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This section of FBI file 62-HQ-83894 collects Bureau correspondence on flying disks from 1949 and 1950. Most of it concerns a letter to Walter Winchell, passed on by Ernest Cuneo, from Peter Camerlon Jones, who said he saw a top-shaped silver object in the mountains near Los Angeles in August 1947. Los Angeles agents could not find Jones, and Hoover suggested the letter might be a prank. The file also holds a Navy intelligence report on 6 or 7 discs seen over southern Oregon on 27 May 1949, plus letters from members of the public about Chicago and Toronto.
“FBI file”5 pages
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
419 East Main Street Circleville, Ohio 1949 October 8 permanent address: Route 2 Delaware, Ohio Mr. J. Edgar Hoover Director Federal Bureau of Investigation Department of Justice Washington, D. C. Dear Mr. Hoover: It is requested that this letter be returned to the above address and no record of it kept in FBI files. If is it true that the Soviet leaders intend to use the flying disk in an attempt to confuse and terrify the American people, why should we not state to the United Nations that we believe this condition to exist and further request permission from United Nations to fly American printed statements into the USSR in the interests of peace and better understanding between the two nations? To prevent the belief that such a method would be used, be either nation, to carry bombs rather than paper, it should be pointed out that it is not necessary to employ airplanes for the purpose insofar as actually flying over enemy territory is concerned. There are several possible means of placing information at the disposal of citizens of either country via air; I mention small balloons incapable of carrying more than a few pounds, or finned, cardboard disks capable of drifting on wind currents for great distances after release from several miles height. (I reserve the right to claim patent rights to the latter "flying newspaper".) Inasmuch as we have been told that the Communist Party is a very small minority in the USSR, it is impossible to prevent information, printed, from reaching many good people there if flown in by the millions. Of course there would be a penalty in Russia for reading them if caught, but curiosity being curiosity, many would be read and remembered. And no one really believes that children could be prevented from picking up objects floating in from another country. INDEXED - 36 RECORDED - 36 Shall freedom of the press be defended in some countries at cost in lives, yet denied across nations, the latter being contrary to United Nations principles? Yours sincerely, ( x ) m Maurice E. Hatten
Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 209 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.