1949 FBI Memo Reported UFO over Utah

Freedom of Information Act requests have revealed that FBI agents sent an urgent memo to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover in 1949 about a UFO sighting in Utah. Even more interesting, in 1950, Guy Hottel, the agent in charge of the Washington Field Office, sent a memo reporting that an Air Force source said that flying saucers had crashed near Ros­well, N.M., and had been recovered.

On April 4, 1949, FBI agents in Utah sent a cable marked “urgent” to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. It said an Army guard at the Ogden Supply Depot, a Logan policeman and a Utah Highway Patrol officer in Mantua each saw from miles apart a UFO — which they said exploded over Utah.

Under the title “Flying Discs,” the cable said they “saw a silver colored object high up approaching the mountains at Sardine Canyon” that “appeared to explode in a rash of fire. Several residents at Trenton … [reported] seeing what appeared to be two aerial explosions followed by falling object.”

That and other documents show the FBI was investigating whether UFOs were real, and it figured they could be. Such documents are now available in “The Vault,” vault.fbi.gov, a revamped FBI website for documents that have been released through the Freedom of Information Act and have been recently or often requested. Read more