Documents / Official release
This 1952 file of U.S. Air Force intelligence correspondence on flying objects comes from the Directorate of Intelligence at Headquarters USAF. It records the return to the Coast Guard of a negative of objects photographed at Salem Air Station on 16 July 1952, and requests to Naval Intelligence to analyze the Tremonton film by Delbert Newhouse and the Great Falls film by Nicholas Mariana. It also holds Strategic Air Command report transmittals, letters from members of the public, and an Okinawa object said to have fallen into the sea.
From the source:Release of 2026-09-18 Incident: September - December 1952, Various. This file is an archival collection of U.S. Air Force Director of Intelligence records relating to reported “flying disc” incidents during the period from September through December 1952. Drawn from multiple governmental and non-governmental sources, it compiles a wide range of material associated with reported sightings and official handling of those observations, rather than presenting a single analytical conclusion on the nature or origin of “flying discs.” The contents include correspondence, memoranda, reporting forms, case summaries, distribution and routing material, and other administrative or intelligence-related documentation tied to flying-disc reporting and review during that period. Pages 26-36 of the file refer to an incident reported near Tremonton, Utah, in July 1952, in which a U.S. Navy Warrant Officer recorded film of unidentified objects that the Air Force later assessed were likely seabirds. Overall, the file is a broad documentary collection reflecting how such reports were recorded, circulated, and evaluated in late 1952.
“Wilcox”5 pages
July 31, 1952 Major General John Sanf'ord. War Department Washington, D.C. Sir: General Sanford everybody is taling about the flying saucers I don't know how I ever got enough nerve to write you but I think it is my turn now to p.1t in my nickels worth. As one serviceman to another I think I can talk frank with you. I think I know the man who is responsible for the .f'ly:i..ng saucers, it is a long story but I w.U1 try to make it as brief as possible. In 1929 at an inventor's meeting in Long Beach in the Rainbow Pier I met a man who called himsel.f, at that time, Samuel P. Jones he had a motor that everyone thought was a fake. He would explain it to you but no one would believe him but me. So as a dumb cluck I tried to give the man a helping hand, he said that this motor could be made in any size or horsepower, could be put in ships, locomotives, cars and airplanes. At that tlilme I knew a doctor in Long Beach who bad a clinic and a yacht, I took this Jones to this do"btor thinking that this doctor might finance him for a motor for his yacht. After the doctor talked to the man awhile, the doctor didn't beieve him, thou~ he was nuts, so then I forgot all about this man Jones until World War II. I met this same man in the South Pacific and he was a Skipper in the Army Transport Service. Then after seeing him again and knowing the position he held I took it for granted that he must be pretty smart; not nuts. I became very friendly with this man we chummed together for a coule of years in the South Pacifica and every onee in awhile he 'WOUl.d tak about his invention. I asked him if' this invention was so good why is it that the Government wouldn't take it. This is what he told me, that he had tried to get the Government to take it and they laughed at hmm and he finally got an interview with President Roosevelt and the President told him that at that time he also had an idea be.fore Congress that if it didn't work out they would all go to the insane asylum. He also told him that his idean was a thousand years ahead of time. Later 17\1947 I got a letter from this Jones asking me to come to him, which I did, in H~vre, Montana he had a plane that I would call built with this motor, this was the most damnable looking plane I have ever seen. It was made like a saucer, about 17 feet in diameter and it would fly through the air with a control made from the base of a telephone. Thia I saw with my own eyes. He said that it would fly so fast through the air that the air would melt, and I asked him "how fast will it go", he said actu.all.y he didn't know but would figure it made a speed of 3 to 4000 miles per hour.
Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 253 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.