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FBI file 62-HQ-83894, section 7

Department of War · 205 pages · text from the file's own layer

This section of FBI file 62-HQ-83894 collects Bureau correspondence and memoranda on flying saucers from 1952 to 1954. It holds letters from the public, which J. Edgar Hoover forwarded to the Air Force's Office of Special Investigations, and a 1952 teletype about a saucer-shaped light over the Savannah River Plant. It also includes an FBI Laboratory examination of the burned cap of scoutmaster D. S. DesVergers, which found no identifying residue, and instructions to field offices to refer disc reports to the Air Force.

  • p. 5 …Ina s much as the matter of the /lyin g saucers ts bet n~ i n…
  • p. 13 …Director Ths Inspector General The Pentagon rashtngton 25, D• From: John Edgar Hoover, Federal Su bject…
  • p. 15 …lnvsattga~tona The Inspector General Deparnent of t he A1r Force The Pentagon Washington ?.51 D…
  • p. 25 …the Director of Special Tnuestigattons1 The Inspector General, Department of the Air Force, The Pentagon, Washi…
  • p. 30 …available to The Honorable, The Secretar y of t;he Atr Force , The Pentagon, Washtno ton…
  • p. 35 …the Director of Special Investigations, Phe Inspector General, Department of the Atr Force, The Pentagon, Kash…
  • p. 46 …c . ., and t o The Hono r abl e, of Defense, Th e Pentagon, »ashingto n…
  • p. 85 …he Inspector General Department of the Air Force, The Pentagon , ashington, D. C. Att: Mr. Gilbert…
  • p. 145 …Inveet1gatione The Ins~ctor General :De~tment of tha ld.r Force Tlle Pentagon ~ ash.ington…
  • p. 161 …o/ Special Inueattgattons The Inspector General epartment o • the Air orce The Pentagon ashington 25, D…
  • p. 178 …After I had written to the Pentagon about my invention., a rejection arrived. From Salzburg I…
  • p. 181 …ati gations The Inspector q•neral Department o/ the Atr Force 7'he Pentagon Washington 25…
  • p. 187 …r.oith ahe Honorable, The Secretary of the Air Force, The Pentagon, Waahington 25, D. c…
  • p. 202 …co~municating wtth The Honorable, Tho Secretary o/ the Air Force, The Pentagon, ashington 85, D…
---tronomers, whom J ' r"1 lled "our best
advisers ... in ••~ss of visitors
from elsewhere, ~ ;aph the sky
continuously, but they had reported no
saucers. The G eneral was reminded
that many of the people who had told of
seeing the most spectacular things were
considered the most reliable. He replied
that he had no intention of discrediting
them, but the fact remained that none
of them had offered data of the kind a
scientist would find useful. An Air
Force officer whom General Sam
ford personally knew to be a com
petent witness had told him of seeing
a saucer in the Middle East. This
man, too, had been unable to obtain ac
curate measurements. "We have many
reports from credible observers of in
credible things," the General remarked.
Like General Moore, his predecessor
in Project Saucer days, General Sam
ford denied that the Air Force was at
tempting to cover up secret experiments.
When he was asked if tl1e saucers might
be the guided missiles of a foreign coun
try, he replied that he didn't see how, on
the basis of their weird performances,
they could be unless "someone" had
achieved a means of developing unlim
ited power-"power of such fantastic
higher limits that it is a theoretical un
limited; it's not anytl1ing that we can
understand"-and utilizing it under
conditions in which no mass is involved.
As for the latter, the G eneral told the
press, drawing a laugh, " You know,
what 'no mass' means is that there's
nothing tl1ere."
W HILE General Samford's inter
view probably reassured the pub-
lic as evidence that the Air Force was
still on me job, it did nothing to lessen
the nation's saucer-consciousness. The
reporters had hardly rnanked the Gen
eral for his comments when, on Au
gust Ist, a Coast Guard photographer
produced a picrnre showing four bizarre
lights burning brilliantly in a daylight
sky. He said he had taken it over Salem,
Massachusetts. The next day, a H ar
vard astrophysicist called the photograph
worthless because it was accompanied by
no scientific data, such as temperature
distribution and altitude. On August
6th, an Army physicist at Fort Belvoir,
Virginia, creato6 the equivalent of flying
saucers in his laborat0ry by introducing
molecules of ionized air into a partial
vacuum in a bell jar, and three days
later an internationally known authori-
ty on atmospheric conditions said of the
physicist's experiment, "I know of no
conditions of the earth's atmosphere,
high or low, whi~h would duplicate,
. .
,
page 81, 82

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