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Official reports, hearing transcripts, case files and releases: the paper behind the cases. 2,872 documents, 2,610 mirrored with their text, 53,529 pages indexed, so a search reads inside them and lands on the page.
New in the library The PURSUE files The Department of War's UAP release, mirrored in full: the videos, recordings and images, each beside its case file.Documents2,872 records · page 1
This book was prepared and edited by John MacPhilpin of Tuam and published in Dublin by M. H. Gill & Son in 1880. It reprints Tuam News reports on the apparition of the Blessed Virgin, St. Joseph and St. John the Evangelist, which about twenty people saw on the south gable of Knock chapel, County Mayo, on 21 August 1879. It also gives the witnesses' official depositions, which a commission of priests appointed by the Archbishop of Tuam judged trustworthy. It lists cures recorded in Archdeacon Cavanagh's diary.
This is a 1992 CIA History Staff monograph by Gregory W. Pedlow and Donald E. Welzenbach, originally classified Secret NOFORN and approved for release in 2013. It covers the CIA's manned overhead reconnaissance program from 1954 to 1974 and the two aircraft it developed, the U-2 and the A-12 OXCART. The history covers the U-2 overflights of the Soviet Union, the 1960 downing of Francis Gary Powers and later operations in Asia and Latin America. It also includes a section on U-2s, UFOs and Operation BLUE BOOK.
This is a secret War Department outgoing classified message, number WAR 86184, dated 2 January 1945. It was sent from Bissell of the Military Intelligence Division and signed by Ulio, addressed to G-2 at Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces in Versailles, France. It notes press reports of red balls of fire flying alongside planes in flight, which air personnel called "Foo Fighters," and asks for an explanation if one is available.
This memo, dated 16 January 1945, went from Headquarters XII Tactical Air Command, A-2 section, to the First Tactical Air Force (Prov). It quotes the 415th Night Fighter Squadron's December 1944 report that crews were followed by blinking, color-changing lights that came close, flew formation with their planes and unsettled them, and it asks for more information. In an endorsement dated 20 January 1945, First Tactical Air Force says no similar instances were reported and asks for details on color, size, altitude, timing and behavior.
This secret 415th Night Fighter Squadron intelligence report, dated 30 January 1945, was sent to XII Tactical Air Command in reply to that command's 23 January 1945 endorsement. It quotes pilots' sortie reports from December 1944 to January 1945 describing red, orange, amber and white lights near Strasbourg, Hagenau, Worms, Luneville and Weissembourg that followed aircraft and then disappeared. Squadron crews called these lights "Foofighters." Each time a pilot asked GCI Control about aircraft in the area, the answer was negative.
This SECRET indorsement chain, dated 4 and 5 February 1945, comes from Headquarters XII Tactical Air Command and the First Tactical Air Force (Provisional). It forwards earlier indorsements about unexplained phenomena to the Chief Intelligence Officer, Air Staff SHAEF. The First Tactical Air Force says it has no further information or explanation for the phenomena and believes further investigation is warranted. Because it lacks the technical personnel for that, it passes the matter to SHAEF for whatever investigation is advisable.
This is a memo from the Air Staff of Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force, dated 11 February 1945 and addressed to the First Tactical Air Force (Prov.). It answers a 3rd Indorsement about night phenomena reported by pilots of the 415th Night Fighter Squadron. The memo says the Headquarters has no information explaining the lights and other phenomena. It refers the matter to the Air Ministry and hopes to arrange a visit to the unit by a USSTAF Air Technical Intelligence Officer.
This secret memo from the Air Staff of Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force is dated 11 February 1945 and signed by Air Commodore C.M. Grierson. It went to Headquarters USSTAF for the attention of Col. Bradley and covers "Night Phenomena." It forwards reports from the First Tactical Air Force, among them many from the 415th Night Fighter Squadron. The memo concludes that more than imagination seems to lie behind the reports, since crews are becoming worried. It notes that the Air Ministry and Mr. Robertson have been consulted and suggests that an intelligence officer interview the aircrews.
