65 HS1-834228961 62-HQ-83894 Section 004

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.

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Office Memorandum • UNITED sTATEs G OVERNMENT
TO Director, FBI DATE: June 2, 1949
f\\ROM : SAC , New Orleans
~ SUBJECT: C FLYING DISCS
Re SAC Letter 38 , dated Jfarch 25, 1949 entitled as above .
The Bureau is advised that through the Office of Naval Intellie;ence ,
NeT1 Orleans, Louisiana, this office has been advised that within the past ten
days thr ee sightings of flying disc·s have been reported in the City of New Or
leans . The infornation seems to be that the single discs Yrere i n str aight flight
and traveling i n a general direction of North , in late afternoon,about the size
of an observation plane , but the shape of a saucer. The Navy stated that two
witnesses have advised that the object was traveling end over end; that weather
conditions were good; that sightings ,·rere made outdoors by persons who did not
wear glasses ; that the dates Yrere I.lay 18, 19 and 23, 1949. The Navy states
that it was possible these objects wer e weather balloons , but that these are
used from only one airport, released over an hour befor e the times of sighting
and would generally be out of sight in a few minutes.
The above is being furnished the Bureau for futu r e reference since
the Navy has informed that all three instances were investigated by the Army
Intelligence •
PW/mmd