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.
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
# Office Memorandum . UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT TO : Director, FBI FROM : SAC, Salt Lake City SUBJECT: FLYING DISCS. Remytel tenth instant. On September 10, 1947 an item relative to flying saucers appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune indicating that two young couples, Mr. and Mrs. GAYLON CALDWELL and Mr. and Mrs. RICHARD ANDERSON, Logan, Utah, who had been playing bridge, reported that they saw three brief flights of saucers, the first at 10:40 p.m. and two more before 11:10 p.m. the evening of September 8, 1947. This news article also contained the names of KEITH HUGHES, JOAN CROOKSTON, and Mr. and Mrs. FRED TUNNELL of Logan who had likewise made separate reports of having observed these flying discs. Mr. and Mrs. RICHARD ANDERSON, when interviewed by an Agent of this office, advised that they, in company with Mr. and Mrs. GAYLON CALDWELL, observed approximately a dozen objects flying in group formation at about two or three thousand feet in the air. They stated that they first observed these objects on September 8, 1947 at 10:30 p.m. when their bridge name broke up and both couples went out on the porch. The ANDERSONS believed these objects to be similar in size to pigeons and stated that they seemed to be rather white and illuminated. They informed that the objects could have been birds; however, they appeared to be moving faster than birds as they circled the city in approximately one to two minutes, and then disappeared in a northern direction. Mr. and Mrs. ANDERSON claimed to have observed no wing movement during the flight, and are unable to make up their minds as to exactly what they saw. Mr. ANDERSON informed that Mr. and Mrs. CALDWELL are presently en route to an unknown city in Nebraska. Mr. KEITH HUGHES and JOAN CROOKSTON both advised that they were unable to state how their names appeared in the newspaper as having observed flying success in such as neither had ever had the opportunity to view these flying objects, and the newspaper report was erroneous. Mrs. FRED THUNELL advised that she, her husband, and five other people had observed flying objects between 10:30 and 11:00 p.m. on the evening of September 8, 1947. She stated that they saw five groups, each containing thirty-five to sixty small objects, which were rather yellowish white in color and were circling the city at a high rate of speed. Mrs. THUNELL stated that these objects were several thousand feet in the air and it was impossible for them to determine the size due to the distance, speed and cloudy conditions. Mrs. THUNELL informed that Mr. and Mrs. NORMAN HALF, Mr. Yand Mrs. H. P. ANDRIDSON, and Mrs. BESSIE FENDRICKS were present and observed the flying objects; however, none of them were able to determine what these objects might have been.
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.