Official · Document · FBI
Four Police Officers Saw a Purple Object Disintegrate in a Field
They tried to pick it up. It broke apart, leaving behind a small amount of material.
Released to the public May 8, 20262 min read
In brief
Four Philadelphia police officers witnessed a glowing object land in a field on the evening of September 26, 1950. When they attempted to pick it up, it broke and disintegrated. A small amount of material remained, but the record doesn't state if it was examined.
Summary
Section 6 of the FBI's 'Flying Discs / UFO' case file 62-HQ-83894, 271 OCR'd pages spanning roughly August 1950 through August 1952. The bulk of the section is occupied by (a) the August 1950 'Project Twinkle' / Green Fireballs material — including the OSI 17th District (Kirtland AFB) 'Summary of Observations of Aerial Phenomena in the New Mexico Area, December 1948 – May 1950' compiled by Lt Col Doyle Rees and Dr Lincoln LaPaz of the University of New Mexico Institute of Meteoritics, with a tabulated 200+ sighting catalogue (Sightings #1-208) covering Los Alamos, Sandia, White Sands, Holloman, Vaughn, Roswell, Camp Hood and other Southwest sites; (b) October 1950 – February 1951 'Detection of Unidentified Objects over Oak Ridge, Tennessee, Protection of Vital Installations' file from SAC Knoxville and 111th CIC, including the 18 December 1950 NEPA Division Fairchild Engine sighting (Lt Col John R. Hood Jr, Cdr E. W. Hribar USN, Maj Walter L. Carss USAF) and the 12-20 December 1950 / 16 January 1951 663rd AC&W Squadron radar incidents at McGhee Tyson Airport; (c) October 1950 Hoover teletypes to SAC Los Angeles directing discreet inquiry into whether Frank Scully, author of 'Behind the Flying Saucers,' is identical to a Frank Scully active in Communist Party circles since the late 1930s; (d) the 10-11 September 1951 Fort Monmouth NJ AN/MPG-1 and SCR-584 radar incidents reported by G-2 representative Andrew J. Reid; (e) the 29 March 1952 Donald Stewart / George Tyler III Ritchie Highway, Baltimore disc-hover-and-engine-stop case investigated by AFOSI SA Boyce Royal (Tyler later admitted he had not been present); (f) the 10 May 1952 Savannah River Plant (DuPont/AEC) multi-disc sighting near Ellenton SC; (g) miscellaneous individual citizen reports (Aaron L. Hitchens of Winchester Repeating Arms Co. New Haven 20 Oct 1950; Karl Nyquist Chicago 6 Mar 1952; Lt Cdr Melvin M. Kuhn USN Nashville 13 Mar 1952; Mrs Jimmy Short, W. B. Burgess, Thad W. Culmer II, Mrs Nellie T. Dull, Dewey T. Wilson, Florence Whitish, Mrs Fred Haufe, Benedicto Romero, Dr R. E. McIndoo Thessalon Lake Ontario 27 July 1952); (h) a Dutch printer Fred J. Eekhout's 5 May 1952 ionospheric / negative-ion disc-propulsion theory; (i) the William Albert Rhodes 1947 Phoenix photographs follow-up triggered by Drew Pearson / Fred Blumenthal in June 1952; (j) commercial-magazine reprints filed for record (Look 'Flying Saucers Are Real' by Richard Wilson on Dr Urner Liddel's ONR Skyhook explanation, Jan 1951; Look 'Flying Saucers' by Dr Donald H. Menzel mirage / temperature-inversion theory, June 1951; UK Sunday Graphic 6 July 1952 Oskar Linke 'warming-pan' Soviet-zone affidavit; an anonymous German-language letter to the Cincinnati Enquirer attributing saucers to a German V-Weapon designed by 'Konstrus Riedel'); and (k) the late-July 1952 OSI Bolling AFB request (Capt William Deegan, Col Collins) that FBI immediately relay any saucer reports to Code 1261 ext 509, followed by Cdr Randall Boyd (Air Intelligence Estimates Division) briefing FBI liaison W. W. Philcox that 2-3% of sightings are 'most credible' and remain unexplained, and that interplanetary origin 'is not being overlooked.' The section closes with Major H. B. Eldridge (OSI Philadelphia) saying OSI no longer wants flying-saucer reports — promptly overruled by Bureau HQ.