Documents / FOIA release
This FBI Freedom of Information Act release on Silas M. Newton contains 1951 correspondence between the California Attorney General's office and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. The state office cited Newton as the source for Frank Scully's book "Behind the Flying Saucers" and suspected he was running a large hoax or swindle. Hoover replied that the FBI had not investigated Newton on that matter. An internal note says OSI called the book's claims "hogwash" and that San Francisco agents contacted the state office.
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
# DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE Office of the Attorney General STATE BUILDING, SAN FRANCISCO Mr. J. Edgar Hoover Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation Washington, D.C. Dear Sir: Re Silas M. Newton - No. 835861 The subject named above is cited as authority for a highly fanciful book entitled "Behind the Flying Saucers", written by one Frank Scully and published by Holt in 1950. The gist of the book is that the so-called "flying saucers" are really manifestations of secret and sinister scientific research by the government. Newton's arrest record, as shown by your files, is familiar to us. He is the owner of the Newton Oil Company, a small but active oil producing organization with offices at 315 Franklin Street, Denver, Colorado. He describes himself as a graduate of Yale, which appears to be true and as a geophysicist engaged in secret governmental research. He is apparently wealthy, or at least possessed of sufficient temporary means to live in luxury and dress expensively. His home is at 1929 Whitley Street, Hollywood, but all messages to him, or appointments with him, must be made through the Hollywood Knickerbocker Hotel. One is associated with him in Denver. We are writing you because has stated that a complete investigation of Newton has been made by your Bureau, Presumably this investigation has confirmed his cryptic allusions to his being engaged in governmental research of a secret nature. Other circumstances coming to our attention in the light of his criminal record indicate to us that Newton is engaged in the perpetration of a hoax or swindle of large RECORDED - 132 ALL INFORMATION CONTAINED HEREIN IS UNCLASSIFIED DATE 11/20/03 BY NLCS/0062012PNP INDEXED - 132 100-3244-9 APR128 1951
FOIA release, from the fbi-vault collection. 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. 7 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.