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.
“Norfolk”1 page
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
Report Number Deviation from Straight Flight Color Size 1 Climbed, dove, hovered overhead, resumed original course Silver Apparently small 2 3 None reported Silver, very bright Small 4 5 Zig zag course "much like a water-bug" Brilliance slightly greater than a star Not stated 6 None reported Some solar specular reflection Not stated 7 8 None reported Almost dusk; could not distinguish Impossible to determine 9 None reported Very bright and silvery colored 30-50' in diameter 10 None reported Reflection from sun Comparable to a C-54 at 10,000' 11 Descended edgewise, stopped at 4,000' and assumed horizontal position. Proceeded in horizontal flight for 15 seconds, stopped again, then disappeared Not stated Not stated 12 None reported Not stated Not stated 13 None reported Of light-reflecting nature Apparent depth of a P-51 14 None reported Phosphorous color Not stated 15 None reported Silvery Same span as a C-54 at 10,000' 16 Followed contours of mountains five miles away from observers Resembled a grayish balloon Approx. 10' in diameter
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.