Documents / Official release
This FBI file, 62-HQ-83894 Sub A, collects newspaper clippings on flying saucers that the Bureau filed between 1947 and 1960. They include July 1947 reports of discs over Portland, Idaho, Seattle and Washington, and a Grand Blanc, Michigan pizza maker's complaint about his moon photograph. There are also clippings on Reinhold Schmidt's November 1957 space ship claim at Kearney, Nebraska, the Coast Guard cutter Sebago radar sighting, Carl Jung's 1958 remarks, and Captain Peter Killian's 1959 airliner sighting.
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.
“The Wash”36 pages
• • "FLYING saucers" are back in the news. , From New · York comes a eport that Captain Jack dams, pilot of t he Chicago ~nd Southern Airlines, radioed that he and a co-pilot had crossed the path of a large fly ing s a u c e r, with lighted windows and a peculiarly coloured blinking light on top and travelling at about 600 m.p.h, over Arkansas. This was followed by a news cable from Lisbon: Scores of flying saucers reported by coastguards of bfie North Portugal coast flying in line and other formations and moving west " faster than tracer bullets." So the 1950 "saucer season" seems to pave opened early. First report of these strange craft came on June 25, 1947, when a Mr. Dahl of Tacoma, Washington, noticed a circular flying machine, like a silver oughnut, cutting capers over is back-vard. Presently he saw five more planes " rotating round a venth.t Speculations The centre craft then began to shed metallic ra in. Most of it fell seawards, but one piece landed in Mr. Dahl's yard. On July 4, the first photo graph of a •• flying saucer" was taken by a Seattle coast guard. The snap revealed a small white oblong, set against a dark gre:Y background. The U.S. Navy said that the descriptions fitted its new wingless plane-the " Flyi11g Pancake "-but there was only one of t hese, and it had never ventured outside Connecticut. A meteorologist suggested that solar reflections on low cloud would produce similar effects. and a Los Angeles scientist talked about "trans mutation of atomic energy." A letter to a San Francisco newspaper hinled at an inter- p~netary solution. e San Francisco corre- s ndent was soon to find his icJ a carried a stage further. •. Mead Layne, publisher an occult magazine, pro- l duced an a,1·Ucle in which he claimed to have received a message, via a medium that t,here were people aboa1'.d the " saucers." • They came from another planet, and wished to try liv mg on earth. In Britain "saucers" were reported over Brighton beach, and another was seen by a clergyman·s wife at Sandwich. Back in America President Truman compared the rumours to the scare of over a hundred years ago, when word got around that there were men and bats living on the moon. The neatest "flying sa ucer" quipping came from Mr. Grom Y k o at U.N.- head quarters. " Some," he said, "attribute them to the British for export ing too much whisky to the U.S., others that it is a Russian discus thrower training for the Olympic Games who does not know hL~ 9wn strength." The first flying saucer fever died down under sheer weight of explanation, but reports still came in. Spain suspected In May, 1948, a U.S. Air F o r c e intelligence officer opined that t he " discs " were the work of ex-Nazi s:ientists in Spain. During Franco's 1938 siege of Madrid his German allies had t ried out a circular missile, with an explosive centre and four engines around the cir cumference. The experiment had failed, bu~ in 1944 the Germans had repeated it, using jet engines. It was believed that the scientists responsible h a tl escaped from the Russian zone, through France, and \\'ere now working for Wle Spanish Government. It: D ec em be 1·, 1949, the offi.c1al body which had bi established in America to pro e the " saucers" was disba.nd . It had been in operation f r two years, and had investigat 375 incidents. I t · said that the phenomenon was caused by : (a) misinter pretation of various conven tional objects; (b) a mild form' of mass hysteria; (cl hoaxes. . An~ the1·e, one might have 11nag111ed, the story would have end e·d. But the •· flying saucers " r e f u s e d to be grounded. Fellow travellers? The present phase of flying saucerisms reached _its climax on March 9, when a U.S. business man, tra,·eJJi.ng in Mexico, claimed to have seen a streamlined " d isc •· in \\'hich a 23in. tall pilot had perished. A Mexican denial inuueii ately followed publication f the story, but not J,ef e Denver, C9lorado, had c portcd that a similar "sauce " bad co~e to grief near by a:;1d three httle men bad been dis covered inside it. The Defence Department of the U.S., repeating its denial of " flying saucers.'' said : " If these saucers start landin g, and little men with radar sticking out of t heir ears clilnb out, we shall have to do some thing about it." " Flying saucers" have now been seen in pretty well every country of the world. They have been chased by jet planes, and observed by scientists and have baffled all attempts to explain them away. ~ Are they sheer fantasy. or s there a grt1in of t.rulh. in t accounts? Your guess is • good as mine.0
Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 124 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.