COLD OPEN. This episode presents Standard Form Number sixty‑four, Office Memorandum titled “65 HS1‑834228961 62‑HQ‑83894 Section 3,” addressed to the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and dated September fourth, nineteen‑forty‑seven. The memorandum records early post‑war reports of unidentified flying objects, including a sighting over Guam and a subsequent aircraft crash investigation, making it a notable entry in the early UFO record.
PROVENANCE. The document was released to the public through The Black Vault, a repository of declassified government records. It appears in the archive entry titled “Expediente OVNI 65 HS1‑834228961 62‑HQ‑83894 Section 3,” uploaded on the Internet Archive. No specific Freedom of Information Act case number is listed; the declassification appears to have been authorized by the National Archives and Records Administration under standard public‑domain release procedures. The full text is available at archive.org/download/expediente-ovni-65-hs1-834228961-62-hq-83894-section-3-e9bc79/65_hs1-834228961_62-hq-83894_section_3_djvu.txt, and the canonical PDF can be accessed at the same address.
THE DOCUMENT. Standard Form sixty‑four, Office Memorandum. Office: United States Government, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation. Date: September fourth, nineteen‑forty‑seven. To: Director, FBI. From: Special Agent in Charge, San Francisco, Air Mail Special Delivery. Subject: Reports of Flying Discs.
“Enclosed is a copy of a letter dated August twenty‑fifth, nineteen‑forty‑seven, with attachment from Colonel Donald L. Springer of A‑2, Hamilton Field, California. Even though Colonel Springer feels that Mr. Johnson may have read some of his claims in a newspaper, Colonel Springer believes that Mr. F. M. Johnson should be interviewed in this matter. In accordance with Bureau Bulletin Number forty‑two, dated July thirtieth, nineteen‑forty‑seven, Portland is requested to exhaustively interview Mr. F. M. Johnson, one hundred six North‑west First Avenue, Portland, Oregon, regarding his alleged sighting of a “flying disc” on June twenty‑four, nineteen‑forty‑seven. Copies of the result of this interview should be furnished to the San Francisco Field Office for distribution to the Sixth Army Intelligence.”
The memorandum continues: “The attached true copy of a letter from Mr. F. Johnson received by this officer August twenty‑second, nineteen‑forty‑seven. Your attention is invited to the similarity between Arnold’s gentleman’s report. A possibility exists that Arnold read some of this in the newspapers when Arnold was publicized regarding this matter. This headquarters does not intend to investigate this incident. It is requested that the result of any interview you may make be furnished.”
Later in the same file, a separate memorandum dated August twenty‑seventh, nineteen‑forty‑seven, from Lieutenant Colonel Donald L. Springer, reports two letters concerning sightings of “flying discs” on Guam and the results of an A‑2 investigation in Washington State.
Excerpt from the Weekly Intelligence Summary, Air Transport Command, Washington, D. C., dated August twentieth, nineteen‑forty‑seven: “Unidentified flying objects have been observed by three American enlisted men of the one‑four‑seventh Airways and Air Communications Service Squadron at Harmon Field, Guam. The men report that at ten forty hours on August fourteenth, nineteen‑forty‑seven the two objects, which they describe as small, crescent‑shaped and traveling at a speed twice that of a fighter plane, passed over them on a zig‑zag course in a westerly direction at an approximate altitude of twelve hundred feet. The objects disappeared into clouds and a few seconds later a similar object, possibly one of
