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.
“FBI file”7 pages
.. I..,,. • PH 62-2542 Acting Chief GEORGE KINGTON advised that he had interviewed MAR.cyJ.ARDT at the time he came to the office since Captain HANNAN was absent at the time. He said that he then learned for the first time that the fire in question had taken pl ace near Scranton, Pennsylvania, ~@ Q£.QllI'rea_ about §j ;x;,.. J.'lQl!tho .Pte..viousl ~ • This caused the Marshal ' s Office to withdraw from the caseori a question of jurisdiction and MARQUARDT was advised that any further action on his part should be referred to the State Police authorities. At the same time, KilltTON furnished MARQUARDT with the results of the analysis which had been ~ade of the ash submitted, and which analysis had been made by Dr. EDWARD BURKE, City Chemist, Chemical Laboratory, Room fr'/5 , City Hall. This report reflected that the ash contained Magnesium, Alumirrum, Iron, and Calcium in the form of silicates , sulphur and carbonates . FREDERIC iiJ\RQl!ARDT was interviewed at his place of business, the H. A. KULJIAN COMPANY, Broad Street and Girard Avenue , Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At this ti~ he advised that he had received the sample of ash from a friend, V"O(l)~FER, Lake Ariel, R. n., Wayne County, Pennsyl vania, through the mail. He said that Lake Ariel is about one mil e south of South Canaan , near Scranton, Pennsylvania. He stated that SHAEFFER ' s house had burned about six months ago, that the fire had occurred at night during a storm and that a large object had struck the roof and ignited the house which had burned to the ground in less than an hour. He said that he had not been present during the fire but that these details had been furnished by letter fr001 SHAEFFER at the ti.me a sample of the ash was forwarded for analysis. He said that he was of the personal opinion that the ash might be a part of a military flare or a "flying saucer11 • He pointed out that he has been advised by associates in the engineering field that one of the characteristics of some types of flares is the fact that they burn for a considerable period. He stated that the mass of the ash residue had remained ignited for a period of twelve hours. He also stated that he did not think there had been an explosion but that a loud noise had probably been caused by the vacuum created as the missile or objects truck the roof. He added that there remains a quantity of the ash , amounting to one bushel, at SHAEFFER 1 s premises at Lake Ariel. - 2 -
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.