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.
“Headquarters”18 pages
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
# CONFIDENTIAL 241 Battery Street, San Francisco, showed no trace of any object. Stohr says that if it was more than a mile distant from me at the size I described, the object would not have registered sufficiently on the film to be shown. He said it probably was too far away to be apparent even through great enlargement of the negative, and enlargement in that case is limited because of the size of the film and the fact I did not have any telescopic equipment on the lens. The exposure was f.16, stop set at infinity, at a speed of 16 frames per second. I have worried over this matter a great deal since seeing it. I "took myself aside" and said, "come now, Johnson, don't be stupid." But I cannot bring myself to the point of thinking I did not see anything. The impression of the moment was too vivid, too realistic, and I knew in the air when I saw that partial slow roll or barrel roll, that I was not a victim of illusion. I trust this matter will be of help to those investigating the flying disc phenomena which have been reported. A chart is attached depicting the movements of the object as I saw it. This statement is made voluntarily and freely, in response to the request of Mr. Brown and Captain Davidson, who called on me this morning. /s/ David N. Johnson Subscribed and sworn to before me, a notary public, this 12th day of July, 1947. / s/ Geo. L. Flaherty Notary public for Ada county Idaho. My commission expires Jan 2, 1949.
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.