A Letter from Mexico to Washington: An Inventor from Veracruz and the First "Flying Saucer" Photographs from Durango, 1950

Source file: 65_hs1-834228961_62-hq-83894_serial_220.pdf Originating agency: FBI (Record Group 65) — Case File 62-HQ-83894 Date range: March 16, 1950 (newspaper article) — April 7, 1950 (FBI New York receipt stamp) Page count: 15 (all read) High-significance pages: 2–6 (letter in English translation + newspaper headline), 7–9 (Spanish original), 11, 13, 14, 15 (technical drawings and Mexican press clipping)

---

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 220 in the FBI's central flying discs case file (62-HQ-83894) contains unique material from Mexico: a long letter from a self-described inventor named Miguel Angel Garcia Macias of Veracruz, sent on March 19, 1950 to the "President of the Scientific Investigation Commission of the United States of North America" in New York. The letter explains, in the author's conception, how the flying saucers observed over the United States are in fact nuclear-atomic powered aircraft, and that he himself invented the principle on which they operate. Attached is a newspaper article from El Universal of March 16, 1950 reporting "the first photographs of a flying saucer" taken above the city of Durango at 9,000 feet, along with detailed technical drawings of the unconventional aircraft Garcia Macias had designed.

---

Research Article

Introduction

In early 1950, as the wave of evidence on "flying saucers" was still cresting across North America, an unusual package arrived at the FBI field office in New York — mailed from the city of Veracruz, Mexico. The sender was Miguel Angel Garcia Macias, who described himself with pride as a "pianist, composer, ideographic discoverer and inventor." In his letter he argued, without hesitation, that the flying saucers seen over the United States were an American development based on ideas stolen from him. The document, now held as Serial 220 of case file 62-HQ-83894, stands as testimony to one of the lesser-known aspects of early Cold War UAP investigations: the stream of spontaneous approaches from foreign civilians who offered explanations for the phenomenon — and sometimes claimed intellectual ownership of the ideas behind it.

The Author and His Worldview

Miguel Angel Garcia Macias gave himself a notably broad title. His official address was: "Pianist, Composer, Ideographic Discoverer and Inventor, No. 324, Pino Suarez Street, Veracruz, Veracruz." On March 19, 1950, he sent a Spanish-language letter by airmail to the "President of the Scientific Investigation Commission of the United States of North America" in New York. The letter was typewritten, with bold headings and capital letters running throughout — a style that the FBI translator, Mrs. Sophia Seliva, noted in marginal comments bore no clear linguistic justification.

Garcia Macias opened with specific and inventive terminology for the flying-saucer phenomenon: he called them "Aereo-astactos extratofericos" — which the translator rendered as "stratospheric aerostats" — and added in the same breath that "people commonly call them 'flying saucers.'" He expressed firm conviction that the United States possessed these craft and propelled them by atomic force.

The Invention Claims and the Theft Narrative

The bulk of the letter is devoted to a long list of inventions that Garcia Macias claimed to have developed, only to have their plans stolen and patented by others. The list includes:

"Gote-Graduns": A mechanism for "Drop Graduation" arising from research on the Earth's atmospheric gradients. "The plans of my idea were stolen from me and patented in your Nation."

"Automatic Shovels": The concept of a truck with an automatic shovel, inspired by watching workers load a truck by hand for an hour and a half near a customs office at the port. He sent plans to Mexico's Minister of the National Economy; eight months later he was informed the patent had already been granted to someone else.

"Graduated Optics Chambers": For vision testing — "still not registered," according to his account.

"The Gradual Centimetric Music of the Future": A discovery of sound composed of "pianometry, phonometry, centimetry, and discophonometry."

"Protectometer and Procmagnetometer": For preventing train and automobile collisions.

"Exquinocis": A device for distributing time and distance across clocks throughout the world.

"Stratospheric Aerostats" — The Technical Theory

At the core of the letter stands what Garcia Macias called "stratospheric aerostats" — in his view, the same principle underlying "flying saucers." His theory combined "Global Stability" with "Semi-Global Stability" to produce a "super-stability" of bodies in air and space.

