Documents / FOIA release
This is part five of the FBI's UFO file, a set of Bureau memoranda and reports from 1947 to 1949. Most of it covers the FBI's inquiry into the Maury Island flying disc story in Tacoma, which concluded that the disc fragments were ordinary rock formations and that the story was a hoax. It also examines the fatal crash of a B-25 at Kelso and finds no sign of sabotage. The file includes other items: the Rhodes disc photographs, a proposed flying saucer convention in Alexandria, Louisiana, and ash from a fire near Scranton that someone suggested came from a flying saucer.
“Wilcox”1 page
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
# Office Men dum UNITED TO : The Director DATE: August 11, 1947 FROM : Mr. D. M. Ladd SUBJECT: FLYING DISCS In connection with your request to be advised as to the facts concerning newspaper reports of flying discs in the Portland area and the reported conference of army officials in Portland concerning flying discs, the Portland Office has advised that Leaveritt G. Richards, aviation editor of the "Oregonian," has stated that Captain William L. Davidson and Lieutenant Frank M. Brown of the Fourth AAF Headquarters, San Francisco, were in Portland on July 27, 1947. While in Portland they interviewed Dick Rankin, an experienced pilot, who had reported that he observed, on June 14, a formation of ten flying discs over Bakersfield, California. Richards added that Davidson and Brown had also interviewed the following four experienced pilots who were among the first to report seeing discs, Kenneth Arnold, businessman from Boise, Idaho; Captain E. J. Smith, a co-pilot; Ralph Stevens, United Airlines and Dave Johnson, aviation editor, Idaho"Statesman." In order to determine the purpose of these interviews Richards contacted Major General Twining of Wright Field Ohio, and from him gained the impression that the AAF instituted this investigation to wash out the disc reports since they are definitely not of AAF origin. On Friday, August 1, the plane in which AAF investigators, Captain Davidson and Lieutenant Brown, were flying, crashed at Kelso, Washington and both were killed. The wreckage was screened by AAF Intelligence from McChord Field. The "Tacoma News Tribune" and through them the United Press put out a story that the plane was carrying parts of a disc which had struck a boat owned by Harold Dahl and Fred Chrisman. It has also been inferred that this plane was sabotaged to prevent these disc parts from being examined. ## STATUS Investigation by the Bureau has reflected that this plane was definitely not carrying parts of a disc and there appears to be no substantiation of a subotage charge. For your further information there is attached a blind memorandum setting forth in more detail the results of the investigation surrounding the above plane crash. No further inquiry is being made in this matter. ## ACTION Air Force Intelligence has been advised of the results of our investi-
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. 74 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.