This is an Air Ministry (D.D.I.2) reply dated 13 March 1945, reference 111/45/DDI2, signed by Group Captain E. D. W. Hopkins and addressed to the SHAEF air staff about reports of "balls of fire." It says Bomber Command crews had been reporting similar phenomena for some time. It suggests some of the objects may have been Me. 262 jets and that flak rockets are the most likely explanation for the rest. It concludes that the affair remains a mystery and no definite explanation can yet be given.
This file from SHAEF Air Staff, dated between January and March 1945 and closing with an 18 March 1945 letter, collects wartime correspondence about "night phenomena" that 415th Night Fighter Squadron crews called foofighters. It includes the squadron's sortie extracts from December 1944 and January 1945 describing lights that followed aircraft near Strasbourg and elsewhere, plus a report of an aluminum-colored cylinder that pilots attacked. The Air Ministry suggested Me 262s and flak rockets as explanations but admitted the matter remained a mystery.
This SHAEF Air Staff (Forward) letter of 18 March 1945, signed by Air Commander C.M. Grierson for the Deputy Supreme Commander, went to the First Tactical Air Force (Prov.). It responds to night phenomena ('foofighter') reports that the XIIth Tactical Air Command had sent forward. It relays the Air Ministry's reply that Bomber Command crews had been reporting similar phenomena. The Air Ministry suggested that a few were Me.262s and the rest most likely flak rockets, and the letter offers no further information.
This Project 10073 record and ATIC summary sheet, drawn from Seventh Bomber Command mission reports, covers a 2 May 1945 incident over Fala Island, Truk Atoll. The crew of a B-24 at 11,000 feet saw two airborne objects that turned from cherry red to orange to white. The objects followed the bomber through evasive action, and one stayed with it for hours toward Guam. Other B-24s reported green flames and red tracer-like trails. The final ATIC evaluation was possibly an enemy aircraft.
This declassified White House file holds a 23 August 1946 cover memo from William D. Leahy that forwards to the President a report on "Ghost Rockets" from the National Intelligence Authority. The attached memorandum is dated 22 August 1946 and signed by Lt. Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg as Director of Central Intelligence. It revises earlier conclusions and says most of the rockets were probably launched from Peenemunde. It judges that the U.S.S.R. was probably carrying out large-scale guided-missile tests around the Baltic, mainly for scientific experimentation.
This U.S. Air Force Project SIGN file from 1947 and 1948 collects correspondence on unidentified flying objects. In it, Headquarters USAF asks Air Materiel Command for its conclusions, and AMC replies on 8 November 1948 after studying about 180 incidents. AMC concludes that observers saw real flying objects but that there is no proof they are aircraft, and it advises against briefing the press. The file also includes letters to the CIA, a citizen's inquiry, a request for a Rand spaceship study and an intelligence analysis of 1947 sightings.
This is a July 28, 1995 report from the General Accounting Office to Representative Steven H. Schiff on its search for government records about the July 1947 crash near Roswell, New Mexico. The GAO found only two records from 1947: a July 1947 history of the 509th Bomb Group and Roswell Army Air Field, and a July 8 FBI teletype. Both describe the object as a radar-tracking or weather balloon. The report also says some Roswell Army Air Field administrative records and outgoing messages were destroyed without any recorded authority.
Project Blue Book Status Report No. 8, issued by the Air Technical Intelligence Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and dated 31 December 1952, covers June to October 1952, when 886 reports were received. That is more than in the previous five years combined. It breaks down evaluations by category and summarizes a survey of 44 astronomers and the 29 July 1952 Pentagon press conference. It also covers a new observer questionnaire, cooperation with the Air Defense Command, access to weather balloon tracking data and diffraction grating cameras.
Project Blue Book Status Report No. 8, issued by the Air Technical Intelligence Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and dated 31 December 1952, covers June through October 1952, when 886 reports were received, more than in the previous five years combined. It breaks down evaluations by category, summarizes a consultant astronomer's interviews with 44 astronomers, and notes General Samford's 29 July press conference. It also describes the statistical analysis, the new observer questionnaire, Videon diffraction cameras and weather balloon tracking.
