Documents / Official release

65 HS1-834228961 62-HQ-83894 Serial 130

Federal Bureau of Investigation · 126 pages · text by GLM-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. 1 IN REPLY REFER TO: HEADQUARTERS AIR DEFENSE COMMAND MITCHEL FIELD, NEW YORK 12 September 1947 SUBJECT…
  • p. 2 IN REPLY REFER TO: HEADQUARTERS AIR DEFENSE COMMAND MITCHEL FIELD, NEW YORK 15 September 1947 SUBJECT…
  • p. 5 …Forwarded for information of your Headquarters. 2. This Headquarters has made no investigation of "Flying Disc…
  • p. 7 HEADQUARTERS BIRMINGHAM AIR RESERVE TRAINING DETACHMENT BIRMINGHAM ARMY AIR FIELD Birmingham, Alabama 8 July 1947 SUBJECT…
  • p. 10 …Birmingham police headquarters was flooded with calls, too, last night. So was the Weather Bureau the…
  • p. 12 …They seemed to go over the mountain." At police headquarters, Officer E. E. McNeal said reports…
  • p. 15 …Chief of Staff Forwarded in accordance with instructions outlined in TNX CM-95, your Headquarters. 1…
  • p. 17 …Reference TWX - EN 18469, this headquarters, dated 121730Z July 1947, regarding sightings of "flying saucers" by…
  • p. 25 # INTELLIGENCE OFFICE # HEADQUARTERS 1388TH AAF BASE UNIT NEWFOUNILAND BASE COMMAND, ATLD-ATG APO 864, c/o…
  • p. 27 ## INTELLIGENCE OFFICE HEADQUARTERS 1356TH AAF BASE UNIT NEWFOUNDLAND BASE COMMAND, ATLB-ATG APO 864, e/o…
  • p. 37 …1947 SUBJECT: Investigation of Flying Disc. TO: Headquarters, Army Air Forces, Washington 25, D. C. ATTENTION…
  • p. 46 …Armstrong has been interviewed by your Headquarters, request that a copy of the MOIC be furnished…
  • p. 51 …Inclosed herewith for your information is investigation relative to Unidentifiable Objects which was initiated at Headquarters…
  • p. 80 …The following information was related to Counter Intelligence Corps Personnel at Headquarters Fifteenth Air Force, Colorado…
  • p. 84 …Attached statements and MOICs forwarded to your office per request TMX from Headquarters Air Defense Command…
  • p. 104 …Assistant Chief of Staff, A-2 Headquarters Tactical Air Command Langley Field, Virginia Received AFB1R-60…
  • p. 115 …ARMY AIR FORCES WISCONSIN WING HEADQUARTERS 161 W. WISCONSIN AVENUE # 161 W. WISCONSIN AVENUE MILWAUKEE 3…
  • p. 120 …FOR SEVERAL MINUTES BY MAJOR GRAHM THIS HEADQUARTERS SEVERAL OFFICERS FROM ALASKAN DEPARTMENT SUBSTANTIATED HIS STORY…

Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.

1. On 12 July 19k7, Mr. Kenneth Arnold, Box 387, Soise, Idaho, was interviewed in regard to the report by Mr. Arnold that he saw 9 strange objects flying over the Cascade Mountain Range of Washington State on July 25th. Mr. Arnold voluntarily agreed to give the interviewer a written report of exactly what he had seen on the above mentioned date. The written report of Mr. Arnold is attached to this report as Exhibit A.

AGENT'S NOTES: Mr. Arnold is a man of 32 years of age, being married and the father of two children. He to well thought of in the community in which he lives, being very much the family man and from all appearances a very good provider for his family. Mr. Arnold has recently purchased a house on the outskirts of Boise, recently purchased a $5,000 airplane in which to conduct his business to the extent of which is explained in the attached. exhibit. It is the personal opinion of the interviewer that Mr. Arnold actually saw what he stated that he saw. It is difficult to believe that a man of Mr. Arnold's character and apparent integrity would state that he saw objects and write up a report to the extent that he did if he did not see them. To go further, if Mr. Arnold can write a report of the character that he did while not having seen the objects that he claimed he saw, it is the opinion of the interviewer that Mr. Arnold is in the wrong business, that he should be writing Buck Rogers fiction. Mr. Arnold is very outspoken and somewhat bitter in his opinions of the leaders of the U.S. Army Air Forces and the Federal Bureau of Investigation for not having made an investigation of this matter sooner. To put all of the statements made by Mr. Arnold in this report would make it a voluminous volume. However, after having checked an astronautical map of the area over which Mr. Arnold claims that he saw the objects it was determined that all statements made by Mr. Arnold in regard to the distances involved, speed of the objects, course of the objects and also of the objects, could very possibly be facts. The distances mentioned by Mr. Arnold in his report are within a short distance of the actual distances on astronautical charts of this area, although Mr. Arnold has never consulted astronautical charts of the type the Army uses. Mr. Arnold stated that his business had suffered greatly since his report on July 25 due to the fact that at every stop on his business routes, large crowds of people were waiting to question him as to just what he had seen. Mr. Arnold stated further that if he, at any time in the future, saw anything in the sky, to quote Mr. Arnold directly, "If I saw a ten story building

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About this file

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.