"Flying Saucers" over Oak Ridge: Historical Photographs from July 1947

Source file: 65_hs1-834228961_62-hq-83894_serial_153.pdf Originating agency: FBI (Record Group 65) — Case File 62-HQ-83894 "UFOs" Date range: July 1947 Page count: 9 (all read) High-significance pages: Page 4 (newspaper article from the Knoxville News-Sentinel), pages 6 and 8 (two original photographs of the anomaly)

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Official Blurb (from war.gov)

The FBI's 62-HQ-83894 case file includes investigative records, eyewitness testimonies, and public reports concerning Unidentified Flying Objects and flying discs documented between June 1947 and July 1968. The records include high-profile incident accounts, photographic evidence from sites like Oak Ridge, TN, and technical proposals regarding potential propulsion systems. Additional topics include convention programs, researcher accounts, and extensive media coverage from the period. This file is partially posted on FBI vault with more redactions and some pages missing. Included here is the complete case file with several newly declassified pages and only minor redactions.

Summary

Serial 153 in FBI central case file 62-HQ-83894 is one of the rarest items in the Bureau's archive relating to the "flying saucer" phenomenon: an envelope containing two original photographs taken in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, in July 1947, together with a newspaper clipping from the Knoxville News-Sentinel and an internal document from the FBI's Knoxville field office. The serial was filed under the designation "INTERNAL SECURITY — X" and concerns sightings of unidentified objects over what was then the most sensitive nuclear weapons complex in the United States. The document was declassified under the FBI Automatic Declassification Guide issued May 24, 2007.

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Research Article

Introduction

July 1947 was a turbulent month in American history. Within a matter of weeks three events unfolded that would shape the Cold War era: Kenneth Arnold reported nine strange objects over the Cascade Range on June 24; the Roswell story broke on July 8; and FBI field offices nationwide received instructions from Director Hoover to collect reports of "flying saucers." Into that public upheaval stepped one W. R. Presley of Oak Ridge with something no one else had yet managed — two photographs purportedly showing an unidentified object in the skies above that nuclear city.

Security Context: Oak Ridge as a Protected Site

Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was no ordinary city. It had been built from nothing during World War II as part of the Manhattan Project and housed the uranium enrichment plant at Y-12 and the X-10 nuclear reactor. In 1947, two years after the atomic bombings of Japan, the facility remained one of the most consequential national security secrets of the Truman administration. Any incursion into the airspace above Oak Ridge constituted a genuine security threat. When reports of "flying saucers" hovering over the area arrived, the FBI opened an investigation under the sensitive category "INTERNAL SECURITY — X."

The field office that handled the file was the Knoxville Field Office, which operated under internal number 65-11. The present serial was sent as enclosures ("ENCLOSURES TO BUREAU") from the Knoxville office to FBI headquarters in Washington, signaling the seriousness with which the local unit treated the reports.

W. R. Presley: Witness and Photographer

The document centers on a single witness: W. R. Presley, whose known address was 218 Illinois Avenue, Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The newspaper article describes the circumstances of the photograph in detail.

Presley was near his home one afternoon and noticed he had one frame left on his film roll. He turned the camera toward the landscape and pressed the shutter, intending to capture the mountain scenery. Only after developing the roll did he discover what had actually been recorded. As quoted in the newspaper article:

"He had the roll developed, and look what he got on that last shot! Now don't start trying to explain it off. Just go ahead and say what it looks like. Sure. Sure. You're right. It is a Flying Saucer."

Analysis of the Photographs

The serial contains two original black-and-white photographs, both taken from the same position and in the same direction, showing a residential street in Oak Ridge with houses, a central utility pole, and mountains in the background.

First photograph (page 6): Shows a relatively bright daytime view of the neighborhood. In the upper right corner of the image a faint mark is visible in the sky, though it is not prominent. This may be the "clean frame" in the comparison, or the photograph taken first.

Second photograph (page 8): This is the central photograph of the serial. On the same street and in the same direction — but with different lighting conditions (the image is darker) — a bright, circular body appears prominently in the sky, above and to the right of the utility pole. The object appears as a well-defined, luminous disc, markedly different from what one would expect of a star, the moon, or aircraft lights.

The near-identical composition of the two photographs suggests they were taken from exactly the same vantage point, most likely a window of Presley's house. The difference in exposure between the two images indicates that they were not taken simultaneously, or that the urgency of the moment caused the photographer to change his camera settings.

The Knoxville News-Sentinel Article

The original newspaper clipping from July 1947 constitutes a rare piece of historical journalism. The prominent headline reads:

"'FLYING SAUCER' PHOTOGRAPHED AT OAK RIDGE"

The article reports that "W. R. PRESLEY had snapped several pictures of his family and his house at 218 Illinois Avenue, Oak Ridge, the other afternoon and, noticing he had one film left on the roll, he turned and snapped it for a picture of the mountain."

