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.
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
SHREVEPORT, LOUISIANA ADVISES HE OBSERVED A CIRCULAR DISC AT SIX FIVE PM THIS DATE COMING FROM NW DIRECTION. DISC LANDED IN FIFTEEN HUNDRED BLOCK OF TEXAS AVENUE. PICKED UP DISC AT FIFTEEN FIFTY FOUR TEXAS AVENUE. DISC WHIRLING WHEN SEEN IN AIX AND FIRE SPOUTING FROM SIDES. FIRE WENT OUT ON LANDING AND SMOKE ISSUED FIVE SECONDS AFTER FIRE WENT OUT. DISC PICKED UP AND NOT HOT. NOTIFIED G-2 BARKSDALE IMMEDIATELY AND THEY TOOK DISC BEFORE SA ARRIVED. DISC DESCRIPTION-- THIN ALUMINUM DISC SIXTEEN INCHES IN DIAMETER. HAS SMALL COILS TWO INCHES IN DIAMETER AND FOUR INCHES LONG AT THE ENDS OF THE DIAMETER. COILS CONNECTED BY TWO COPPER WIRES TO TWO TERMINALS ON EACH COIL AND THESE WIRES ARE CONNECTED AT THE CROSSING IN THE CENTER OF THE DISC TO AN OBJECT ONE INCH IN DIAMETER BY TWO INCHES LONG, SIMILAR TO STARTER ON FLOURESCENT LIGHT. CENTER OBJECT HAS ON UPPER END - --MADE IN USA--MADE SOUND LIKE A POLICEMAN-S WHISTLE AND SMOOTH SIDE TOWARD EARTH IN FLIGHT. BARKSDALE FIELD AGREED IF NOT MARKFULL WOULD TURN OVER TO FBI IF WE WANT IT SUBJECT TO SUPERIOR INSTANCIONS. NAMES OF ALL PERSON WHO HANDLED DISC BEFORE ARRIVAL OF AGENT SECURED. BARKSDALE FIELD MAKING PHOTOS. WILL SECURE AND FORWARD PHOTOS TO BUREAU. BELIEVED PRESS AWARE OF INCIDENT.
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.