Documents / FOIA release
This Federal Bureau of Investigation file release gathers memos, teletypes and letters from 1949 and 1950 on flying saucer reports. Most of it covers a March 1950 claim by a Knoxville radio technician that his surplus APN-7 radar detected an object over Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Navy radar never confirmed the object, and Air Force examiners judged his equipment unreliable. Other items include a cardboard saucer hoax near Elmira, New York, a pilot's 1949 formation sighting in Oregon and a Denver claim of a crashed disc.
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
On the morning of March 6, 1950, again contacted Special Agent OIU, and advised he had again observed the object at about the same altitude over the Oak Ridge area and he estimated the object to be of approximately the same density as would be caused by a DO-4 at that altitude. Again, Colonel was contacted by Special Agent OIU and Colonel said that he intended to take some electronic equipment to the house with which they could notally check the electronics of his radar equipment to determine whether or not it was accurate, particularly in view of the fact they had checked some of the findings with regard to known aircraft detected during previous visits and found him to be off to a considerable extent regarding speed, elevation and altitude. During the afternoon of March 6, 1950, all day of March 7, and the morning of March 8, 1950, attempts were made by Special Agent OIU, be get in touch with to make an appointment with Colonel and Captain and could not be located. According to his office he had left town and it was not known when he would return. In summary, therefore, it seems to be the general opinion that the actual existence of an object at such an exceptional altitude is quite improbable and no explanation is yet known as to just what was detected by observation on his screen or, in fact, whether anything was detected. On the afternoon of March 6, 1950, Special Agent telephoned Special Agent of this office and advised that two representatives of the 14th Air Force with headquarters at Greenville, South Carolina, had arrived in Knoxville and contacted him with regard to making an appointment with these representatives advised they did not feel it sufficiently important for them to remain or to make a return trip inasmuch as was unavailable. This information is being furnished to the Bureau in detail inasmuch as it is the understanding of this office that Colonel was much perturbed in the manner in which this matter was handled and has written letters to his Commanding Officer, U. S. Air Forces Material Command, Wright Field, concerning it. These letters by Colonel apparently were prompt from the fact that the 3rd Army Intelligence representative and the Air Force Intelligence representative have both been instructed to act as observers only, with no authority to act in the situation. In addition thereto, AEC felt that their responsibility had been discharged upon motifying the 3rd Army. The Bureau was obviously interested only from an observer's viewpoint and no question of jurisdiction in this regard was raised.
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. 66 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.