UNCLASSIFIED // PUBLIC RELEASERELEASE 01 · MAY 8, 2026
PENTAGON UFO FILE · DOCUMENT65 HS1-834228961 62-HQ-83894 Serial 153
This is one small serial from the FBI’s headquarters UFO file, 62-HQ-83894, and it explains the “photographic evidence from sites like Oak Ridge” that the official description of the whole file mentions. The Knoxville field office sent headquarters two photographs said to show flying saucers seen at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, in July 1947, together with a photostat of a Knoxville News-Sentinel clipping about them.
Why Oak Ridge mattered
Oak Ridge was one of the most sensitive places in the country in 1947: the wartime Manhattan Project town where uranium for the first atomic bombs had been enriched. The routing page files the material under the heading “Internal Security – X.” The Air Force study of December 1948, DOW-UAP-D094, also singled out sightings near Oak Ridge when it speculated about foreign reconnaissance.
What is and isn’t here
Most of the pages are copies of the photographs and the clipping, which reproduce poorly in the scan, so the text layer carries little beyond the routing information. There is no FBI analysis of what the photographs show and no conclusion. The photographs date from July 1947, the peak of the first great American saucer wave.
The official description
From war.gov/UFO, released May 8, 2026, quoted in full
The FBI's 62-HQ-83894 case file includes investigative records, eyewitness testimonies, and public reports concerning Unidentified Flying Objects and flying discs documented between June 1947 and July 1968. The records include high-profile incident accounts, photographic evidence from sites like Oak Ridge, TN, and technical proposals regarding potential propulsion systems. Additional topics include convention programs, researcher accounts, and extensive media coverage from the period. This file is partially posted on FBI vault with more redactions and some pages missing. Included here is the complete case file with several newly declassified pages and only minor redactions.