1950 UAP Sighting — FBI Files (D5P99)
Numerous observers have reported seeing real aircraft resembling flying saucers, described as a combination of helicopter and jet plane. Early models were built in the US as early as 1942 and later developed by the Navy. These saucers are circular, approximately 105 feet in diame
Background
A UFO/UAP incident extracted from page 99 of 65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Section_5, 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 April 7, 1950 and located in Unknown location.
What the file records
Numerous observers have reported seeing real aircraft resembling flying saucers, described as a combination of helicopter and jet plane. Early models were built in the US as early as 1942 and later developed by the Navy. These saucers are circular, approximately 105 feet in diameter, and powered by jet engines around the rim.
Witnesses on file: commercial aircraft pilots, fighter pilots, plane spotters, Army Air Force officers, a group of scientists.
Verbatim from the file
“Observers of ‘flying saucers’ aren‘t just seeing things. They‘re real—aircraft that conform to accepted laws.”. “Flying saucers, seen by hundreds of competent observers over most parts of U.S., are accepted as real.”. “That is the picture agreed on by qualified observers of saucers in flight—commercial aircraft pilots, fighter pilots, plane spotters, Army Air Force officers.”
Status of the case
The page-level assessment recorded in the file is: no agency assessment. 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.