US Army-Flying-Saucer-Study 1949

This short file shows how the flying saucer question reached the top planning staff of the U.S. Army in early 1949. The Plans and Operations Division of the Army General Staff (P&O, GSUSA) asked the Army’s Intelligence Division to evaluate the reports, and these pages are mostly P&O’s own routing forms and memos for the record, filed under the heading “Evaluation Study of Phenomenon (Flying Saucers).”

How the study came about

According to a P&O memo of 20 April 1949, a number of incoming radio messages about flying saucers in February 1949 led P&O to request an evaluation on 24 February; Intelligence sent it back on 7 March. A memo of 22 March records the study’s purpose — to decide whether the reports came from natural phenomena or could be traced to a foreign power — and asks Intelligence to keep P&O posted if later developments contradicted it.

A memo dated 5 April 1949 sums up the result in one line: of the cases investigated, the study suggested no foreign nation was involved. The same memo shows why the file was reopened. After Walter Winchell, the widely followed radio commentator, discussed flying saucers in a broadcast on 3 April 1949, P&O asked Intelligence to check whether what he said was accurate, and Intelligence’s reply was filed with the study.

Reading the scan

Much of the file is a poor-quality scan, and the evaluation itself does not come through clearly in the text layer, so the memos are the most legible guide to its conclusion. It sits alongside the Air Force’s parallel work of the same years, such as Study No. 203.