This Project Blue Book administrative file from the Air Force's Technical Intelligence Division contains a chart titled "Frequency of Unidentified Flying Object Reports, June through September." The chart plots the number of reports per day. Its annotations mark a highly publicized incident at Washington D.C. and a press conference on unidentified flying objects. It also marks articles in Look magazine, one of them giving a "solution", along with articles in Life and The New Yorker.
This 1947-dated Project Blue Book case file from the Air Materiel Command's Technical Intelligence Division contains an illustrated piece titled "Saucers Over Washington, D.C." It covers the radar sightings at the Washington National Airport control center on the night of July 19, 1952. Senior controller Harry G. Barnes reported at least 10 unidentified objects, and Capitol Airlines pilot C.S. Pierman saw lights that matched the radar returns. The piece disputes the Air Force's temperature inversion explanation, noting the inversion was only one degree.
This 1952 memorandum for record, filed in the Project Blue Book case files, covers a trip to Washington by Col D. L. Bower and Capt E. J. Ruppelt. On 21 July they met MATS Air Weather Service and Flight Service at Andrews AFB to ask for help identifying balloons and aircraft, and proposed a CAA reporting letter. At the Pentagon the next day they worked on an Air Intelligence Digest issue and on public information arrangements. They also fielded press and presidential inquiries about the Saturday night radar sighting over Washington.
This is a feature article from the War Department Intelligence Division's secret intelligence review, dated January 1947, on the 1946 "ghost rocket" reports over Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Norway. It covers witness descriptions, including one from a Swedish Air Force pilot, and says Swedish Defense Staff statements on the objects contradicted each other. It concludes there were perhaps only 2 to 10 real incidents of low-flying V-1 type missiles. The high-altitude sightings, it says, were probably meteors or fireworks.
This U.S. Air Force file from late 1947 collects correspondence about flying discs among Air Materiel Command at Wright Field, Army Air Forces headquarters and the Fourth Air Force. It includes General N. F. Twining's 23 September 1947 opinion that the phenomenon is real and not fictitious, and a 30 December 1947 directive that Air Materiel Command set up a project to collect and evaluate reports. It also covers photographs from Jefferson, Oregon that were judged to be film defects, a theory put forward by Mrs. Merchant, and material on the Horten flying wings.
This is an initial Project Sign progress report dated April 1948, sent from Headquarters, Air Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base to the Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force. It tabulates about 100 unidentified flying object reports received through February 1948, covering shape, size, number of objects, speed and exhaust trails. Dr. Irving Langmuir found the data insufficient for a positive identification. Headquarters judged that a low aspect ratio aircraft using boundary layer control could reproduce many of the reported characteristics.
This U.S. Department of War release compiles 1949 records tied to Sandia Base, New Mexico. It includes a Sandia Base security inspection reply and a W. D. Crozier letter to Lincoln LaPaz. It also contains Crozier and Seely's report on collecting airborne copper particles after the July 24, 1949 fireball near Socorro, which they judged negative or inconclusive. LaPaz's sixth report on green fireballs disputes parts of that finding, and a Fourth Army report describes unusual lights around the Q Area at Camp Hood, Texas, in March 1949.
This 1948 file from U.S. Air Force headquarters holds correspondence on reporting "flying discs." It includes a February 1948 policy directing all sightings to Air Materiel Command for Project SIGN, along with a rejected proposal to keep fighter aircraft on continuous alert. It also contains forwarded reports: an FBI account of a phosphorescent round object seen at Hobson, Ohio, on 8 May 1948, and objects seen falling near Bakersfield, California, in March 1948. Other items cover Horten brothers flying wing material.
This U.S. Department of War file, cleared under NND 843014, collects USAFE intelligence cables dated 4 November 1948 and addressed to General Cabell. One cable relays a 307th Bomb Group report of an unidentified jet-propelled aircraft seen off the west coast of Holland on 5 September 1948. Another says flying saucers keep being reported, including one that hovered over Neubiberg Air Base. It passes on Swedish Air Intelligence's view that the objects may come from an unknown technology, possibly from outside the earth.
This Top Secret Air Intelligence Division Study No. 203, prepared jointly by USAF and ONI intelligence and dated 10 December 1948, analyzes about 210 reported flying object incidents in the United States. It concludes that some type of flying object has been observed, but that its identification and origin cannot be determined. The study weighs domestic explanations such as weather balloons, rockets, flying wing aircraft and celestial phenomena against possible Soviet devices based on German flying wing designs. Its appendices include selected incident reports and descriptions of flying wing aircraft.
