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…
they had been engaged in producing or testing a saucerlike craft during the 1952 sighting crisis. I never got an answer; instead the post G-2, Col. summoned me to his office and instructed me to explain the motives for my inquiry.

After assuring that I had not intended to undermine local security measures, but had merely posed an honest question, he recommended I be more prudent in the future. Here, we mustn't reproach Col. too severely, because his job was to abide by the military intelligence axiom of "never underestimate a potential enemy." This axiom no doubt inspired the following Eustis policy, a policy which was probably the basis for

"A great part of the information sought by people who do not have the best interests of the United States at heart is obtained from unclassified sources through apparently innocent requests. Any unusual request for information concerning the installation, our personnel, or other data, should be brought to the attention of the Assistant Chief of Staff, Q-2."

You may see now that the sources as well as the fruit of my UFO research are subject to scrutiny by all interest authorities. This fact became even clearer several months

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.