65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Section_1
Section 1 of the FBI's 62-HQ-83894 file, opening the case in July and August 1947 with field-office teletypes and memoranda on flying-disc reports, including a July 8, 1947 Dallas teletype on an object recovered near Roswell, New Mexico, and early Bureau policy on such cases.
Document Highlights
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Short overview
Section 1 (serials 1–52) of the FBI’s flying disc file 62-HQ-83894, covering July to September 1947: internal memoranda, field office teletypes, letters from the public, newspaper clippings and Army Air Forces intelligence reports from the first weeks of the American flying saucer wave.
Why this is interesting
The section documents how the FBI was drawn into the subject. A memo of July 10, 1947, records that Brigadier General George F. Schulgen of Army Air Corps intelligence asked for FBI help in questioning the first witnesses, mentioning theories of publicity seekers, mass hysteria or people with Communist sympathies; a follow-up of July 24 quotes Director Hoover’s condition of full access to recovered discs. Bureau Bulletin No. 42 of July 30, 1947, then instructs all field offices to check every sighting as genuine, imaginary or a prank and to report by teletype. Among the cases are a plywood disc marked “U S S R” that landed burning in Seattle and that those present agreed could not fly, a steel “flying disc” about 30 inches across from North Hollywood that Army intelligence declared “definitely a hoax,” Portland police and airline reports, and a Portland teletype on the crash of a plane carrying two AAF investigators, which passes on a press report that analysis traced the supposed disc fragments to a Tacoma slag mill. Many pages are envelopes, routing stamps and handwritten letters that the OCR reads only poorly.
Selected passages
- “He pointed out that the thought exists that the first reported sightings might have been by individuals of Communist sympathies with the view to causing hysteria and fear of a secret Russian weapon.”
- “would do it but before agreeing to it we must insist upon full access to discs recovered.”
- “The Bureau should be notified immediately by teletype of all reported sightings and the results of your inquiries.”