Documents / Official release
This FBI file serial collects 1947 Army Air Forces reports on flying disc sightings. It includes Air Defense Command interviews from September 1947 with Pan American pilot Alpheus Powell and navigator Walter White about orange objects seen near Boston on 4 August 1947. It also holds a Birmingham, Alabama report with a photograph, newspaper clippings and a sergeant's sworn statement, Newfoundland and Alaska sighting reports, notes on an instrument found in Illinois, and a Weather Bureau memo on a metallic disk.
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.
“Headquarters”18 pages
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# Mysterious Flying Saucers Reported In Birmingham Skies Continued From Page 1 Although the reports to The Age Herald last night dwindled off at about 9 p.m., there was a final call from a man at 10, saying he had seen the objects over the southeastern section. This morning, there were more reports, more queries coming into The News. Maj. White issued a message to Birmingham residents: "We'll do everything the Army Air Forces is empowered to do to run down the mystery of the discs. This thing seems to have gotten beyond the point of speculation. Birmingham can rest assured the air base will keep on the alert until the mystery is settled." man admitted having seen jects several weeks ago "but was ashamed to tell my wife." Whatever it is going on in the night skies, it has the entire nation in a dither. The flying discs have eclipsed every other national and international event in the minds of the American people. Broadcasts from England last night said the Britishers were scoffing at the story. But when persons in 30-odd states have reported seeing the objects, there must be something to the story. Birmingham police headquarters was flooded with calls, too, last night. So was the Weather Bureau the control tower at the airport, airline officers. At the Birmingham Army Airfield, Maj. Jack C. White, commanded an alert and dispatched a plane to fly around the city. The plane, with Lt. L. S. Robinson at the controls, circled the city for an hour and 15 minutes at from 4,000 to 5,000 feet. He was unable to report any unnatural objects. Scientists indicate that the objects are merely tricks of the eyes. In fact, Howard Blakeslee, Associated Press scientific writer, has stated he has seen similar objects from his home on Long Island for many years and associated no mystery with them. They are a combination of eye and light tricks, is his answer. Turn to Page 5, Column 1
Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 126 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.