Analysis of Flying Object Incidents in the U.S.: The Original December 1948 Draft of Intelligence Study No. 203

Source file: DOW-UAP-D093_Analysis-of-Flying-Object-Incidents-in-the-US_1948.pdf Originating agency: U.S. Air Force, Directorate of Intelligence, jointly with the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) Document type: Intelligence study (Air Intelligence Division Study No. 203; DI/USAF-ONI) Date: 10 December 1948 (Copy No. 3; routing record through December 1951) Classification: TOP SECRET (declassified 1985; appendices marked SECRET and CONFIDENTIAL) Page count: 67 (all read) VIRIN: 260710-D-D0360-1078 PURSUE Release: 4

Summary

This is copy No. 3 of one of the foundational documents in the history of official UFO study: "Analysis of Flying Object Incidents in the United States," Air Intelligence Division Study No. 203, prepared jointly by the Directorate of Intelligence, Headquarters U.S. Air Force, and the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), and classified at the highest level, TOP SECRET. The document is dated 10 December 1948, and per the AARO comment attached to the release, it is an earlier draft version of DOW-UAP-D094 — the earliest known edition of a landmark study whose later version (April 1949) is described in a separate article in this archive.

Written less than a year and a half after the "flying saucer" wave of summer 1947, the study summarizes approximately 210 reported incidents and reaches a cautious but far-reaching bottom line: some object has indeed been seen, its identification cannot be accomplished on the available information, and two "reasonable" origins remain on the table — a domestic American development or foreign technology. If foreign, the study holds, the only logical assumption is the Soviet Union, in which case the objects are a "threat" warranting active identification and interception efforts.

The file carries a distinctive provenance of its own: a handwritten routing slip dated 6 December 1951 records that "all extra copies of this document were ordered to be destroyed," and that this copy was retained "for record purposes only." The file contains the analysis and conclusions, an appendix on hypothetical Soviet "tactics," a map of sighting distribution as of 1 August 1948, selected incident reports, and an illustrated survey of German, British, and American "flying wing" aircraft.

Research Article

The draft that preceded the edition: between D093 and D094

The file opens with a dark folder and a red label reading "AIR INTELLIGENCE DIVISION STUDY (DI/USAF-ONI), ANALYSIS OF FLYING OBJECT INCIDENTS IN THE UNITED STATES, STUDY NO. 203, 10 DECEMBER 1948." The inner title page repeats the title and lists the distribution: Air Intelligence Requirements Division (copies 1 and 3), Air Estimates Branch (4), the Office of Naval Intelligence (2), and the Air Intelligence Division (5). This is copy No. 3, declassified in 1985 (authority AF INA Memo of 5 March 1985).

Tucked among the opening pages is a routing slip (DD Form 95) of 6 December 1951 bearing a handwritten note: "All extra copies of this document were ordered to be destroyed. This being kept for record purposes only. Not to be disseminated without permission of AFOIN-A. Ref 2-7341." That note is what places this file in relation to D094: the gap between the two versions is one of wording, figures, and dates within the incident reports, but the structure, argument, and conclusions are substantively identical. The very fact that Headquarters reprinted an entire edition of a study at the highest classification level shows the document remained in active circulation into 1949, as Project Sign was giving way to Project Grudge.

"It appears that some object has been seen": the summary and conclusions

The summary chapter frames the problem in direct military terms: to examine the "pattern of tactics" of the flying saucers and to develop conclusions as to the possibility of their existence. The central argument for taking the sightings seriously is the quality of the observers: trained U.S. Weather Bureau personnel, USAF rated officers, experienced civilian pilots, and technicians attached to research projects and commercial airlines.

The case the study treats as its cornerstone is also its most sober: at Richmond, Virginia, in April 1947 — months before the American press coined the term "flying saucer" — two Weather Bureau meteorologists tracked strange metallic disks through a theodolite on four separate occasions, with the weather balloon and the unidentified object simultaneously in view through the instrument. Because the observations preceded the publicity, the study rules out media-driven suggestion and concludes from this case that the disks are not balloons.

Descriptions fall into three configurations — disk, rough cigar, and ball of fire — but the study notes that the ratio among the three is roughly constant across all sighting areas, suggesting a single object type viewed at different angles. The famous interim finding is carefully worded: "it appears that some object has been seen; however, the identification of that object cannot be readily accomplished on the basis of information reported on each incident." Two "reasonable" possibilities remain: domestic devices (weather balloons, rockets, experimental flying wing aircraft, or celestial phenomena) or foreign devices, in which case it would be "most logical" to consider them Soviet. The operative conclusion is sharp: all agencies must help confirm or deny a domestic origin, for otherwise "the objects are a threat and warrant more active efforts of identification and interception."

