FBI denials of UFO interest
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 8
| Date | 21 July 1966 |
|---|---|
| Topics | Crashes & retrievals (topic), Secrecy & cover-up (topic) |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 68 |
| Year | 1966 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 1966 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 12 |
For decades the FBI told members of the public who wrote about UFOs that the subject was outside its jurisdiction and that it did not collect UFO reports. Its own files show a more complicated history: the Bureau helped the Army Air Forces investigate sightings in 1947, and its field offices continued to receive and pass on reports for years afterwards.[1][2]
1947
In the summer of 1947, at the request of Army Air Forces Intelligence, the FBI agreed to help investigate reports of flying discs. A Bureau bulletin dated 30 July 1947 told agents to investigate each sighting brought to their attention to establish whether it was genuine, imaginary or a prank, and noted the Air Forces' concern that some reports might be made by subversives trying to cause hysteria. The FBI later withdrew from active investigation and referred reports to the Air Force.[1][3]
The denials
The testimony cites a reply dated 21 July 1966 as one example of the Bureau telling a correspondent that UFOs were not its concern. A letter from the FBI's Chicago office to researcher Larry W. Bryant on 10 October 1974 is typical: it said the FBI had no information on the sighting he described, that it did "not collect information regarding UFO sightings in general", and that it could investigate only matters Congress had assigned to it, which UFO sightings were not.[2]
What the files show
The same file shows the Chicago office in September 1967 taking a telephone report of a UFO from an 11-year-old boy and passing it to an Air Force radar squadron. Other records now on the FBI's online Vault include an October 1966 memo from the San Francisco field office to Director J. Edgar Hoover summarising a wave of reports of silent, fast-moving metallic craft, some with small "crew members", from witnesses including police officers, pilots and military personnel. The files also include the 1950 Guy Hottel memo relaying a third-hand story of recovered saucers, which the FBI has said was never investigated and is not evidence of a crash.[2][4][5]
Assessment
The difference is partly one of definition: the FBI did not investigate UFOs as crimes, but it received and forwarded information it was given. The testimony uses the contrast as an example of public statements that understated how involved an agency actually was. The files contain no proof of alien visitation.[2][4]
People and topics
- Federal Bureau of Investigation — The U.S. federal police agency, which helped check flying disc reports from 1947 to 1950.
- Unidentified anomalous phenomena — The U.S. government's current term for unidentified objects in the air, in space and underwater.
- Unidentified flying object — An object in the sky that can't be identified; the older term for UAP.
- U.S. Air Force — The U.S. military service that ran the official UFO projects from 1947 to 1969.
On the Timeline
- House Armed Services Committee UFO hearing (1966) (5 April 1966) — The Blue Book chief tells Congress there are no unexplained radar cases, contradicted by records.
- Request for Vallée's best cases (1966) (23 July 1966) — Vallée receives a request from engineers to send their best cases to unnamed Wright Field scientists.
See every 1966 event on the UAP Timeline →
References
- "Federal Bureau of Investigation FOIA documents: Unidentified Flying Objects", Project Gutenberg · gutenberg.org · archived copy
- "FBI-UAP-D014: Correspondence relating to UFO sightings, 1967–1974", The Black Vault (PDF) · documents3.theblackvault.com · archived copy
- "UFO", FBI Records: The Vault · vault.fbi.gov · archived copy
- Marco Giustiniani, "What the FBI's secret UFO files actually say, and what they don't", La Voce di New York (May 2026) · lavocedinewyork.com · archived copy
- "Everything wild in the FBI's UFO files", Vice · vice.com · archived copy
- FBI Vault: unexplained phenomenon (archived) · webarchive.library.unt.edu · archived copy
- archive.org · archive.org · archived copy
- archive.org · archive.org · archived copy
- archive.org · archive.org · archived copy
- docs.wixstatic.com · docs.wixstatic.com · archived copy
- nicap.org · nicap.org · archived copy
- ia801301.us.archive.org · ia801301.us.archive.org · archived copy
Further reading
- UFO files — FBI Vault · vault.fbi.gov · archived copy
This page was last edited on 29 October 2026. Articles are written in our own words from the sources listed under References; disputed claims are attributed to the people who made them.
No discussion yet.