65 HS1-834228961 62-HQ-83894 Section 002

8-8
()jfi~;~Memorl dum • UN ITED STA'' S G OVERNMENT
TO D. M. DATE:
FROM @
~:a ?.;: ;::,;.;;; _I cs_SUBJ ECT: c::FBS u;:.;ING...,;D_s_
Reference is made to the memorandum to you frolJl t he Liaison
Section dated July 21 , 1947 , setting forth a request from Colonel
Ool br anson of the Intelligence Di.vision of the War Department for the
B.lreau to conduct investigation to determine the origLn of the flying
discs .
OBSERVATIONS:
It is felt that the situation regarding these flying saucers and
flying discs is very similar to the situation which was previously encountered
tu the Bureau during the past war in handling complaints arisi ng out of the
sighting of Japanese baloons . You will recall that at the inception of these
complaints the Blr eau conducted considerable investigation and located numerous
baloons as a cooperative measure for the Army and that after considerable work
had been done, the Arnu then informed that these were military weapons and that
they would take over the handling of these completel y . This they did and in an
extremely short time issued a big press release as to the splendid work of the
Army in locating these Japanese baloons . From the infonnation available thus /
far, it does not appear that these discs should be treated other than as a ~
military weapon. Certainly the B.lreau has no way to determin e what experiments
the Arrrq and Navy are conducting and whether such might be arising out of lexperiments being conducted by them nor do we have any way of determining how
far the Russians have progressed in certain experiments and mether such might I ~
' be the r esult s of experiments by the Russian Array. It s hort, i t would certain.L1/ ;,Y
\ appear that this is a military situation and should be handled strictly tu~
jzm.l itary authorities.1
In this connection it ml..ght be pointed out that our present Portland
case arose out of the fact that two Army Intelligence officers were returning
from an interview of two individuals who reportedly had seen flyin g discs . If
fthe Army Intelligence officers are handling some of these interviews, it is be
ieved that they should be handling all of these interviews , and it is not
believed that the Bureau should be expending its precious manpower on these com
plaints whi ch thus far have no connection with our Russian espionage program.
The military authorities certainly are better equipped to know what they are
looking for than we are and have more facilities for handling any material which
it is necessary to examine as a result of its being reported as a remnant of a
/£'lying disc . It is believed that the fureau is merel y playing bird-dog for tm
Army b'J usin g our manpower to run out these complaints on flying discs .
ACTION~ EX-34 REOO:RDJm> Ibe;). - g_ f!!!t- 31
In view of the recent Bureau fulletin #42 dated July -.; 1921& howl:ver
there is attached a letter to the Ch i cago Office asking that~e,£e°"''j;/'7t,he '
requested investigation.
)\ }.
v:t~";~ 34 f{lyj,1/ •
I