Documents / Official release
This Federal Bureau of Investigation file section (62-HQ-83894, Section 4) collects 1947 to 1949 correspondence on flying discs. It includes Portland police officers' accounts of a silvery object over the city on September 11, 1947, an Alaska pilot's July 1947 sighting near Bethel, citizen letters answered by J. Edgar Hoover, and a 1948 Air Defense Command directive on disc investigations. The FBI replied that it was conducting no flying disc investigations. Later items concern William Albert Rhodes's disc photographs and a Los Angeles letter judged a probable prank.
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.
“Socorro, New Mexico”1 page
WJRE<JL8/cro/.1k NEPA Project, P. o. Box E C Oak Ridge, Tennessee 10Febru.8.171949 0p y M:r. G. J. Rathman Chief', Investigation Section Security Division u. S. Atomic Energy Caamission P. O. Box E Oak Ridge, Temeesee Dear Mr. Rathman Thie is in response to your letter dated 16 December 1948, subject "Photographs", with inolosures, addressed to Major D. J. Grant at this site, oonoerning photographs taken during the month of July 1947 by Mr. William Presley ot 218 Illinois Avenue, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, of an unidentified object that appeared to be f'lying c:JVer Oak Ridge. Since receipt by Major Grant of the abc:JVe material, this ofi'ice has taken steps to secure an evaluation of same by the Air Force of':f'ice of the Chief, Technical Intelligence Division, Intelli gence Department, Air Materiel Cammand, at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio. As a result, the following informa tion bas been revealed: "When the negative, containing the sphere, is examined by strong incident light, it is noted that the emulsion is raised at that point above the normal level of the remaining emulsion. This indicates that either a drop of' warm.water or a drop of' developer struck the film at this point and rolled down this negative and the succeed ing negative. "To further substantiate this, it will be noted that when the two (2) negatives are placed side by side with the eaaes of the film aligned, the so-called "trail" is con tinuous, that is the two sections :match, indicating the drop rolled on f'ral1 one negative to the next. "Sill :further proot is shown on the fogged edge of the negative containing only the trail. This is proven by the fact that the trail extends beyond the normal format C 0p y
Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 214 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.