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.
“Lockheed”1 page
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Federal Bureau of Investigation Washington D. C. S. Charleston, W. Va. September 25, 1949. ## Gentlemen: An incident happened this afternoon which after consideration I felt I should report. I most certainly do not want this incident disclosed, as I do not want any publicity concerning it. If you regard it of no special interest to the F.B.I. please disregard this correspondence. I was flying from (Clark Field) to Parkersburg, W. Va. this afternoon and about four miles airline, southwest of Parkersburg, I suddenly noticed arbright yellow object coming directly towards me. It came at me with such speed, added to my 100 m.p.h. forward speed that it startled me and had passed by in a matter of a couple of seconds. But it passed by about 100 feet under my ship and about 50 feet to my right, and because of the dark green background of the forests below I was able to get a very clear outline of the object, and what I believe is a very accurate description. Color - bright cahary yellow Length- about 15 to 18 inches Diameter- About 4"-in the largest part It resembled a rocket, in fact was about the same shape and proportions as the fuselage of a Lockheed Air Force X-90 No wings but vertical and horizontal fins on rear 1/3 of the rocket. No visable means of propulsion such as propeller, vapor trail, smoke or exhaust. The front of the rocket was very sharp with a needle nose, the needle looked about 6" long and was the size of a lead pencil. The rear end was blunt similar to the rear end of a jet fuselage I was flying my ship, (a Luscombe 8A,NC 1440K) and was traveling about 100 m.p.h. at the time. I was at 3450 ft above sea level at the time. I was flying a compass course of 60 degrees, and the rocket was traveling almost west at 240 degrees. It happened about 2:45 P.M. on the above date. The visability was exceptionally good, about 30 miles. The yellow object looked very sharp and clearly outlined because of the dark green background. If you will refer to the Huntington sectional aerial map this object was sighted over a very small town named Lubeck, which is about 4 miles direct west of South Parkersburg. It appeared to have spent it's force and seemed to be dropping slightly as it passed by, or had been fired or launched from a higher altitude than the altitude I was flying. end My wife was with me but she did not see the object, and I did not tell her of the incident until we had landed at Parkersburg.
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.