65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Section_6

Short overview

Section 6 of the FBI headquarters file 62-HQ-83894 (serials 246–301) covers flying saucer and aerial phenomena reports from August 1950 to August 1952, from the “green fireballs” over New Mexico’s sensitive installations to Air Intelligence’s 1952 briefing on the state of its research.

Why this is interesting

The section opens with an August 1950 FBI summary of about 150 observations of green fireballs, discs and meteors near New Mexico installations since 1948, including Lincoln La Paz’s analysis that about half were meteoric and the rest, in his view, U.S. guided missiles tested near the installations (if he was wrong, they might be guided missiles launched from the Urals), and the Air Force’s “Project Twinkle” observation posts. It then gathers a long 17th District OSI table of sightings, Atomic Energy Security Service report forms from Los Alamos, statements by officers who saw a bright object over Oak Ridge in December 1950 alongside radar contacts, and a teletype on a fast, hovering radar target over New Jersey in September 1951. The 1952 part includes Baltimore-area reports of a car engine dying under an object, the FBI’s 1947 handling of photo negatives of a flying disc taken in Phoenix, many letters from the public, and Look magazine coverage. In a 1952 briefing, Commander Randall Boyd of Air Intelligence tells the FBI that the small share of pilot sightings corroborated by radar or ground observers remains unexplained.

Selected passages

• “On the basis of the investigations made by Dr. LaPaz and the Air Force, it was concluded that the occurrence of the unexplained phenomena in the vicinity of sensitive installations was a cause for concern.”
• “He stated that Air Intelligence is fairly certain that these objects are not ships or missiles from another nation in this world.”
• “recent attempts in this regard have indicated that when the pilot in the jet approaches the object it invariably fades from view.”