The most telling passage is the article's final paragraph:

"Mr. Presley says this picture has all of Oak Ridge talking."

That sentence reveals that even before the document reached FBI hands, the classified nuclear city was already buzzing with sighting reports. This was not an event kept secret — it had already entered local public awareness, creating additional pressure on the authorities to provide an explanation.

Connection to the 1947 Wave of Sightings

Serial 153 does not stand apart from its broader context. The summer 1947 "flying saucer" wave swept the entire United States. Within days of Kenneth Arnold's celebrated sighting on June 24, thousands of reports reached the authorities. The FBI issued a general directive to collect evidence, and field offices submitted reports to Washington.

What distinguishes the Oak Ridge file on two counts: first, it is accompanied by photographic documentation, something extremely rare at the time; second, it involves sightings over a protected nuclear site, which elevated the security concern to a level that could not be ignored.

The FBI's Filing Method and Its Significance

The document is classified under "INTERNAL SECURITY — X." In 1947, that designation belonged to the category of potential threats whose identity had not yet been established. The "X" was not accidental; it denotes files related to threats that had not been defined and could not be attributed to a known foreign state (communism, espionage, and so on).

The field office number 65-11 (Knoxville) points to an active domestic security file rather than a routine investigation. The fact that the serial was sent "TO BUREAU" with physical enclosures — including original photographs rather than copies — indicates the weight the field office attached to the incident.

Historical and Research Significance

Serial 153 in case file 62-HQ-83894 is one of the few items in the FBI's archive to include original photographs of an aerial anomaly from that period. The great majority of serials in the central file are text documents alone. The fact that the FBI retained the two physical photographs — not just copies — for decades until their declassification in 2007 indicates that they were regarded as potential evidence in an active investigation.

The photographs themselves remain genuinely interesting. The object in the second image is not easily explained as the moon — one of the standard explanations — given that both photographs appear to have been taken on the same evening or afternoon, yet only one shows the body. The sharply defined circular shape and the crisp luminosity are also unlike what one would expect from a natural celestial light source.

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Key People

Name	Role / Affiliation	Notes
W. R. Presley	Witness and photographer	Resident, 218 Illinois Avenue, Oak Ridge, TN
FBI Knoxville Field Office	Investigating body	Local case number: 65-11

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Locations

Location	Details
Oak Ridge, Tennessee	Protected nuclear city, former Manhattan Project facility
218 Illinois Avenue, Oak Ridge, TN	Photographer's residence / point of observation
Knoxville, Tennessee	Location of the reporting FBI field office

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Incidents

Incident	Date	Location	Pages
Observation and photographing of a luminous circular body	July 1947 (exact date not specified)	Oak Ridge, TN, over a residential neighborhood	4, 6, 8
Publication of newspaper article about the photograph	July 1947	Knoxville, TN	4
Transfer of photographs and documents to FBI headquarters	After July 1947	Washington, D.C.	1, 2

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Notable Quotes

"FLYING SAUCERS OBSERVED OVER OAK RIDGE AREA - INTERNAL SECURITY - X" — heading of the internal document, FBI Knoxville Field Office, file 65-11, page 2

"'FLYING SAUCER' PHOTOGRAPHED AT OAK RIDGE" — headline, Knoxville News-Sentinel, July 1947, page 4

"He had the roll developed, and look what he got on that last shot! Now don't start trying to explain it off. Just go ahead and say what it looks like. Sure. Sure. You're right. It is a Flying Saucer." — Knoxville News-Sentinel, July 1947, page 4

"Mr. Presley says this picture has all of Oak Ridge talking." — Knoxville News-Sentinel, July 1947, page 4

"Two photographs of reputedly 'flying saucers' seen at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, during July 1947." — enclosure list, internal FBI document, page 2

"Photostatic copy of newspaper clipping appearing in the Knoxville News-Sentinel concerning these 'flying saucers.'" — enclosure list, internal FBI document, page 2

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Archival Notes

The physical envelope (page 1) bears a handwritten notation: "62-HQ-83894 VOL 1 SERIAL 153 ONLY," and is tagged by the FBI Central Records Center, HQ — Headquarters, with barcode 8/11/1274168. The reverse side of the document folder (page 3) carries a purple stamp reading "62-83894-153 ENCLOSURE." The backs of the two photographs (pages 7 and 9) bear the handwritten numbers "62-8894-153" and "62-83894-153" respectively, to ensure attribution to the correct case file in the event the photographs were separated from the envelope.

Declassification was carried out under the FBI Automatic Declassification Guide issued May 24, 2007 — roughly sixty years after the photographic event.