Documents / Report
This declassified 1949 Army General Staff file collects Plans and Operations Division routing sheets and memoranda about flying saucers. On 24 February 1949, prompted by radios from Kirtland AFB, P&O asked the Intelligence Division for an evaluation. The ID study found about 20 percent of some 210 incidents explained, mostly as weather balloons. It found no evidence of foreign activity and said the rest were probably natural phenomena. In April the ID said it could not verify Walter Winchell's broadcast claim that the saucers were Russian guided missiles.
From the source:Release of 2026-06-12 This file contains an Evaluation Study of the Phenomenon (Flying Saucers) prepared at the request of the Plans & Operations Divisions of the General Staff, U.S. Army (P&O, GSUSA) to determine if the origin could be traced to natural phenomena or the activities of a foreign power.
“The Advance”2 pages
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MEMORANDUM FOR RECORD: 1. Conversations with the Chief of North Am Br and Office, Deputy Dir P&O (AE) reveal that P&O has not received any evaluation of the flying saucer type of phenomenon. North Am Br feels that P&O, and themselves in particular, have a direct interest in this phenomenon because, until it is properly evaluated, a possibility exists that this phenomenon may have foreign implication. 2. Col Ligon, Intelligence Group, ID, suggests that this Division request ID to make a study on this whole subject insofar as it pertains to continental U.S. ID will properly coordinate their efforts with the AF in this matter. 3. ACTION: Comment No. 1 to ID requesting evaluation study of phenomenon. 4. COORDINATION: ID - Lt Col Ligon, Ext 5509 DD P&O (AE) - Lt Col Dawley, Ext 75303 Exec, P&O - Col Guthrie, Ext 3465 Ch, North Am Br - Col Goodell, Ext 3852 PID - Lt Col Erster, Ext 74341 PID informed.
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Report, from the pursue 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. 25 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.