Several years ago, the creators of the popular US news program "Mysteries of Space" decided to find the original FBI documents, removing the veil of secrecy over UFOs. And after a while, some of the documents were received by journalists. They covered the period from 1947 to the mid-60s. Copies of these documents were shown on television. But the presenter emphasized that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was seriously engaged in the problem of UFOs only when it was reported that a serious crime was committed by aliens. Is it so?
The FBI was created in the 1920s by Edgar Hoover. Initially, the purpose of this organization was to identify and suppress such criminal acts as kidnapping, robbery of banks, offices of large firms. But over time, Hoover concentrated enormous power in his hands, taking over counter-intelligence and the fight against terrorism. By the way, this outstanding man of his kind served seven successive presidents in office until his death, which followed in 1972.
The sunny day of June 24, 1947 went down in history as the starting point of the modern UFO era. Then the American pilot Kenneth Arnold saw a formation of nine silvery objects flying at high speed. As it soon became clear, this case was not the only one … Initially, the US Air Force dealt with “flying saucers”. But soon the headquarters was inundated with eyewitness accounts. And on July 9, 1947, General George Shulgen, a spokesman for the United States Air Force, sent an official request for help to the FBI. In response, Edgar Hoover wrote a memo on July 15:
“I will help the BBC, but before that we must agree on full access to the discs found. We know that army units have captured one of the discs, but did not allow us to even briefly examine it.” General Schulgen assured the FBI chief that he would give instructions to provide his agents with "any information regarding the disks and give them the opportunity to investigate these objects."
In 1947, document number 42 appeared in the FBI Bulletin, signed by Hoover. "You will study every subject provided to you that relates to flying discs to authenticate and keep the Bureau informed of the research findings." So the FBI set about collecting any reports of UFO sightings.
The first part of the FBI's declassified materials was over 500 pages. These documents were obtained by Dr. Bruce Maccabi through the Freedom of Information Act. It turned out that not all materials deserve study. Some of them state only idle rumors and inventions. But "approximately 40 percent are teletype messages that, in decrypted form, represent valuable information about UFOs." And the small rest is FBI notes intended for internal use, which shed light on the department's position on this issue. One of the notes from 1947 tells of a find made by an FBI agent in Portland, Oregon. He recorded an eyewitness account who saw flying vehicles in the mountains on the afternoon of June 24, 1947.
The scout, who was at an altitude of 5000 feet above sea level in the mountains, noticed some kind of shadow, looked up and saw a disk moving southeast, and after a few minutes discovered five more similar objects All of them flew silently, were 30 feet in diameter, and behind each trail stretched like a jet plane. The scout had a compass and a watch. He noticed that before the first disc appeared, the compass needle began to rush from side to side. But as soon as the disc disappeared from sight, the arrow immediately took its normal position.
But the era of harmony between the US Air Force and the FBI ended pretty quickly. This happened when Bureau officials intercepted a letter from Colonel R. H. Smith of the Air Defense Command. He wrote that "the FBI is obliged to help the Air Force separate the real UFOs from any fakes, which in the end could turn out to be toilet seats and the like." In other words, the colonel believed that the military should be doing the real thing, and the agents of the Bureau should be digging through the trash.
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In response, Hoover wrote an angry letter to General George McDonald at the Pentagon, dated September 27, 1947, in which he extracted the words "toilet seats" from Colonel Smith's letter. “I will not allow the personnel of this organization to be entertained in this way,” wrote Hoover. “And I advise the Air Force to stop all research activities related to the observation of“flying discs”.
Some important documents related to UFOs were collected by the Bureau in 1948-1949. But gradually the situation began to change. The FBI has no longer officially dealt with this issue. It only on its own initiative continued to control the appearance of "flying saucers" and their activities. This work continued until the mid-1960s.
In 1950, the FBI received information about an alleged UFO crash near the nuclear complex in Tennessee. An investigation was carried out again. The witnesses were interviewed under oath, and expert scientists examined the scene. But in the end, no “conclusive proof” was found. Similar incidents occurred in the same year in Washington state and in 1952 in South Carolina. UFOs have been seen by many people, but no evidence of their falls has been found.
For many years, the Bureau kept dossiers on some UFO eyewitnesses. Also preserved are the records of journalist Frank Skulli, author of the first book on UFO problems "The Riddle of Flying Saucers" (1950) and ufologist Donald Keehou, founder of the once influential UFO group.
One of the first people who was also absorbed in the UFO theme was George Adamsky, who became famous in the 1950s. They are mainly devoted to the visit of the FBI officers to Adamsky's home in California. George was asked to sign a statement stating that the agency staff "did not approve of his statements." Later, Adamsky used this document as proof of the interest of the US government in his contacts with the "space brothers". This greatly worried the Bureau, so in December 1953 its representatives again visited the enthusiast of ufology. A telex from the FBI office in San Diego testified that “Adamskiy was strongly warned to immediately stop referring to the fact that the FBI approved his intention to talk about“flying saucers”. Adamsky was warned once again that if he did not stop such statements,formal charges will be brought against him.” But documents dated 1956 show he continued to speak in the same manner.
The Bureau continued to monitor Adamsky and other alien contactees because they all preached non-use of nuclear weapons. According to these people, they acted according to the instructions of the "space brothers". For many years, the intolerant attitude towards nuclear weapons has been viewed in the United States as subversive activity. So when a small group of ufologists from Detroit sponsored Adamsky's lectures in 1954, the local FBI opened a secret dossier called Detroit Flying Saucer Club espionage.
The FBI has other documents related to UFOs. But in the 1960s, there were significantly fewer of them. First of all, because the Bureau was gradually losing interest in this. Its leaders finally understood simple observation and studying UFOs is not at all a crime.