FBI “Flying Discs” File 62-HQ-83894 (1947–1968) – PURSUE Files

File 62-HQ-83894 is the FBI‘s headquarters case file on “flying discs” and UFOs, covering June 1947 to July 1968. The FBI briefly helped the Army Air Forces check sightings in the summer of 1947, then mostly forwarded reports to the Air Force. PURSUE Release 01 publishes the complete file in 10 sections plus individual serials and a sub-file, which the Department of War says includes “several newly declassified pages and only minor redactions” compared with the version on the FBI’s public Vault website.^[1]

Two separate FBI field-office records from Detroit are included here as well: a 1958 memo about a man who reported a “circular object with a crystal-type dome,” and a 1957 interview with Wladyslaw Krasuski, who described seeing a large, circular vehicle rise vertically near a German military site in 1944.^[1]

The records

65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Section_001

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The FBI’s 62-HQ-83894 case file includes investigative records, eyewitness testimonies, and public reports concerning Unidentified Flying Objects and flying discs documented between June 1947 and July 1968. The records include high-profile incident accounts, photographic evidence from sites like Oak Ridge, TN, and technical proposals regarding potential propulsion systems. Additional topics include convention programs, researcher accounts, and extensive media coverage from the period. This file is partially posted on FBI vault with more redactions and some pages missing. Included here is the complete case file with several newly declassified pages and only minor redactions.

— Official PURSUE description

65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Section_002

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65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Section_003

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65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Section_004

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65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Section_005

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65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Section_006

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65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Section_007

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65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Section_008

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65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Section_009

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65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Section_010

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65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Serial_130

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65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Serial_153

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65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Serial_164

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65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Serial_220

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65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Serial_403

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65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Serial_438

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65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Serial_449

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65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_SUB_A

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65_HS1-101634279_100-DE-18221_Serial_844

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An FBI memo from 1958 reporting a UFO sighting by a Detroit man who described a “circular object with a crystal-type dome,” and recommending that the information be forwarded to “proper air force authorities.”

— Official PURSUE description

65_HS1-101634279_100-DE-26505

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An FBI report from 1957 detailing the interview with Wladyslaw Krasuski, who recounted seeing a large, circular, vertically-rising vehicle in 1944 Germany near a German military compound.

— Official PURSUE description

Analysis

What’s in the file. The best-known items are J. Edgar Hoover’s July 1947 handwritten note agreeing to help the Air Force but insisting on “full access to discs recovered” (referring to an earlier case where the Army had kept objects that turned out to be hoaxes), and the March 1950 Guy Hottel memo, a secondhand account of three “flying saucers” with small bodies recovered in New Mexico. The Hottel memo is the most-viewed document on the FBI Vault. Researchers have linked its story to the Aztec crash hoax spread in 1949–1950 by Silas Newton and Leo GeBauer, and the FBI never investigated it further.^[2]

Known explanations. The file covers dozens of separate reports, so there is no single explanation. Much of it is correspondence from the public, newspaper clippings and referrals. The Krasuski account of a 1944 German “vertically rising” craft fits wartime rocket testing as well as the postwar “Nazi saucer” stories that circulated in the 1950s.

New or previously released? Mostly previously released. The FBI posted a redacted version of 62-HQ-83894 on its Vault website in 2011. What is new is a more complete copy with pages restored and fewer redactions. The two Detroit field reports appear to be newly public.^[1]

Released files

See also

• FBI
• Project Sign
• Aztec, New Mexico crash claim
• Roswell incident
• Kenneth Arnold sighting
• PURSUE Release 01 (May 8, 2026) overview
• PURSUE

Further reading

• Kevin D. Randle (2014). The Government UFO Files: The Conspiracy of Cover-Up (Amazon)
• Richard M. Dolan (2000). UFOs and the National Security State (Amazon)

References

1. ^ U.S. Department of War (2026). PURSUE Release 01 (May 8, 2026): 65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Section_001, 65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Section_002, 65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Section_003, 65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Section_004, 65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Section_005, 65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Section_006, 65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Section_007, 65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Section_008, 65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Section_009, 65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Section_010, 65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Serial_130, 65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Serial_153 and others, with official descriptions. war.gov/ufo.
2. ^ FBI Records: The Vault, “UFO” file (Part 1 of 16 onward), posted 2011; Hottel memorandum, March 22, 1950.