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.
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
I. Staff Sergeant Ira L. Livingston, RA 14 153 972, Air Corps, have approximately 250 hours flying time as pilot and Armorer Gunner have the following statement to make concerning the appearance of "Flying Discs" in the vicinity of Birmingham, Alabama. At 2045 hours, 6 July 1947, while I was eating supper at my residence at 1354 Meadow Lane, Green Acres, Birmingham, Alabama, my next door neighbor, Mr. Herman M. Sookwell, called for me to come to the front door that there were some "Flying Discs" outside. Immediately I went out in the front yard to observe the objects. The objects appeared to the West of Birmingham traveling in a South Eastern direction. They appeared to be approximately 2000 feet above the horizon at a 45 degree angle from where I was standing at an unestimated distance away. The objects appeared to be approximately two (2) feet in diameter, round in shape, producing a dim glow of light and traveling at an estimated speed of five (5) to six (6) hundred miles per hour. The objects or object appeared to be traveling in a definite arc rather than straight and as soon as one was out of sight another would appear behind it, but not always in the same path. I saw one that seemed to come straight up. The view of where it came from was obstructed by a nearby house; and when it reached the altitude of approximately 2000feet, it started off in the same direction as the others. I did not at any time see any more than one at the time and even though there could have been only one, my personal belief is that there were seven (7) to ten (10). The Discs were silent and appeared to be composed of a single light. Sna h. Fringslar Ira L. Livingston Staff Sergeant, RA 14 153 972 Subscribed and sworn to before me this 7th day of July 1947. JAMES L. MACFARLANE 1st Lt. AC Asst Adj. RESTRICTED
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.