Documents / FOIA release
This FBI file section collects July 1947 Bureau memoranda, teletypes, citizen letters and newspaper clippings about reported flying discs. They cover recovered objects at Twin Falls, Idaho, Shreveport, Louisiana, Black River Falls, Wisconsin, and Laurel, Maryland, many judged to be pranks, plus a Grafton, Wisconsin priest's circular saw blade the Milwaukee office called a hoax. A Dallas teletype reports a disc recovered near Roswell resembling a high altitude weather balloon with radar reflector. Kenneth Arnold's own account of his sighting is also included.
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# Office Memorandum . UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT TO : DIRECTOR, FBI DATE: July 8, 1947 FROM SAC, MILWAUKEE. SUBJECT: FLYING DISCS OR SAUCERS TELEPHONE CALL FROM MR. FLETCHER AT THE BUREAU AT 8:30 AM, 7/7/47 ATTENTION: 67C Attached are newspaper clippings from the Milwaukee Sentinel and Milwaukee Journal of July 7, 1947. For the Bureau's information, United Press and Associated Press telephoned me at my residence about three or four times between 1:00 A.M. and 2:30 A.M., July 7, 1947. The United Press representative informed me that Father JOSEPH BRASKY had stated on interview by a Milwaukee Sentinel reporter, one BILL JEEKS, (Phonetic) that he, Father BRASKY, was going to call the FBI concerning the contraption, which apparently was identical with one of the flying discs recently publicized throughout the country. The United Press representative desired to know if we had any statement to make on the matter. I informed him that I had no official comment, other than "No Comment." Since I have contacted the United Press representative on various occasions, I asked him what the actual details were, and he stated he did not know except that the interview of the priest reflected that a circular saw had been found with some devices attached to it. The Associated Press called me shortly after the United Press representative did, and on being advised that I had no comment to make concerning the story, I asked the Associated Press representative what the actual facts were, and he informed me that as far as the Associated Press was concerned, the facts were that a circular saw had been found and a story had been obtained from a priest who had been drinking quite heavily. The Associated Press representative informed me that apparently the United Press desired to get a statement from me denying or affirming that the FBI was investigating the matter. I informed the Associated Press representative that apparently someone was suffering under a misinterpretation of any comment I had made, and possibly some reporter was in an embarrassing position if a story had gone out over the wire services. I then telephoned the United Press representative, who apparently in the meantime had been called by the Associated Press in an effort to straighten out the United Press. No reference was made to the FBI in the Milwaukee Sontinel article appearing July 7, 1947, but the Milwaukee Journal article, which is attached, referred to an alleged statement by Father BRASKY that he attempted to get in touch with an FBI Agent whom he knows. Father BRASKY has never contacted the Milwaukee FBI Office or any Agent concerning his find. In my opinion, this is just another hoax story, since a photograph of Father BRASKY with the saw indicates no basis for any investigation by HKJ:JJ 62-0 Enclosures ANO 3000 FIRST PX 9
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. 79 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.