Documents / FOIA release
This FBI file section, from 1947, gathers Army Air Forces counterintelligence reports and FBI memoranda about the summer's flying disc reports. It includes a Boise newspaper pilot's sworn statement describing a black object he filmed on 9 July 1947, interviews with a United Air Lines captain and a Hamilton Field soldier, and a Pan American crew's orange object near Boston. Other items cover the Tacoma disk fragment story, which was admitted to be false, the fatal B-25 crash at Kelso, a coded "Radio Ham" message dismissed as a hoax, and an Air Defense Command assessment that "something is really flying around."
“Wilcox”1 page
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## FBI SEATTLE FLYING DISCS, S. M. - X. RETEL PORTLAND TO DIRECTOR, SAN FRANCISCO, AND SEATTLE AUGUST FIVE LAST. INTELLIGENCE OFFICERS MCCORD FIELD, WN., ADVISE THAT IN THEIR OPINION AND FROM THEIR INVESTIGATION THERE IS NO QUESTION OF THE CRASH OF THE B- TWENTYFIVE AT KELSO, WN. APPROXIMATELY TWO FIFTY A. M., AUGUST ONE LAST HAVING BEEN CAUSED BY ANY SABOTAGE. THEY STATE THEIR INVESTIGATION INDICATES THE LEFT ENGINE BURNED OUT AN EXHAUST STACK WHICH CAUSED THE WING TO BURN AND BREAK OFF. THE LEFT WING AS IT BROKE OFF TORE OFF THE TAIL AND THE PLANE CRASHED INTO THE GROUND KILLING CAPT. DAVIDSON AND LT. BROWN INTELLIGENCE OFFICERS OF THE FOURTH AIR FORCE WHO WERE RETURNING FROM MCCORD FIELD, WN., TO HAMILTON FIELD, CALIFORNIA. THE CREW CHIEF AND A HITCHHIKER PARACHUTED TO SAFETY FROM THE PLANE. ONLY FOUR MEMBERS WERE ABOARD THE PLANE, DAVIDSON AND BROWN BEING PILOT AND CO- PILOT AND HAD NO CHANCE TO ESCAPE WHEN THE WING BROKE OFF. LT. COL. DONALD L. SPRINGER, A- TWO ADVISE XXX OFFICER FOR THE FOURTH AIR FORCE, HAMILTON FIELD, CALIFORNIA, ADVISED THAT CAPTAIN DAVIDSON AND BROWN WERE SENT FROM HAMILTON FIELD TO INTERVIEW AT TACOMA, WN., REGARDING THEIR REPORT OF SEEDING SOME FLYING DISCS OVER MAURY ISLAND, WN., AND THAT THEY OBTAINED SOME OF THE DISC FRAGMENTS. CRISMAN AND DAHL ARE PARTNERS IN A LUMBDER BUSINESS AT TACOMA, WAHINGTON.
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. 111 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.