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.
“Mons”2 pages
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Ouu-ks of E'fesight May
Explain Disc Mystery
By HOWARD BLAKESLEE
AP Science Editor
Nl!.."'W YORK, J uly 6-{JP)-Certain laws of human eye
sight will explain much of what has been described about
the flying saucers reported from nearly all par ts of the
United States.
At any distance which Is dose photograph of the oval object
to tpe limit of how far a person taken by Yeoman Frank Ryman
can see, all objects appear round north of Seattle, Wash. The Long
or nearly so. This law of sight Island oval came closer and
covers both small things seen turned Into an airplane.
nearby and large ones at great Planes at great distances tend
distances. to look round when light Is re-
Regardless of shape, the ob• fleeted from their sides. Many
ject near the limit of sight looks descriptions of movements of the
round. If the thing is silhouetted flying saucers flt with the com
against a bright sky, as some of mon maneuvers of airplanes,
the flying saucers have been re- singly or In groups.
!ported, then It Is more likely to They flt also with what birds
al Its true shape. look like, flying at a consldei ble
, , distance. However the bird llu-
VE NO STRUCTURE slon is not very common. me
the thing Is seen by reflected of the maneuvering repo ted,
light, as In most cases reported, which took saucers out or ght
It is almost certain to be round, and back Into sight again re
and if the reflections are sunlight, sembles what can be seen while
then the sizes reported are those watching distance airplanes.
which would be expected from SPEED MYSTERY
distant light reflections.
The one outstanding fact about There Is no explanation for re
virtually aJI the saucers Is that ported speeds of 1,000 or more
they ha<.1 no structure - they mlles a n hour. Meteors, although
seemed merely round and flat. they go much faster than that,
That description Cits exactly with do not explain It because the
the tricks that eyes play. This saucers mostly appear in daytime
trickiness varies with differences and there are not enough day-
In weather and lighting. light meteors.
This writer has seen flying Ice crystals forming little round
saucers over Long I sland Sound clouds have been suggested. But
near his home, not only t his year t hese fall to flt In most cases be
but in previous years. They were cause the Ice crystals form at
round, bright and moving tasL altitudes whlch are higher than
most of the saucers reported.
NOT A MYSTERY Nothing published in science or
But they were no mystery be- atomic studies gives the slightest
cause they were light reflected clue to flying sfucers unless the
from the bodies of airplanes that objectg are aircraft.
soon identified themselves by One scientist today said that at
cha, lng course and coming near least a lot of saucers are ex
eno h to be seen distinctly. plained by the rorce of suggestion
L t week this writer also saw which causes a pers,gn to say toIone val flying form which for himself: .. {CLO u~a moment looked exactly llke the "Oh, gel', I !tr it too."
?. ~:..f_m ~ -
16 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.