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.
## CONFIDENTIAL Washington I realized that the articles that I saw were probably the same thing. I was still reluctant to mention this to anyone thinking that they would probably say that I was crazy. After some time I mentioned the indent to the editor of the "Oregonian", a Portland, Oregon newspaper. At this time I was in Portland for the remainder of the summer. The results of the conversation with the editor of the paper is put forth in the accompanying newspaper article. I fully realize that this is a broad statement in view of the fact that there has been so much publicity put forth in various news papers of the country. I am of sound mind in every respect and I am firmly convinced that the articles I saw are actually some sort of flying machines although I cannot say from where they came or to where they were going. I say what I have said with no idea of publicity or personal gain. SIGNED Richmond Rans Richmond Rankin Portland, Oregon 30 July 1947
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.