DOW-UAP-D105, U.S. Air Force Flying Discs File, 1952
WAR.gov / Department of War PURSUE Release 06
This file is an archival collection of U.S. Air Force Director of Intelligence records relating to reported “flying disc” incidents during the period from September through December 1952.
Document Highlights
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Short overview
An archival file on “flying discs” from the U.S. Air Force Directorate of Intelligence: correspondence, memoranda for record, teletype messages, routing sheets and sighting reports on unidentified flying objects, most of them dated between July and December 1952.
Why this is interesting
The file offers no overall verdict; it shows the daily routine instead. Most items were drafted by Major Fournet of the office AFOIN-2A2 and signed by Colonel William A. Adams: material forwarded to the Air Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC) for Project Blue Book, replies to citizens, editors and engineers, and the return of a borrowed Coast Guard negative. Pages 26–36 and 228–229 cover the colour film that Navy Chief Photographer Delbert C. Newhouse shot near Tremonton, Utah, on 2 July 1952: his own report, the interview questions and answers, and a detailed list of points for analysis. The Air Force asked the Director of Naval Intelligence for an independent interpretation and later added Nicholas Mariana’s 1950 film from Great Falls, Montana, for comparison (see the paired record DOW-UAP-D098 on the analysis of both films). Other items include an FBI Laboratory report on the singed cap of D. S. DesVergers of West Palm Beach, Florida, the Air Force’s dismissal of the “monster” story from Flat Woods, West Virginia, as a by-product of meteor reports, a disagreement over whether photographs taken at Austin on 8 June 1952 show sun dogs or a mirage, and radar-ionization theories sent in by engineers at CBS Laboratories and the University of Wisconsin.
Selected passages
- “There was a group of about ten or twelve objects - that bore no relation to anything I had seen before - milling about in a rought formation and proceeding in a westerly direction.”
- “Captain Ruppelt stated that ATIC was finished with analyzing the photograph and that he would bring it with him for return to the USCG.”
Background
This file is an archival collection of U.S. Air Force Director of Intelligence records relating to reported “flying disc” incidents during the period from September through December 1952. Drawn from multiple governmental and non-governmental sources, it compiles a wide range of material associated with reported sightings and official handling of those observations, rather than presenting a single analytical conclusion on the nature or origin of “flying discs.” The contents include correspondence, memoranda, reporting forms, case summaries, distribution and routing material, and other administrative or intelligence-related documentation tied to flying-disc reporting and review during that period. Pages 26-36 of the file refer to an incident reported near Tremonton, Utah, in July 1952, in which a U.S. Navy Warrant Officer recorded film of unidentified objects that the Air Force later assessed were likely seabirds. Overall, the file is a broad documentary collection reflecting how such reports were recorded, circulated, and evaluated in late 1952.