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.
“Cooper”1 page
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
Commanding Officer Westover Field Chicopee, Massachusetts Dear Sir: After having read several accounts of eye-witnesses who claim they had seen the so-called "flying discos", it brought to mind a strange experience I had some two weeks ago. The reason I write to you is that radio and newspaper reports state that the air forces have been alerted to investigate these mysterious objects. Assuming that you are interested, I am making the following report in the belief that it might possibly be of help to you. I do not desire to have any kind of publicity whatsoever in this connection. About 11:30 AM, Sunday, June 22nd, I was working outdoors on a step ladder, looking up, and suddenly there appeared across my line of vision a speeding, brilliant, small, round-shaped, silvery-white object at an altitude I would judge to be about 1,000 ft. or more. It was moving very fast in a straight, northwesterly direction -- I would say as fast or possibly faster than a speeding plane. It was so unusual and strange a sight that it arrested my attention for about 8 or 10 seconds until it was obscured by a cloud-bank. Naturally my curiosity was considerably aroused and I tried to think what this object might have been. I doubted very much that it could have been a weather baloon because it was not at all like any weather baloons I had seen before. The object I saw, although small, reflected the sunlight very strongly as though it were of polished aluminum or silver, and I can assure you was very real. It appeared to have an irregular round shape and while it could have been disc-shaped, it did not particularly impress me as such. I have attempted to give you this information as accurately and clearly as I know how, free from any imagination or exaggeration. Furthermore, my experience took place before I had any inkling that "flying discs" were reported seen. This information is being passed on to you for whatever it may be worth, purely and simply in the interests of national security, and once more request that you do not publicize my name. A CERTIFIED TRUE COPY: ARCHIE F. ROY Captain, Air Corps Sincerely yours. /s/ Edward L. DeRose Edward L. DeRose
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.