The Soviet hypothesis and hypothetical tactics

Appendix "A" develops the foreign scenario. It leans on the stated objective of the Soviet Fourth Five-Year Plan (1946-1950) — to overtake and surpass Western science — and assesses that the only path to that goal is a "scientific shortcut" via captured German expertise. The study notes that Dr. Guenther Bock, who headed all German flying-wing development, had been serving since 1945 at the Soviet aviation institutes TSAGI and TSIAM, and that reports of low evaluation described a planned fleet of 1,800 Horten flying-wing aircraft and even a regiment of "Horten XIII" jet night fighters at Kuzmikha air base near Irkutsk, protecting an atomic energy plant.

From this, four possible "reasons or tactics" for Soviet flights over the U.S. are derived: negating American confidence in the atom bomb as the decisive weapon (following the wave of strange objects over Scandinavia in 1946); photographic reconnaissance — the study stresses that sightings clustered near Oak Ridge, Las Cruces, and the general area of the Hanford Works, nuclear-project sites inaccessible to Soviet intelligence collectors; testing U.S. air defenses ahead of a hypothetical "one-way all-out attack" by strategic bombers; and familiarization flights over U.S. territory, which the study itself rates as the least probable. Alongside all this, the appendix concedes that the analysis is provisional. Its concluding paragraph sums up: "The conclusion that some type of flying object has been observed over the U.S. seems to be substantiated. It is not known at this time whether these observations are misidentifications of domestically launched devices, natural phenomena, or foreign unconventional aircraft."

Appendix B: the sighting map, and Appendix C: selected reports

Appendix "B" is a map of "Reported Sightings of Flying Objects as of 1 August 1948" (classified CONFIDENTIAL), with a legend distinguishing "Disks," "Rough Cigar Shape," "Ball of Fire," "Cone of Fire," and "Configuration Undetermined." The densest concentrations are plotted along the Atlantic and Pacific coastal states and in the central states of Ohio and Kentucky.

Appendix "C" is the evidentiary core: selected incident reports, chosen because their observers, "because of their technical background and experience, do not appear to be influenced by unfounded sensationalism." The list opens with the Richmond case (a metallic disk "shaped something like an ellipse with a flat bottom and a round top," tracked for 15 seconds at 15,000 feet, appearing below the balloon and much larger than it); continues with Byron B. Savage, an RCA field engineer who reported a disk over Oklahoma City in May 1947; and with five or six white circular objects in close formation near Lake Mead, Nevada, on 28 June 1947 at an estimated 285 miles per hour. The set of selected reports matches the one detailed in full in the article on the later edition (DOW-UAP-D094), and includes, among others, the F-51 pursuit by 2nd Lt. George F. Gorman over Fargo, the William Rhoads photographs from Phoenix, and the report of Kenneth Arnold.

Appendix D: the flying-wing parade

Appendix "D" surveys, with photographs and performance data, the flying-wing aircraft that could have been mistaken for "saucers": German projects (including the Horten 229, which the study crowns as "the closest resemblance" to the estimated disk configuration, and the Gotha P 60 A), the British Armstrong Whitworth AW 52 series, and on the American side the Northrop B-35 and YB-49, the Navy's Chance-Vought XF5U-1 "Flying Flapjack," and even a forgotten civilian aircraft from South Bend, Indiana — the tailless Arup monoplane of the 1930s. The appendix closes with a caveat: it is not intended to explain the phenomenon conclusively, but the possibility that unconventional aircraft account for some flying disk reports must not be overlooked.

Significance

Study No. 203 is the first comprehensive joint intelligence assessment (Air Force and Navy) of the UFO phenomenon, and it commits to writing, at the highest classification level, three findings that would shadow the field for decades: the objects are real in the sense that something was seen; they cannot be identified from the data; and the uncertainty itself is a national security problem. The 10 December 1948 draft presented here is the earliest known edition of the document, and its existence alongside the later edition (April 1949, DOW-UAP-D094) makes it possible for the first time to trace the document's own life cycle — from the original draft to the late-1951 order to destroy all its extra copies. For this archive, it is an anchor document: the reference point to which nearly every later assessment returns.

Key People

Locations

Incidents

Notable Quotes

"Therefore, it appears that some object has been seen; however, the identification of that object cannot be readily accomplished on the basis of information reported on each incident." -- page 2

"Since the Air Force is responsible for control of the air in the defense of the U.S., it is imperative that all other agencies cooperate in confirming or denying the possibility that these objects have a domestic origin. Otherwise, if it is firmly indicated that there is no domestic explanation, the objects are a threat and warrant more active efforts of identification and interception." -- page 4

"It must be accepted that some type of flying objects have been observed, although their identification and origin are not discernable. In the interest of national defense it would be unwise to overlook the possibility that some of these objects may be of foreign origin." -- page 4

"All extra copies of this document were ordered to be destroyed. This being kept for record purposes only. Not to be disseminated without permission of AFOIN-A." -- routing slip, 6 December 1951