Documents / Official release

65 HS1-834228961 62-HQ-83894 Serial 130

Federal Bureau of Investigation · 126 pages · text by OCR

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.

  • p. 13 …from their home in Ensley Highlands. "I never shot at anything moving as rapidly as they…
  • p. 19 …sure that the object he had seen was something new which he had never seen before.
  • p. 20 …he was very definite that he had never seen anything like it before. His mother, Mrs…
  • p. 30 …It definately was not a shooting star; I'd seen several stars shoot before, but never…
  • p. 31 …If it was a shooting star, I'd never seen one as large before, and it…
  • p. 41 …such machine was built and that it never left Connecticut. "These planes were flying high, maybe…
  • p. 43 …UNIL and his two boys maintained that they had never seen one of the discs. UNIL…
  • p. 67 …thought came to me that I had never seen such an object before, and that although…
  • p. 79 …Sun reflected from top side, but never from underside, even when turning 11 Unexplained None 12…
  • p. 90 …pressing the search, that I probably would never see the disc-like objects referred to by…
  • p. 93 …Arnold has never consulted astronautical charts of the type the Army uses. Mr. Arnold stated that…
  • p. 94 flying through the air I would never say a word about it, due to the fact…
  • p. 97 …I never asked nor wanted any notoriety for just accidently being in the right spot at…
  • p. 98 …I watched these objects with great interest as I had never before observed
  • p. 102 …John Joe on the street corner or Pete Andrews on the ranch has never heard about…
  • p. 108 …t be coming towards us, because we never approached them. I don't believe they could…
For Birmingham and Vicinity Partly cloudy and warm today, tonight and tomorrow with a few scattered showers this afternoon. High today 86, low tonight 70, high tomorrow 90.

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# 'Flying Saucers' Reported From 39 States, But Seem To Be Concentrated Here

CAMERA HERE CATCHES "FLYING SAUCER"—Robert Crossland, Age-Herald copy reader, has camera proof that the much-discussed flying discs were over Birmingham last night. The picture above was made by Mr. Crossland at 8:37 p.m. last night at his home at 29th Street and Highland Avenue. He said he gave the film a 15-second exposure.

## City Is Baffled By Dazzling Display Of Spooky Discs

The strange things that have been in night skies since June 25, were over Birmingham last night.

On one thing everyone who has seen the mysterious objects agree they are round, saucer-like. After that, every story differs. Each of the hundreds of callers who reported witnessing the baffling sky demonstrations here last night had a different version of what they saw.

Some said the objects were large, some small. They were moving at great speed. They were suspended in the air. There was sound along with their movements. They moved noiselessly through the black sky. They were at great distance from the earth. They had fallen to the ground. They were in perfect formation. They were colliding with each other.

But whatever the things are that have set the nation agog since first reported 12 days ago by a man in Washington State, they definitely were over the Magic City last night. It seems, in fact, that more Birmingham residents saw the objects than in any other place.

REPORTS BEGAN coming into the Age-Herald city room around 8 o'clock last night. For more than an hour thereafter, the place was bedlam. The switchboard operators were swamped with calls. Reporters, office boys, copy readers everyone in the place was called into action.

Reports came in from Edgewood Mountain Brook, Avondale, Southside, Fairfield, Pratt City, West End, Central Park, Bessemer.

There was fear, excitement, horror, skepticism in the voices. One

Cases discussed

About this file

Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. The text was read from the page images by an OCR model; expect the odd misread word. 126 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.