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.
“Charles Fort”1 page
- Contltppp• JJ.r;bt IThe pilots admitted they had goose pimples riding pick-a-back on goose pimples. What's more, they said one of their 20 passen gers-C. L. McK1:?h•ie. of Colum bus, Ohio-was awake and ~aw the same thing. Reporters nailed Mr. McKelvie at Kennett Square, Pa. How about it, they asked him-had he seen what the Atlanta pilots said he saw? Well, now, said Mr. McKelvie not exactly. He said he saw "no form of ship" whatever. He saw a "continuous light speed past" lwi window. "But,'' added Mr. McK., 1'I'm not very well versed in aeronau tics, and certainly I wasn't look ing for any Buck Rogers space ship." Out at Santa Monica, Cal., the famo111 Gen. George C. Kenney, chief of the Strategic Air Com mand, was bearded In his den. His eyes twinkled. No, he said, cautiOU5ly, it wasn't one of his planeL The Army as yet hun't 1ot anything like the Thing seen over Montgomery. Not Boelnc Plane "I wish we did," the general said wistfully. "i sure would have liked to see that Thing." So said William M. Allen, pres ident of the Boeing Aircraft Co., up at Seattle. ~I'm pretty sure it wasn't one of our planes," said Mr. Allen, modestly. Almost identical statements is sued by the Army Air Forces at Washington and the United States Weather Bureau at Montgomery tended to throw some light on this fantasy. Both sources sug gested that. the Atlanta pilots had flown past an air radar weather observation balloon. Those things, they explained, are 10 feet in diameter and have square, tinfoil boxes fastened to them. 'the boxes reflect light and "give strange illusions" f!S they twist and turn. Maxwell Field said they send 'em up at six-hour intervals. And Maxwell Fielijs at Mont- 1gomery. - ATLANTA JOURNAL SUN&Y, 7/25/48
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.