.S. defectors in North Korea | Foreign Govt Info |
| 021005 | 040531ZOCT02 | U.S. POWs in North Korea | Foreign Govt Info |
| 031101 | 180136ZNOV03 | American POW in North Korea | Foreign Govt Info |
| 040601 | 220023ZJUN04 | American POW in North Korea | Foreign Govt Info |
| 040901 | 130017ZSEP04 | UN POW in North Korea | Foreign Govt Info |
| 041201 | 192230ZDEC04 | American POWs in North Korea | Foreign Govt Info |
| 061001 | 130613ZOCT06 | American defectors in North Korea | Foreign Govt Info |
A third list on the same site runs to thirteen memoranda for record from December 1996 to March 1997 — interviews with a Russian source, with US Army colonels, with defense attachés in Moscow, Kiev (now Kyiv) and Warsaw, with DIA and DPMO civilians, and a “Game Plan For Russian Source” carrying no date at all. The reason for classification against all thirteen is Ongoing. They are approaching thirty years old.
In a DPAA family meeting in the summer of 2026, Sue Milliner of the National Alliance of Families for the Return of America’s Missing Servicemen asked: why are live sightings from reports back to 1979 still under investigation, and therefore classified, after 47 years? How many further generic sightings received since 2004 remain classified? And how many correlated live sightings — those tied to the name of a specific missing American — are classified now?
What the agency said when a family member asked
DPAA answered on 27 July 2026, in a Memorandum for Record signed by Dr. Jeffrey Johnson, chief of the agency’s Research Division, Indo-Pacific Directorate. Two sentences in that memorandum undo the reason given for withholding the reports for the previous two decades.
“DPAA has no live sighting reports that are currently under investigation.”
“DPAA has no active investigations regarding live sightings of specific POW/MIAs.”
Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, Memorandum for Record, Salesforce Tasker #00043021, 27 July 2026
The memorandum’s appendix gave the status of each report. Three of them the agency could no longer find.
| Index | Date of report | Topic | Status, July 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 412 | 091641ZNOV79 | Americans in North Vietnam | Unable to locate |
| 18786 | 250419zmay92 | Caucasian POWs in hospital | Determined to be associated with Returnee. |
| 20032 | 230628zMAR98 | Caucasian at hospital | Unable to locate |
| 20608 | 090856ZAUG99 | Americans in Lao Cave | Unable to locate |
Indexes 412, 20032 and 20608 are marked “Unable to locate.” A report that cannot be located cannot be under investigation, which was the reason given for withholding it. The same appendix lists nine further reports of Americans seen in enemy hands — among them a witnessed capture in October 1970, two American prisoners seen in Laos in 1969, a capture on Tang Island during the Mayaguez incident, and “a large number of American POWs passing though Ta Mao Commune Area, Cambodia” — that the agency has still not released.
The reports that are no longer classified, and no longer findable
Until the summer of 2026 DPAA listed these generic live sightings as classified because they were still under investigation, including the report received in 1979. After a family member asked about the files at a meeting with the agency, the Pentagon said they were no longer classified.
DPAA says it cannot release all of them now, after all these years, because it has lost several of them — including the much-discussed Vietnam live sighting from 1979.