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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SUBJECT: Interview of Person Reporting Unidentified Aerial Object TO: Asst Chief of Air Staff-2 Collection Branch, AAF Washington 25, D. C. 1. At the request of Lt. Col. G. D. Garrett, AAF A-2, the undersigned has interviewed this date Mr. C. H. Zohn, Administrative Assistant in the Rocket Sonde Section, NRL, who had previously released information to the press regarding an aerial object which he stated he saw at White Sands, New Mexico, 29 June. 2. Substance of the interview is as follows: At between 1:00 and 1:30 p. m. Sunday, 29 June 1947, Mr. Zohn, in the company of the following: Mr. J. R. Kauke, NRL Rocket Sonde Section telemetering supervisor; Mr. C. C. Rockwood, NRL Rocket Sonde high altitude spectrograph scientist; and Mrs. Nancy Rockwood, wife of the latter, was proceeding along Highway 17 in a North-Easterly direction from Las Cruces, New Mexico to White Sands V-2 firing grounds in an automobile driven by Mr. Kauke. At some time between those given and about one-third of the distance from Las Cruces Mr. Kauke, who was driving the car, noticed the subject device and called attention to the other occupants. Mr. Zohn opened the window nearest him and observed the object moving at an unknown rapid velocity at an unknown altitude, which he estimated at about 10,000 feet, and which Mr. Kauke, who also observed it through an open window, estimated at between 8,000 and 10,000 feet, although the former puts little credence in the estimates. When first sighted the object was to the right and forward of the automobile at an unstated elevation and was apparently moving horizontally in a Northerly direction such as to cross the highway from right to left. The object was observed by all persons in the automobile. Mr. Zohn stated that he could not observe any details of the object other than that its shape was uniform, with no protuberances such as the wings of an airplane. It was too distant to enable stereoscopic visualization. There was apparently some solar specular reflection which seemed to change in intensity as the object receded until it was lost from sight after an estimated 30 seconds from the time first noticed. He could not explain how it disappeared except perhaps that the reflection angle may have changed abruptly. There were apparently no clouds or visibility obstructions at the time. The sun was to the rear of the automobile. Mr. Kauke thought that at one time he saw vapor trails.
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.