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.
# INTELLIGENCE OFFICE # HEADQUARTERS 1388TH AAF BASE UNIT NEWFOUNILAND BASE COMMAND, ATLD-ATG APO 864, c/o Postmaster, New York, N. Y. Interrogation of JOHN N. MEEHMAN, JR., Supervisor and Mechanic. Trans World Airways, Harmon Field, Newfoundland, taken at 1430 EFT, 16 July 1947, by Captain William H. Smith, AC, Intelligence Officer. Q. How long have you been associated with aircraft and aviation? A. Since approximately 1938. Q. Were you in the Army during the War? A. Yes. Q. What did you do in the Army? A. Aerial Gunner. Q. Did your job during the war entail you to be able to judge distances and sizes of objects and ranges? A. Yes. Q. On the evening of 10 July 1947, did you see one of the so called "Flying Disks" or an object in the sky? A. Yes, we were coming up over the mountain between here and Stephenville Crossing. The car was going up hill and we could see the sky through the windshield. Mr. Woodruff said "look at the cut in the sky". I looked up and saw a blueish black vapor trail. Q. Did you see the object? A. No, I just saw the trail as it was left behind. Q. Can you describe the effect the object had on the cloud formation? A. The clouds were very scattered and were about from 5000 feet to 10,000 feet, the object passed through and cut the cloud leaving a gap where you could see the blue sky, like a knife had cut it. The edges were feathered similar to a weld, as if you cut a weld in half. Q. Did the object appear to be descending, ascending, or horizontal? A. It was horizontal and seemed to remain on true course. Q. What was your estimate of the course? A. Approximately North North East. Q. Can you give any estimate as to the size of the object? A. I did not see the object.
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.