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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.
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# FLYING SAUCERS-THE REAL STORY: U.S. BUILT FIRST ONE IN 1942 Jet-Propelled Disks Can Outfly Other Planes Observers of "flying saucers" aren't just seeing things. They're real-aircraft that conform to accepted laws. Sky disks, manned by regular pilots, can hover aloft, spurt ahead at tremendous speed, outmaneuver conventional craft. No official announcements are being made yet. But about the only big secret left is who makes them. Evidence points to Navy experiments. The real story on "flying saucers" is finally coming to light. What the saucers are, how they operate, and how they have been tested in U.S., all can be told in detail at this time. That story, without violating present security regulations, points to these basic conclusions by engineers competent to appraise reports of reliable observers: Flying saucers, seen by hundreds of competent observers over most parts of U. S., are accepted as real. Evidence is that they are aircraft of a revolutionary type, a combination of helicopter and fast jet plane. They conform to well-known principles of aerodynamics. An early model of these saucers was built by U. S. engineers in 1942, achieved more than 100 successful test flights. That project then was taken over by the Navy in wartime. Much more advanced models now are being built. Just where present saucers are being built also is indicated by evidence now available. In more detail, the story pieced together from nonsecret testimony of responsible U.S. scientists, private observers and military officials, is this: Early models of the flying saucer, pictured on this page and the next, were built by U.S. Government engineers of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronau tics. Similar flying-saucer projects were begun in Germany and Italy at the same time, in 1942. The first U.S. model, designed by Charles H. Zimmerman, of NACA, was elliptical in shape, powered by two piston engines and driven by twin propellers. It had a maximum speed between 400 and 500 miles an hour. More important, it could rise almost vertically and its minimum speed for landing was only about 35 miles an hour, a great advantage in military and naval aircraft. And it was far more maneuverable than conventional military planes. Idea behind those original flying-saucer projects, both in U.S. and abroad in Germany and Italy, was to overcome basic drawbacks of conventional aircraft by new techniques. A plane that could rise almost straight would not need long airfields, could be used from any cleared area just behind front-line troops or from the deck of any Navy combat ship. If that plane, in addition, had great speed and more maneuverability, it could probably outfly any conventional aircraft. In United States, the first model seemed to fulfill these requirements, but the lessened stability of the wingless craft required more research. Present flying saucers apparently have overcome this problem of stability by use of very advanced design. An analysis of reports submitted by competent observers show this: U. S. 'SAUCER'-1942 MODEL a combination of helicopter and fast jet plane What they look like, first, is described in well-documented accounts. Those accounts show saucers to be exactly 105 feet in diameter, circular in shape. They have what appear to be jet nozzles arranged all around the outer rim, just below the center of gravity. They are made of a metal alloy, with a dull whitish color. There are no rudders, ailerons, or other protruding surfaces. From the side, the saucers appear about 10 feet thick there are no exact measurements from this angle in publicly available accounts. They are built in three layers, with the center layer slightly larger in diameter than the other two. That is the picture agreed on by qualified observers of saucers in flight-commercial aircraft pilots, fighter pilots who have chased these aircraft, trained airplane spotters, high-ranking Army and Air Force officers. It is backed by exact measurement made by a group of scientists last April near White Sands Proving Ground base, with instruments set up to observe highaltitude balloons, who suddenly observed a saucer and tracked it for several minutes, thereby getting reliable data on its size, speed, altitude and maneuverability. How they operate now can be told in some detail, too. Based on this description, the probable technique used by current saucers is explained by a top-level Government aeronautical engineer in this manner: Power for these aircraft, at their present stage of development, obviously is supplied by jet engines. Each saucer appears to have a series of variable-direction jet nozzles around its rim, with a complicated central control system. Fuel used is unknown-the exhaust flame has been observed to be red-orange in some cases, blue in others, miss-
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