This 1949 FBI file holds a January 31, 1949 letter to J. Edgar Hoover from Reverend Charles C. Barnes of the First Presbyterian Church in McMinnville, Oregon. Barnes wrote that the previous May he had seen four beams in the sky converging on the Cascade mountains, with clouds forming and an explosion effect rising about ten thousand feet. The file also contains Hoover's reply acknowledging the letter and a memo passing the report to Air Force Special Investigations and the Atomic Energy Commission.
This confidential FBI office memorandum, sent from the San Antonio office to the FBI Director on January 31, 1949, and held in a NICAP copy, reports on Fourth Army intelligence conference discussions of unidentified aerial phenomena. It covers the July 1948 Eastern Airlines sighting over Montgomery, Alabama, and a concentration of green light sightings near Los Alamos, New Mexico. It notes that little concrete information has been obtained, and that G-2 and OSI are investigating while this office is not.
This FBI office memorandum from the San Antonio Special Agent in Charge to the Director, dated January 31, 1949, reports on Fourth Army intelligence talks about unidentified aerial phenomena. It describes a July 1948 Eastern Airlines sighting over Montgomery, Alabama, and a run of green light sightings near Los Alamos in December 1948 and January 1949. According to the memo, the objects are either unknown natural phenomena or man made, and G-2 and OSI are investigating while the San Antonio office is not.
This Office of Scientific Intelligence memorandum from Dr. Stone to Dr. Machle, dated 15 March 1949, is on the subject of flying saucers. Stone writes that the survey documents leave the reader confused and lists points he thinks the survey missed. These include the chance that many objects are free meteorological sounding balloons and the unlikelihood of domestic or foreign craft being tested over the United States. He also raises the psychological tendency to see brief objects as circular and the odd time distribution of the observations.
This is a US government office memorandum from Dr. Stone of the CIA Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI) to Dr. Machle, OSI, on the subject of flying saucers. It criticizes a survey of saucer reports as confusing and lists points the survey left out. These include the chance that many objects were free meteorological sounding balloons and the unlikelihood of US or foreign craft being tested over the United States. It also asks why brief sightings look circular and why the reports cluster by month.
This declassified Air Intelligence Report No. 100-203-79 is a Top Secret study by the Directorate of Intelligence, Headquarters USAF, and the Office of Naval Intelligence, dated 10 December 1948. It looks at about 210 reported flying object incidents and concludes that some type of flying object has been observed, though what the objects are and where they come from cannot be determined. It considers domestic devices or Soviet aircraft based on German flying wing designs, and its appendices cover selected reports, explained cases and flying wing aircraft.
This Central Intelligence Agency information report, distributed 31 July 1950 and acquired in Santiago, Chile, forwards a translated article by Dr. Eduard Ludwig submitted to Condor, a German-language magazine in Chile. Ludwig rejects the idea that flying discs come from beyond Earth. He links them to Junkers research on Flettner rotors and boundary layer effects driven by gas turbines. The article suggests the discs may be products of advanced German science that possibly fell into Russian hands.
This confidential progress report, dated 4 May 1953 and signed by L. W. Keith, went from the Navy's Photographic Interpretation Center to the Director of Naval Intelligence. It analyzes movies of unidentified objects filmed in Utah on 2 July 1952 and in Montana in 1950, which the U.S. Air Force had asked the Navy to interpret. Using plots, density readings and velocity estimates, the analysts judged the objects to be probably light sources that were disk shaped and moved at high speeds. They concluded the objects could not be identified as natural phenomena or commonly known man-made objects.
This is an undated Central Intelligence Agency document with an estimated publication date of 1950, and its extracted text is badly garbled. It holds tables of techniques meant to improve the product of interrogation. The entries cover drugs such as Rauvolfia for reducing anxiety, radiant energy or current applied to the brain's temporal lobe, electroshock and convulsion, hypnosis and post-hypnotic suggestion, and sleep and narcosis. It also lists lobotomies, brain-washing techniques and extra-sensory perception. The text does not mention any UFO or UAP subject.
