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.
“Los Angeles Times”4 pages
• •. , PAGE TWO AIRPORT AND UPON DETERMING KITES NOT PRACTICAL HAD ABANDONED THE PROJECT. SMITH STATED HE HAD TAKEN SIXTEEN MM PICTURES WHICH ARE PRESENTLY BEING DEVELOPED . STATED WOULD MAKE PICTURES AND PARTS FROM OBJECT AVAILABLE TO THIS OFFICE . SMITH DESCRIBED OBJECT AS APPROXIMATELY SIX FEET IN DIA METER, CONSISTING OF DISK MOUNTED ON AXEL WITH BEARINGS, WINGS ON EITHER SIDE, TAIL SURFACE SUPPORTED ON BOOMS, CUP MOUNTED ON EACH WING TIP RESEMBLING ROCKET POWER CONTAINERS . SMITH STATED DID NOT OBSERVE ANY CHEMICAL OR OTHER MATTERIAL IN CONTAINERS WHICH COULD BE USED AS SELF PROPELLING FORCE . MR . HENRY T. RICE OF OLSEN AND RICE MAN UFACTURING COMPANY ADVISED CLAUDE LEROY WOLFERT FINANCED BY THEIR COMPANY IN DEVELOPING TOY KITE, THAT WOLFERT HAD PROACHED IDEA OF MAKING LARGE MODEL TO BE USED AS TOW TARGET FOR AIRPLANES BUT RICE DECIDED THAT HE MAKE . ONLY KITE SUITABLE FOR SALE AS TOYS . JIU Ill( HOWEVER, WOLFERT MADE LARGE MODEL APPROXIMATELY SIX FEET IN DIAMETER, WEIGHING FIFTY POUNDS, WHICH TOGETHER WITH OTHER MODEL HAD BEEN FLOWN IN DC THREE OWNED BY OLSEN AND RICE TO PRIVATE AIRPORT OF ..MU:llllli PERSONS AND SMITH . RICE COULD NOT RECALL EXACT DATE, BUT_, STATED MWllf IT WAS IN EARLY PART OF DEC . RICE STATED DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED IN FLIGHT OF KITE, AND THAT IN VIEW OF SIZE OF LARGE MODEL IT WAS NECESSARY TO TOW IT BEHIND PLANE TO OBSERVE FLIGHT . STATED MODEL CRASHED AND OLSEN AND RICE ABANDONED EXPERIMENT LEAVING AIRPORT WITH WOLFERT REMAINING BE HIND TO CONDUCT FURTHER EXPERIMENTS . RICE STATED DID NOT KNOW THAT WOL FERT HAD LEFT THE LARGE MODEL AT THIS AIRPORT UNTIL ADVISED BY SMITH END PAGE TWO
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.