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.
“Frank Scully”1 page
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
TO : The Director Reference is made to your inquiry on the attached routing slip: "Just what are the facts re 'flying saucers'? A short memo as to whether it is true or just what Air Force etc. think of them." In response to your inquiry, Special Agent S. W. Reynolds obtained the following information today (3/28/50) from Major Doggs and Lieutenant Colonel J. V. Hearn of Air Force Intelligence. The Air Force discontinued their intelligence project to determine what flying saucers are the latter part of last year. They publicly announced to the press in December, 1949, that the project had been discontinued. They advised that the press release had been concurred in by the Army and Navy. The reason for the discontinuance, according to Major Doggs and Lieutenant Colonel Hearn, was that after two years of investigation over three-fourths of the incidents regarding flying saucers proved to be misidentifications of a wide variety of conventional items such as lighted weather balloons and other air-borne objects. Colonel Hearn pointed out that the Commanders of the various areas are charged with the security of those areas. Reports concerning flying saucers received at this time will be investigated by the Area Commander and his report submitted to the Air Force Intelligence Division as an intelligence item. Major Boggs and Lieutenant Colonel Hearn made the observation that many of the reported sightings of flying saucers at this time appear to be an outgrowth of recent magazine articles. They reiterated that the Air Force is conducting no active investigation to determine whether flying saucers exist or what they might happen to be. You will recall that the investigation of flying saucers was discontinued by the Bureau in October, 1947, in order that the Air Force could take over such investigations. (62-83594-141-160)
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.