Trump ordered the release of the records to provide greater transparency about unconfirmed reports of ‘flying saucers’ and ‘discs.’
Pentagon releases ‘never-before-seen’ UFO files on new website
The Pentagon releases 162 newly public UFO files after a Trump order, boosting transparency on unidentified aerial phenomena.
WASHINGTON − Reports from the FBI and the War Department in 1947 about unidentified “saucers” and “flying discs” were exchanged among the highest levels of the federal government.
Witnesses often had military training and FBI agents described them as responsible members of their communities from Hackensack, New Jersey, to Myrtle Creek, Oregon.
But despite the color anecdotes, the reports often seemed to go nowhere. With no confirmation after shimmering objects had flitted away, the yellowing FBI files often dismissed the reports with “no further investigation.”
The Pentagon released the documents under President Donald Trump’s direction on May 8 that were collected from agencies such as the FBI, NASA and the Energy Department.
“I think some of it is going to be very interesting to people,” Trump told reporters on April 29.
‘Maybe it’s a flying saucer’: one witness told the FBI in 1947
One of the files, a 194-page collection of FBI memos and handwritten letters that name witnesses who claimed to have seen flying discs or flying saucers.
On Aug. 13, 1947, FBI Special Agent Howard Waldron in the Newark, New Jersey, office wrote FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover about a “flying disc” reported in Hackensack 10 days earlier.
Charles Casella Jr. and Army Private William Truex, a soldier stationed at Fort Dix, reported seeing a floating black object at 7:45 p.m. and thought a child had lost a balloon around Summit Avenue and Simons Avenue.
But the object, which was about 40 inches in diameter, was moving horizontally about 200 yards in the air “too fast to be an ordinary balloon,” according to Casella, who said “he was positive it was no optical illusion.” Truex said there was no wind and he noticed no strings attached or exhaust visible to propel the object.
Truex quoted Casella as saying, “Maybe it’s a flying saucer,” the agent reported. “He had never seen anything move through the air quite like this object, and he had no idea where it came from.”
‘The saucer disappeared’: a witness told the FBI
In another report from July 7, 1947, Air Force liaison officer John Schindler wrote a “Report on Flying Saucers” to the commanding general at Bolling Field in Washington, D.C. The report of unidentified objects cited four witnesses in two planes.
In one flight at 11:45 a.m., an instructor and a student flying at 800 feet above the ground saw a saucer flying at 4,000 feet. The saucer covered the 25-mile distance from Koshkonong to Elkhorn in Wisconsin in 15 seconds, for a speed of 6,000 miles per hour, according to the report.
In another flight at 2:30 p.m., a wing supply officer and a passenger flying 3,500 feet off the ground saw a saucer at 2,500 feet. From their location at East Troy, the witnesses said the saucer traveled from Eagle to Muskego in 22 seconds for a speech of nearly 4,000 miles per hour, the report said.
“By the time the pilot had removed his camera from the glove compartment of his plane, the saucer disappeared and again reappeared approximately ten (10) miles farther along its course after six (6) seconds making its final disappearance,” the report said.
The original X file: ‘so close he could fly right into it’
On Aug. 23, 1947, the FBI agent in charge of the Portland office wrote a member about flying discs labeled a security matter X, anticipating the 1990s television program about unexplained phenomenon called “The X Files.”
Ray Virgil Hatfield, operator of the Tri City Airport in Myrtle Creek, Oregon, reported while taking off with a student, Noble Ellison, on Aug. 6, 1947, at 6:15 p.m., that he saw a spherical object more than 5,000 feet in the air that glistened like aluminum.
Hatfield, who served as a lieutenant junior grade in the Naval Air Corps for about three and a half years flying on Atlantic submarine patrol, estimated the object was traveling 1,000 miles per hour before disappearing.
After practicing a landing and again taking off, the two men saw the object 30- to 50-feet in diameter “so near he could fly right into it,” the FBI agent wrote Hatfield,
