Documents / FOIA release
This Federal Bureau of Investigation file section collects 1947 records on flying disc reports, including field office memoranda from Butte, Seattle, Salt Lake City and San Francisco on sightings in Washington, Montana, Utah and Idaho. Several were attributed to burnt paper or weather balloons, and Wright Field judged debris from a Danford, Illinois farm a hoax unconnected to Project Mogul. After the Army Air Forces described FBI work as chasing "ash can covers, toilet seats and whatnot," the Bureau discontinued its flying disc investigations and referred reports to the Air Forces.
“Anderson”3 pages
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# Report on a "Flying Saucer"
At or about 12:05 p.m., July 29, 1947, a sedan, driven by Steve Herrmann and carrying R. J. (Bob) Madden in the front seat and Karl Harmann in the rear seat, was proceeding northwesterly along the road leading from Canyon Ferry to York, both in Montana some 25 miles N.E. of Helena.
When at a point approximately 1/4 mile N.W. of Canyon Ferry, (as shown on Forest Service Map to be in the NE $ \frac{1}{2} $ of NE $ \frac{1}{2} $ of Sec. 10 T1ON R1N) Karl suddenly shouted "See it! See it! There's a flying saucer!" Steve immediately slowed down and gradually brought the sonan to a stop, he and Bob meanwhile scanning the sky in the direction pointed by Karl in an effort to see the "flying saucer", but without success.
Approximately ten seconds elapsed between the time Karl reported seeing the "saucer", coming over the horizon at high speed from the southwest, (Karl first thought it a meteor) and travelling northeasterly, and the bringing of the car to a stop.
As the car came to a stop, Steve, Karl and Bob, simultaneously, saw the following:
Directly ahead, (N.W) 2 to 3 miles distant and approximately 3000 ft. above the ground, a bright disc hovering and fluttering in the air. Descending and rising through a vertical distance of fifty or a hundred feet for a period of about five seconds then, while at the top of an ascent, the "disc" suddenly swooped to the Northeast at tremendous speed and disappeared into the clear air within a distance of 200 ft. That is to say it did not pass beyond an obstruction to further visibility but "melted into thin air" as if because of tremendous speed.
This disc was, from the viewpoint of the observers, apparently 3 ft. diameter, circular and of no great thickness - approximately 3 or 4 inches.
The sky was blue with scattered small clouds, the sun was shining brightly and the disc gleamed and shimmered in the bright sunlight as if covered with highly polished nickel.
After the "disc" disappeared from view, the sedan and its occupants proceeded northwesterly along the road, but could discern no evidence of the presence of the "disc" along or adjacent to that therofare.
It is to be remembered that the dimensions as stated above were as they appeared to the observers some 2 or 3 miles from the "disc" and the true dimensions must be considerably greater.
/ s/ R. J. Madden,
R. J. MADDEN,
Division Plant Engr.
The Pac. Tel. & Tel. Co.
62-83894-175
ENCLOSURE 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. 77 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.