This 1949 War Department file 319.1, Flying Discs, is a set of U.S. Air Force Flight Service Center reports on unidentified flying objects sent to the Air Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson. The reports cover sightings over Kansas City and Olathe, Rome, Seattle, Greenville, Spokane, Medford, Columbus, Portland, Mountain Home, Jackson and Chanute AFB. Most remain unexplained, but the Greenville object was found to be a weather balloon. The file also holds a 1948 order telling units to report disc sightings.
This Central Intelligence Agency information report, distributed 31 July 1950 and marked unevaluated, forwards a translated article by Dr. Eduard Ludwig of Santiago, Chile, written for the German-language magazine Condor. Ludwig worked at the Junkers research plant in Dessau. He argues that the flying discs could be aircraft built on German research into boundary-layer aerodynamics, driven by gas turbines and fitted with Flettner rotors. He suggests that this technology may have fallen into Russian hands.
This Central Intelligence Agency information report, dated 31 July 1950 and marked unevaluated, forwards a translation of an article by Dr. Eduard Ludwig of Santiago, Chile, written for Condor, a German language magazine published in Chile. Ludwig describes rotor experiments at the Junkers research plant in Dessau. He argues that flying discs may be gas-turbine aircraft that use Flettner rotors and boundary layer effects. He suggests this German science may have fallen into Russian hands.
This Central Intelligence Agency information report, distributed in August 1950 and marked as unevaluated, covers a sighting on 4 August 1950 by three officers of a merchant ship in the North Atlantic. The ship was sailing from Walton, Nova Scotia, to an East Coast US port. The captain, chief mate and third mate described a silent, shiny elliptical object that wobbled and flew close above the water. A collector's note says intelligence officers estimated its speed at 400 to 500 mph and judged it was not a conventional aircraft.
This Black Vault copy of Air Force records centers on the Project Twinkle Final Report, which Louis Elterman of the Geophysics Research Division wrote on 27 November 1951. Project Twinkle investigated green fireballs and other light phenomena in New Mexico using Askania cameras run by Land-Air at Vaughn and Holloman AFB. Elterman found the results essentially negative, with most sightings put down to aircraft, balloons, birds, clouds and meteors. He recommended no further spending. The file also includes the 1949 and 1950 correspondence that set up the project and 1952 memos about declassifying it.
This Central Intelligence Agency file gathers the 1953 Report of the Scientific Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects, dated January 17, 1953, and the papers that went with it. The panel was chaired by H. P. Robertson. It found no evidence that the phenomena were a direct threat to national security. It recommended stripping UFOs of their special status and aura of mystery and starting a public education program. The file also holds F. C. Durant's account of the meetings, 1952 CIA memos proposing research, and transmittal letters.
This Central Intelligence Agency memorandum for record, dated 18 December 1952 and signed by H. Marshall Chadwell, Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence, reports a messenger's account of British activity on flying saucers. It says a British standing committee, now apparently under Dr. R. V. Jones, had concluded the observations were not enemy aircraft. The memo also covers a recent Yorkshire incident where RAF officials saw a "perfect flying saucer", and the Tremonton film. An attached page lists potential dangers such as mass hysteria and communications overload.
This Central Intelligence Agency information report, No. 00-W-23602, distributed 16 August 1952, translates a 29 March 1952 article by Fritz Sitte from the Austrian newspaper Die Presse. It describes two fiery disks seen over uranium mines in the Elisabethville district of the southern Belgian Congo, and a 15-minute fighter pursuit by Commander Pierre, who estimated the disks at 12 to 15 meters across and about 1,500 km/h. A conjectural sketch of saucer construction is appended.
This Federal Bureau of Investigation Newark Field Office file covers 1952 to 1967 and mostly holds memos recording phone calls from New Jersey residents about unidentified flying objects. Agents usually passed these reports to the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. It also includes a 1952 OSI request to look into the backgrounds of photographer John H. Riley and witness George J. Stock of Passaic, a 1963 Air Force letter to Hoover enclosing a Saucer News item, NICAP correspondence, and newspaper clippings about flying saucer clubs.