FBI Vault UFO Files, Part 1 of 16

Brief

Following Bureau Bulletin No. 42 (July 30, 1947), FBI field offices across the country began forwarding flying disc reports to Washington. The collection covers: a Milwaukee memo describing a 19-inch disc-shaped object found at a Wisconsin county fairgrounds; a Norfolk investigation of a photograph taken by a 15-year-old of a large black object followed by two smaller ones; a Portland teletype on Army Air Forces officers Capt. Davidson and Lt. Brown, both subsequently killed in a crash, who were interviewing pilots about disc sightings; and a civilian memorandum claiming the discs were piloted by peaceful, human-like beings from an etheric dimension whose craft could disintegrate attacking aircraft. Metal fragments alleged to come from a disc that struck Harold Dahl's boat in Tacoma were analyzed and traced to a local slag mill.

Metadata

Agency

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

Release

2011-04-01

Type

PDF • .pdf

Length

70 pages

Classification

UNCLASSIFIED

Tags

flying disc, 1947, Oregon, Wisconsin, Virginia, New Jersey, Washington state, Tacoma, visual observation, amateur photograph, civilian report, military investigation, XF5U-1 misidentification, physical fragment analysis

Key points

• Bureau Bulletin No. 42 (July 30, 1947) directed all FBI field offices to investigate reports concerning flying discs.p.18
• A 19-inch disc-shaped object with a small wooden rudder, an apparent RCA photo-electric cell, and a small electric motor found at the Jackson County fairgrounds near Black River Falls, Wisconsin on July 10, 1947 was tentatively attributed to a juvenile.p.18
• A pilot flying at approximately 5,000 feet above Myrtle Creek, Oregon, reported seeing a mysterious object on two occasions on the evening of August 6, 1947.p.20
• A civilian memorandum from San Diego claimed the disc visitors are human-like but larger, come from an etheric dimension interpenetrating Earth's, have a peaceful mission to settle on this planet, and carry radiant-energy weapons capable of disintegrating any attacking craft.p.23
• Billy Turrentine, 15, photographed from his third-floor porch at 410 West 14th Street, Norfolk, Virginia, around noon on July 8, 1947, what he described as a large black object followed by two smaller ones moving rapidly from southwest to northeast.p.24
• The Norfolk Ledger-Dispatch described the object as oval rather than disc-shaped, 'rocking and spinning like a football,' traveling approximately 600 miles per hour at about 5,000 feet altitude, gray-to-black in color.p.26
• Capt. William L. Davidson and Lt. Frank N. Brown of Fourth AAF Headquarters, San Francisco, were in Portland July 27 interviewing pilots who had reported disc sightings; both were subsequently killed when their aircraft crashed, and AAF Intelligence from McChord Field screened the wreckage.p.29
• Metal fragments alleged to be from a disc that struck a boat owned by Harold Dahl and Fred Crisnan in Tacoma were analyzed and determined to originate from a Tacoma slag mill, not a disc.p.29
• An Army Air Forces representative stated his belief that no flying saucers had been recovered by the Air Forces as of that time.p.30

Verbatim

• Prior to the receipt of those instructions, two instances were called. to the attsntion of this office concernine flying diScs.

  p.18

• Part of the disks carry crolls, others are undor remote oontrol.

  p.23

• Their mission is p&acoful. The visitors contomplate sottlinG on this ,lane

  p.23

• On July 8, 1947 BILLY observed a large, black object moving rapidly through space proceedine from the Bouthv~st to a northeast direction. He said the black object was followed by two smaller objects which a:!.so proceeded in the same direction.

  p.24

• DAHL DENIES SAYING THE METAL FRAGMENTS HE FURNISHED WERE FROM A DISC, AND ANALYSIS OF THE FRAGMENTS SHOWS THEM TO BE FROM A TACOMA SLAG MILL.

  p.29

Most interesting

• The two Army Air Forces officers actively interviewing flying disc witnesses in the Pacific Northwest, Davidson and Brown, were killed in an aircraft crash, and their wreckage was immediately screened by AAF Intelligence from McChord Field, a detail the Portland FBI office flagged explicitly.
• The civilian San Diego memorandum described a precise interior layout for the discs: forward control compartment, middle laboratory section, and a rear section containing armament described as 'a general radiant energy apparatus, perhaps a ray', predating public directed-energy weapon discourse by decades.
• The Tacoma disc-fragment episode is one of the earliest documented cases in which alleged physical UAP evidence was submitted to laboratory analysis and traced to a mundane industrial source, a slag mill, within weeks of the initial claim.
• Dick Rankin, brother of Tex Rankin and himself a pilot with over 4,000 flight hours, initially concluded the objects he observed over Bakersfield on June 21 were the Navy's experimental XF5U-1, the only publicly known disc-wing aircraft of the era, though the manufacturer had announced only one such aircraft existed and it had never left Connecticut.
• The FBI did not act on the civilian esoteric memorandum but preserved it in the file and forwarded it to the War Department alongside letters from ordinary citizens, treating speculative civilian reports and military witness accounts through the same intake channel.
• Billy Turrentine's photograph was commercially licensed through Photo Craftsman Service to the International News Service before the FBI investigation; the 15-year-old had not received any payment as of August 8, 1947.