Documents / Official release
This U.S. Air Force file from late 1947 collects correspondence about flying discs among Air Materiel Command at Wright Field, Army Air Forces headquarters and the Fourth Air Force. It includes General N. F. Twining's 23 September 1947 opinion that the phenomenon is real and not fictitious, and a 30 December 1947 directive that Air Materiel Command set up a project to collect and evaluate reports. It also covers photographs from Jefferson, Oregon that were judged to be film defects, a theory put forward by Mrs. Merchant, and material on the Horten flying wings.
From the source:Release of 2026-05-08 Incident: 12/30/47, N/A. NARA Record Group 18, catalogue id 100754. This file contains memorandums and correspondence related to flying disc/saucer sightings and that those are a matter of concern for the Air Materiel Command.
μ .RQ.-J 3 (20 MAY 44 ) RESTRICTEDHEADQUARTER S ARMY AIR FORCES ROUTING AND RECORD SHEET TALLY NO. FILE NO. Flying Saucer Phenomena ·I ro , Deputy Chief of Air Staff for Research & Development DATE 22 August 1947 COMMENT No. --"1,---....,.... FROM: AC/AS-2, Air Intelligence Requirements Division Lt Col Garrett/nc/4544 Collection Branch 1. From a detailed study of certain reported observations on the flying saucers, selected for their veracity and reliability, it is appar ent that s everal aspects of their appearance have a common patterne 2 . Before pursuing its investigation of these objects any further, this Office r equests assurance that no research project of the Army Air Forces, at present being t-flown, has the following characteristics and that it may therefore be assumed • recent flying saucer 11 .ll\Ystery11 is not of United States origin: a. Surface is metallic - indicating a metallic skin, at least. b. When a trail is observed, it is a lightly col ored blue-brown haze, similar to a rocket engine's exhaust. Contrary to a rocket of the solid type, one observati on indicates that the fuel may be throttl ed, which would indicate a liquid rocket engine. c. As to shape, all ob@ervationo @tate that the object i a circular, or at least ellipticai, r i at on the bottom and s11ght1y domed on the top. d . Size estimates pl ace it somewhere near the size of a C-54 or Constellation as they would appear while flying at 10,000 •. e. Some reports describe t wo tabs located at the rear and symmet rical about • a,d.s of flight motions f . Flights have been r eported containing f rom thr ee t o nine objects, flying good formation on each other, with speeds always above 300 knots. g. The discs oscillate laterally while flying along, which could be snaking. ~~Q~-s~ROBERT TAYLO!i 3RD Colonel, Air Corps Chief, Collect ion Branch Air Intelligence Requirements Division AC/ AS-2 RESTRICTED J•ll e,f . 1-F ( • t t 20 IIA V 44 } PAGE_
Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 28 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.