He stated: "these apparatuses can be used in order to avoid Atomic Explosion on the Earth, since the velocity is Greater than that of Light or Sound in accordance with the quantity of Atomic Material which is used in their fabrication."

The motive force, in his description, comes from "stratospheric rockets" positioned at the top or sides of the craft, utilizing "nuclear-atomic force." The craft is capable of taking off from either land or water, since "the global-conical form" permits this.

Garcia Macias concluded with hope: "I hope that my idea is Studied and approved by the said Commission and may serve for the Progress of the Universe instead of its DESTRUCTION, and for the good of all of us human beings who inhabit the Earth. I sign: 'For Universal Progress.'"

The Technical Drawings

A prominent and distinctive component of Serial 220 is the set of technical drawings Garcia Macias attached to his letter. These are detailed hand-drawn diagrams executed as blackboard drawings — white lines on a dark background — depicting:

"Helice. Kapto-Arao-Fuersa" (Propeller / Air-Seizing Force): A board showing in its upper half a five-blade propeller with arrows indicating the direction of airflow ("captures, cuts, expels"), and in its lower half a cross-section of the aircraft itself. The craft is divided into three "levels": Level 1 — propeller and air-capturing force; Level 2 — air intakes and cabin entry; Level 3 — oxygen chamber and atomic force.

"Conic-Global and Semi-Global Stability" (two versions): Two boards depicting the aircraft in artistic-technical rendering. The craft is characterized by a flat-lens shape with an upper dome, a grid of lines covering the body, rockets at the top, and fans on each side. A pointed lower cone is shown in the second version.

"Blades and Propellers" (Aspas y Helices): Five drawings of different propeller configurations, from multi-blade to single-blade flame shapes.

These drawings — held as part of the material the FBI received, translated, and filed — are a unique record of how ordinary civilians of the period attempted to explain and illustrate the flying-saucer phenomenon on the basis of engineering ideas they had drawn themselves.

The Newspaper Article: "The First Photographs of a 'Flying Saucer'" from Durango

A second central document in Serial 220 is a newspaper article from El Universal — Mexico's major daily — published on Thursday, March 16, 1950 (Issue No. 12,096). The large headline declared:

"Las Primeras Fotografias de un 'Plato Volador', Logradas en Durango a Nueve mil Pies de Altura" (The First Photographs of a "Flying Saucer," Obtained in Durango at Nine Thousand Feet Altitude)

The story was filed by German Horacio Robles Jr., a student at the National School of Engineering, described as "one of the thousands of people who saw 'with their own eyes' the flying saucers" — but the first to have photographed one.

According to the article and the FBI translation: "He observed one of them and managed to photograph it against the skies over the city of Durango. 1. A photograph of the 'flying saucer' at a height of 8,000 to 9,000 feet above the streets of Durango. The apparatus seems to be a double truncated cone, joined at its bases, which moves by something like jet propulsion and which displaces itself by changing position in order to use its motive force in the direction desired, for which reason it can be seen under apparently different forms."

The article included:

1. Two blurry photographs showing a small round point in the sky (circled for identification)
2. A sketch of the craft as Robles understood it
3. "Another description of the flying saucer"
4. A note that Robles had come to the newspaper's offices and provided his account and photographs in person

How the Document Reached the FBI

The envelope preserved in the file reveals the document's path: Garcia Macias sent his letter on March 20, 1950 from Veracruz by airmail (Correo Aereo), addressed to the "U.S. Court House, Foley Square, New York." The FBI New York receipt stamp is dated April 7, 1950. The Bureau incorporated the document — including the English translation produced by Mrs. Sophia Seliva — into the central flying discs file as Serial 220.

On the back cover of the envelope, written in a Bureau hand: "ENCL BEHIND FILE," and in someone's handwriting: "62-83894-220."

