Documents / Official release
This Federal Bureau of Investigation file section, compiled in 1947, collects newspaper clippings, memoranda, teletypes and letters about the summer's flying disc reports. It includes a July 1947 memo on a Grafton, Wisconsin priest's reported disc, which the Milwaukee office learned was a circular saw with wires, possibly a prank. Other items cover a disc found at Black River Falls, reports from Texas and Oregon, a San Diego memorandum on visitors, and Hoover's acknowledgments forwarding information to the War Department.
From the source:Release of 2026-05-08 Incident: N/A, N/A. The FBI's 62-HQ-83894 case file includes investigative records, eyewitness testimonies, and public reports concerning Unidentified Flying Objects and flying discs documented between June 1947 and July 1968. The records include high-profile incident accounts, photographic evidence from sites like Oak Ridge, TN, and technical proposals regarding potential propulsion systems. Additional topics include convention programs, researcher accounts, and extensive media coverage from the period. This file is partially posted on FBI vault with more redactions and some pages missing. Included here is the complete case file with several newly declassified pages and only minor redactions.
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'Saocer' Tales
Buzz in State
Disk Found by a Priest
Is Circular Saw; Others
Seen by Milwaukeeans
From pag~ I, column 3
noticeable tail. When it disap-
peared entirely, it just popped out."
Janesville police reported a tele•
phone call from a Dick Thompson,
who said he saw flying disks about
i
12:15 a.m. Sunday.
t Oshkosh, Mrs. L. A. Davis re-
p ted that she and her husband had
s hted one of the mysterious disks
.,. izzing over the city at 6:t5 p.m.
Sunday.
1 She said they were driving on a
town road six miles west of Osh-
kosh, beaded east toward the city,
when they first sighted the object
"flying very fast and very high."
At first, she said, It looked like an
airplane and then loomed larger and
larger until it "appeared as big as
the sun."
Stop, Ca,r, Disk Vanishes
Lacws 6{ Eyesight Cla~
Reports of Flying Saucers
Her husband stopped the car BO.,..._______
that they could get a •tter look at
the disk, which appeared round and
silvery, but by the time they got out
of the car the object bad dis•
appeared, she said.
At Green Bay, Eugene Le Plant
reported that he and hill 12 year old
son, Duane, bad seen a rapidly mov
ing silver ball or disk about 6:30
p.m. Wednesday while working In
bis garden on the western edge of
the city. Le Plant said he saw the
object silhouetted against a dark
cloud to the north and that he ai
h"~ on watched it for three or to r
mi utcs while it moved away t o tt
no hwest Le Plant said he cou
no estimate the altitude or d
tance, but that it "definitely was n ot
an airplane."
I
B y H OWARD W . BLAKESLEE
A!soclated Press Science Editor
New York, N. Y.-The flying
saucers may be explained by cer
tain laws of eyesight.
All objects appear r o u n d or
nearly so at any distance close to
the limit of how far a person can
see.
It the objects are seen by re-
flected light, as in most cases re•
ported, they are almost certain to
be round, and if the reflections
are sunlight then the sizes report
ed are those which would be ex
pected from distant light reflec•
tlons.
Descriptions of vit'tually all the
saucers as round and flat fit ex
actly with the tricks that eyes
play. This trickiness varies with
differences in weather and light•
Ing.
This writer ha.s seen flying sauc-
ers over Long I sland sound, not
only this year but In previous
years. They were round, bright
and moving fast. But they were
no m ystery because th e y were
light reflected from the bodies of
airplan es that s o on identified
themselves by changing course
and coming near enough to be
seen distinctly.
Many descriptions of m o v e •
ments of the flying saucers fit
with the common maneuvers of
airplanes, s I n g I y or in groups.
Some of the maneuvering report•
ed, which took saucers out of sight
and back into sight again, resem
bles what can be seen w hi I e
watching distant airplanes.
W hether planes arc guided, pl
lotless or jct, they all would look
the same at great distances.
Mirages, Traveler Says
Philadelphia, P a. -(JP)- Dr. Aurel
Aczel, editor of a H ungarian lan
guage newspaper, expressed belief
that the !lying sau,·ers were mi
rages-possibly circularly distort•
ed reflections of real airplanes
many miles away. A world-wide
traveler, Dr. Aczel said:
"Years ago I have seen similar
things on the Egyptian desert and
on the Buszta (Hungarian plain).
At sea I have also seen miragt of
ships known to be a great dist ce
away.
"In July and August, and s e
times even in June, atmosp ric
conditions are especially adapta
ble to the creation of mirages." Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 185 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.