Documents / FOIA release

FBI file: UFO, UFO Part 16

Federal Bureau of Investigation · 169 pages · text by GLM-OCR

This Federal Bureau of Investigation file section collects 1949 Army intelligence reports of unidentified aerial objects seen around Camp Hood, Texas, forwarded by the San Antonio office, which told the Director it was reviewing and destroying such reports unless they held FBI interest. It also has 1957 FBI liaison memoranda on a radar-tracked object near Montauk Point and Benton, Pennsylvania, judged unlikely to be a Soviet operation. The file also includes a civilian Flying Saucer Researchers release arguing that saucers probably come from Mars.

Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.

Memorandum Coach to Pelmont UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECT REPORTED ON SEPTEMBER 20, 1957; INTELLIGENCE ADVISORY COMMITTEE - WATCH COMMITTEE

over the U.S. It is unlikely that a Soviet aircraft could conduct a mission at this speed and altitude and return to Soviet territory. The Soviets are given credit for the capability of a 'submarine launched cruise-type missile of low supersonic performance" and a range of about 500 nautical miles; however, there is no evidence of the existence of such a missile by the Soviets.

The Watch Committee also examined possible Soviet motives for launching a one way missile on an operation over the U.S., and it was concluded that there would be little motivation at this time except possibly a psychological or retaliatory motive. The Watch Committee ruled out one way reconnaissance operations on the likelihood that the results would be of small value and the risk of compromise would be very great. (This possible retaliatory motive by the Soviets could be in response to U.S. flights to a U.S. "Project Aquatone" flight over the USSR which was detected on September 9, 1956, by Soviet planes and mentioned in my memorandum of September 19, 1957.)

ACTION:

The above is submitted for information. Since the Air Defense Command is still investigating this report, further information will be reported as a more conclusive evaluation can be made.

Mr Bar

Cases discussed

About this file

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. 169 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.