1948 UAP Sighting — FBI Files (D8P45)
Donald Keyhoe was described as a "flamboyant writer" whose material was considered irresponsible. The Bureau decided not to get involved with him, based on this assessment. This assessment was made in 1948.
Background
A UFO/UAP incident extracted from page 45 of 65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Section_9, a declassified FBI vault file released by the Department of War on May 8, 2026 as part of the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE). The incident is dated 1948 and located in Unknown location.
What the file records
Donald Keyhoe was described as a “flamboyant writer” whose material was considered irresponsible. The Bureau decided not to get involved with him, based on this assessment. This assessment was made in 1948.
Witnesses on file: Mr. Nichols.
Verbatim from the file
“a flamboyant writer and we have found from previous experience that much of his material is irresponsible.”
Status of the case
The page-level assessment recorded in the file is: discounted by investigators. All records released under the PURSUE program are designated unresolved by the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office unless otherwise stated, meaning the federal government has not concluded the events were anomalous, has not concluded they were conventional, and has not ruled out either possibility. Conventional candidates for sightings of this period include experimental aircraft, weather balloons (especially the Project Mogul series), atmospheric optical phenomena, and astronomical objects.