Documents / FOIA release

FBI file: UFO, UFO Part 13

Federal Bureau of Investigation · 148 pages · text by OCR

This Federal Bureau of Investigation file section collects 1954 to 1961 correspondence and memoranda about flying saucers. Most of it concerns the Detroit Flying Saucer Club, which the Detroit office reported on from informants and chose not to investigate, while Bureau headquarters said saucer matters belonged to the Air Force. It also includes public letters to J. Edgar Hoover, a 1955 North Carolina sighting report, Leonard Stringfield's 1961 anonymous warning call, and policy reviews that restate the practice of referring reports to the Air Force.

  • p. 49 …regarding the photo graphs showing UFO's in formational flight, which you mention were taken by…
  • p. 53 JET "EXPLODES" CHASING UFO NEAR UTICA, N.Y.: The gamy but saucer phobic press tried pitting…
  • p. 96 …The has been investigating UFO and flying saucer sightings since August 1953. We have a State…
  • p. 97 …Bureau files reveal an inquiry from 1959, regarding the investigation of UFO. He was informed the…
  • p. 98 …SA did not interview merely for the purpose of writing "a memorandum for the files" but…
  • p. 104 …the files." Volunteered the following: "If the FBI has any such data on UFO sightings, it…
  • p. 127 …He also told me he was going to prepare a "memorandum for the files" on this…
  • p. 128 …He instructed me to advise you that the confidential nature of our files will preclude complying…
  • p. 129 …concerning UFOs. That agency submitted a copy of that correspondence to the FBI, Norfolk. Files further…
  • p. 130 …Fort Eustis, Virginia, advised SA that files in her possession reflect that who was born, 2…
  • p. 135 …linked with the afore mentioned ufos? If not, are the files on these cases open to…
(1) "The 'official censorship, ridicule and silence' as stated are not true, nor is the statement 'conceal vital UFO data'. Instead it would be more correct to state that the policy of the Department of Defense is not to release UFO data not substantiated by fact.

(2) "Inference is made of chastism in efforts to obtain information about UFO when in fact the control of such information follows an established policy. The Department of Defense must maintain such controls to insure that data released is based on fact."

(3) *Attempts to extract UFO data from this headquarters [USCONARC] cannot be met. Suggest contact be made with . . . the U. S. Air Force. Any matter received should be considered privileged information and not for release to the public.

(4) "The statements contained herein are not an attempt at 'censorship'. The Army encourages its . . . personnel to speak and write, as long as they stick to the facts, do not reveal classified information, and meet standards of propriety."

Shortly after I transferred from Fort Monroe to the U. S. Army Transportation School at Fort Eustis, Va. I again pulled my end of our tug of war. I wanted to squelch rumors that UFO's were secret terrestrial weapon Pursuing this angle, I wrote privately to the Combat De ment agency at Eustis on March 13, 1960, and asked wheth

Cases discussed

About this file

FOIA release, from the fbi-vault collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. The text was read from the page images by an OCR model; expect the odd misread word. 148 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.