Documents / FOIA release
This Federal Bureau of Investigation file section collects 1947 to 1949 correspondence, memoranda and newspaper clippings about flying disc reports. It includes Hoover's replies to citizens, a Maine woman's account of a drifting object judged probably a weather balloon, a Richmond memo on a cigar-shaped object seen over Radford, Virginia on May 12, 1949, clippings on the Chiles and Whitted sighting near Montgomery, a Flyin' Saucer toy promotion, and agent interviews with witnesses in Vermont and a pilot near Bethel, Alaska.
“The Pentagon”2 pages
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Office Memorandum . UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT TO : DIRECTOR, FBI DATE: 4-22-49 FROM SAC, LITTLE ROCK SUBJECT: UNKNOWN SUBJECTS; WADE H. HARRISON - INFORMANT O PLYING DISCS FORT SMITH, ARKANSAS (4-16-49) WACE H. HARRISON, residence address Route 1, Box 293, Fort Smith, Arkansas, is employed as a Special Delivery messenger by the Fort Smith Post Office Department. HARRISON stated that at 5:25 p.m., Saturday, April 16, 1949, while delivering special delivery mail in Fort Smith, he stopped his automobile at a signal light located at the intersection of North Eleventh Street and Grand Avenue. He glanced up at the stop light and observed a brilliant object moving in a southeastern direction. He presumed the object was approximately 2 miles high. He got out of his automobile and pointed up with the suggestion that other automobile drivers, stopped for the signal light, could see the object. He does not know who any of the other people are or what they saw. He was obliged to move on after the light changed and the drivers began honking their horns. He watched the object until it was obscured by the line of trees in that section. He estimated he watched it travel some 3 or 4 miles before he lost sight of it. He stated the weather was clear, visibility was good, and there were no clouds near the object. The object made no noise perceptible to HARRISON. However, he commented that he was stopped at an intersection where the traffic was heavy and there was considerable noise. He first thought possibly he had seen some type of a reflector on an airplane, but could not locate or hear a plane anywhere. HARRISON drove to the 1400 Block of North "C" Street, where he observed an Army officer, wearing the insignia of a major or lieutenant colonel, standing back of the officer's automobile. He stopped and asked the officer if he had observed the flying object. The officer, name unknown to the informant, answered negatively and then remarked, "I am glad other people are also reporting seeing flying objects." The officer then related that the day previous, Friday, April 15, 1949, while the officer was traveling out of Oklahoma City toward Fort Smith, his wife observed a flying object in the sky very similar to that described by HARRISON. The officer stated he saw the object too, but furnished no more information. DOS:ere 98-0 Enc. AMSD EX-118 62-1.114-161 RECORDED·119 EX-118 CPIES DESTROYED 27.0 NOV 18.1964 MAY 3 1949 INDEXED 119 19 APR 2014 67c
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. 129 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.