Analysis: What This Document Reveals

A. The international public response. Serial 220 shows that the flying-saucer wave was not exclusively American. Citizens from Mexico — which between 1947 and 1950 had itself accumulated sightings and eyewitness reports — reached out to American authorities in an effort to explain, to report, and sometimes to claim credit for engineering ideas.

B. Belief in American technology. Garcia Macias did not think flying saucers were extraterrestrial craft. Like many others of the period, he believed they represented a secret American technology powered by atomic force. Many other documents in case file 62-HQ-83894 are equally ambiguous on this point.

C. Visual evidence from the Mexican media. The inclusion of the El Universal article with two photographs from Durango is a significant addition to the file. Although the images are blurry and of poor quality, they represent one of the earliest attempts to document a UAP visually in Latin America.

D. The FBI as a mailbox. The Bureau did not request this letter and did not reach out to Garcia Macias. Approaches of this type — spontaneous, unsolicited, from foreign countries — entered the file with no clear evidence of internal analysis. The fact that the documents were translated, filed, and preserved indicates the Bureau did not automatically dismiss such material, even when its credibility was borderline.

---

Key People

Name	Role / Description	Details
Miguel Angel Garcia Macias	Letter author, Veracruz, Mexico	"Pianist, composer, ideographic discoverer and inventor"; 324 Pino Suarez Street, Veracruz
German Horacio Robles Jr.	Flying saucer photographer, Durango	Student at the National School of Engineering; aspiring engineer
Mrs. Sophia Seliva	FBI translator	Translated the Spanish letter and newspaper article into English, including marginal annotations
Lic. Miguel Lanz Duret	President and Director of El Universal	Named in the March 16, 1950 article header
Gregorio Lopez y Fuentes	Editor of El Universal	Named in the article header

---

Locations

Location	Relevance
Veracruz, Mexico	Garcia Macias's city of residence; origin of the letter
Durango, Mexico	Location where the "flying saucer" was photographed at 9,000 feet
New York, U.S.A.	Destination of the letter; Foley Square, U.S. Court House; FBI New York field office
Mexico City, Mexico	Editorial offices of El Universal; publication location of the article

---

Incidents

Incident	Date	Location	Pages
Robles Jr. photographs the "flying saucer"	Before March 16, 1950	Durango, Mexico, altitude 8,000–9,000 feet	5, 6, 14
Publication of El Universal article on the photographs	March 16, 1950	Mexico City	14
Garcia Macias sends his letter	March 19–20, 1950	Veracruz to New York	2–4, 7–10
Package received at FBI New York field office	April 7, 1950	New York	5, 6
Filed as Serial 220 in case file 62-HQ-83894	Shortly after April 1950	FBI headquarters, Washington	1

---

Notable Quotes

"This deals with stratospheric aerostats (?) or Flying saucers as people commonly call them, and which I believe your great Nation, making use of ATOMIC force, possesses." — page 2

"the PLANS of my IDEA were stolen from me and patented in your Nation." — page 2

"These apparatuses can be used in order to avoid Atomic Explosion on the Earth, since the velocity is Greater than that of Light or Sound in accordance with the quantity of Atomic Material which is used in their fabrication." — page 3

"The apparatus seems to be a double truncated cone, joined at its bases which moves by something like jet propulsion and which displaces itself by changing position in order to use its motive force in the direction desired, for which reason it can be seen under apparently different forms." — page 5 (Robles's description)

"I hope that my idea is Studied and approved by the said Commission and may serve for the Progress of the Universe instead of its DESTRUCTION, and for the good of all of us human beings who inhabit the Earth." — page 3

---

Closing Notes

Serial 220 in the FBI's central flying discs case file is a clear illustration of the kind of material that flowed into the Bureau from the general public in the 1950s: good-faith approaches from outside the United States, reflecting a global wave of awareness and interest in the phenomenon. Garcia Macias — however unscientific his claims appear to a modern reader — represented a specific voice in the lively and powerful public discourse that existed in 1950 on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. The fact that the document was received, translated, filed, and preserved indicates that the FBI saw in every approach — even one from a non-academic inventor in Veracruz — material worth retaining and documenting.