A newly declassified Department of War document, dated December 30, 1947, challenges the long-held belief that the U.S. government did not seriously investigate flying saucers until the 1950s. The document, released on May 8, 2026, under the PURSUE declassification program, shows that the Air Materiel Command was actively concerned about flying disc sightings just months after the first major reports emerged.
The memo, classified as “Restricted” and assigned a priority classification of 2A—indicating a high-priority intelligence requirement—ordered the Command’s Intelligence Department to collect and analyze all available reports on flying discs. The language in the document is direct, stating that “Continued and recent reports from qualified observers concerning this phenomenon still makes this matter one of concern to Headquarters, Air Materiel Command.” The use of the word “concern” suggests institutional worry rather than mere curiosity. This internal response began shortly after pilot Kenneth Arnold reported nine shiny objects near Mount Rainier, Washington, on June 24, 1947.
The news media coined the term “flying saucer” following Arnold’s account, sparking a wave of hundreds of sightings across the country. While the military publicly dismissed many of these reports as weather balloons, birds, or mass hysteria, the declassified document reveals a different reality.
The Command’s stated policy, according to the memo, was “not to ignore reports of sightings, but to collect, collate, evaluate, and distribute information on this nature.” This active intelligence-gathering posture contradicts the public stance the military maintained for years afterward. The document indicates that the Air Materiel Command was running a dedicated project to study the phenomenon, gathering data from qualified observers and treating it as a genuine intelligence problem. The memo does not specify the cause for concern, nor does it name the observers or describe the sightings.
However, it establishes that the U.S. military was formally investigating flying discs before 1947 ended. This timeline predates Project Sign, the Air Force’s first official UFO study, which began in 1948.
Project Grudge followed in 1949, and Project Blue Book started in 1952. Historians have generally understood that serious government interest in UFOs began with Project Blue Book. This document shows that the foundation for those later investigations was laid earlier.
The Air Materiel Command was not a passive observer in the summer of 1947 but an active collector of information, treating flying discs as a matter of national security concern. The release of this document under PURSUE, a program that declassifies historical military records, provides researchers with a clearer picture of early government involvement.
For those who have followed the long history of government interaction with UFOs, this memo confirms what skeptics of the official narrative have long suspected: the military was taking the phenomenon seriously from the very beginning. The public dismissals were a mask, while the intelligence work was real.
