To be fair, if the letter response was directly to the letter in the article (there appears to be a day's difference) then recovered materials from UAPs or UFOs was what was asked for.

It's certainly interesting.

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)

Did I say it did?

We know ATIP [Link] existed when the US denied they even cared about UFOs.
Project Blue book had one version of explanations for the public and another for their own research. The military only wanted to cover things up.
Scientists were publicly ridiculed for even thinking about this stuff. We see similar tactics all over politics today. Look at global warming. No one is allowed to question it.

An alternate theory to Aliens is that the government is deflecting attention away from it's own secret projects of course the UFO believers will say "well they would say that" and round and round we go.

I will believe it when irrefutable evidence is produced until then I am undecided.

One more point

But the evidence does not support that. Sure the US might well have used UFO reports to their advantage, but these things have been going on since the 1800s in modern times and probably well before. See WW2 'Foo Fighters' as an example.
Why would the US secretly spend money and time investigating something they knew was fake?
If we have gravity defying technology we would have had to have invented it decades ago for that to fit.

1947. The same year as Roswell.

I'll keep my hand phaser ready.