Analysis of Flying Object Incidents in the United States, 1948

This is the working draft of one of the earliest U.S. intelligence assessments of the 1947–48 saucer reports: Air Intelligence Division Study No. 203, dated 10 December 1948. It survives here as a typed, heavily marked-up copy with a memo routing slip on top, and much of the typescript scanned poorly. A cleaner, printed version of the same study is DOW-UAP-D094; AARO says the two are substantively alike.

What the draft argues

The analysts counted roughly 210 reported incidents and argued that the quality of the witnesses — Weather Bureau staff, rated Air Force officers, experienced civilian pilots and airline technicians — meant something real was being seen. Their strongest example came from the Weather Bureau office in Richmond: an observer tracking weather balloons through a theodolite reported metallic disks on three occasions, and a colleague once, the last in April 1947, months before saucers reached the newspapers.

Reports were sorted into three shapes — disks, rough cigars and balls of fire — and the authors suggested a single kind of object seen from different angles might explain all three.

Flying wings, at home and abroad

Lacking proof either way, the study listed what the objects might be. On the domestic side it named the Navy’s XF5U-1 “Flying Flapjack” and Northrop’s B-35 and YB-49 flying wings, along with balloons, rockets and celestial objects. On the foreign side it pointed to German tailless designs such as the Horten 229, on which it said the Soviets had information. It treated the Soviet possibility as a defense question rather than a conclusion.