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.
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# Office Memorandum • UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT TO : DIRECTOR, FBI FROM : SAC, SEATTLE DATE: Sept. 12, 1947 SUBJECT: FLYING DISKS Reported by BRUCE ARLSTRONG and M. A. NICHOLS, Seattle, Washington, August 12, 1947 SECURITY MATTER X The newspaper, Seattle Post Intelligencer, carried an article in the morning issue of August 13 reporting the sighting of flying disks. The article appeared on the fifth page and was headed "Blue Triangle LatestThing Seen In Disks". Under this caption there was a short writeup which stated, in substance, that one BRUCE ARMSTRONG, an electronics technician, and a number of other engineers at the Boeing Aircraft had sighted a mysterious flying object about 2:20 p.m. on August 12. The newspaper report further stated that the object seemed to be fluttering like a leaf, and appeared to be a black or dark blue triangular substance. In this article also appeared another report of a disk supposedly sighted by one M. 7. NICHOLS, 1125 S. W. 102nd Street, Seattle, and NICHOLS described it as a big ball reflecting light, giving it a purplish tinge. Interview with BRUCE ARMSTRONG on August 12 revealed that ARMSTRONG was standing in front of Section D of the Boeing Aircraft Plant with about ten other research engineers and had noticed a small black object flying about 200 feet high, going south over Boeing Field runway. ARMSTRONG further stated, upon interview, that the object appeared triangular in shape and floated in the air like a leaf, and he estimated the speed to be about fifteen miles per hour. ARMSTRONG could not accurately determine the distance between him and the object, but it is noted that Section D is about half a mile from the opposite side of Boeing Field where he supposedly had sighted it. The following other research engineers were also interviewed regarding this object: The consensus of opinion of these men was that the object resembled a black leaf in flight and looked more like a piece of tar paper than anything. The object reached the end of the runway in Boeing Field it climbed into the sky in a southwesterly direction and disappeared. Mr. operator of the control tower for the Northwest Airlines was then contacted. stated that he reviews all reports of objects seen in the vicinity of the field and makes a log of such. reviewed his log but could not see any record of such an item, but upon contact with Mr. who was on duty at the time the object was supposedly sighted, the following information was obtained: stated that about 2 o'clock in the COPIES DESTROYED 270 NOV 18 1954
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.