FBI-UAP-D013: Washington State UFO Investigation File, 1952-1960

Source file: FBI-UAP-D013_WA-UFO-Investigation_1952-1960.pdf Originating agency: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Seattle Field Division File number: Seattle 100-18945 Classification: Unclassified (some enclosures formerly Confidential; Approved for Release 2026) Date range: July 1952 - August 1960 Page count: 55 (all read) VIRIN: 260508-O-D0360-1108 PURSUE Release: 3

Summary

This is a 55-page FBI case file compiled by the Seattle Field Division (file number 100-18945), containing complaint forms, office memoranda, newspaper clippings, letters, and Air Force correspondence documenting UFO sightings across Washington State over an eight-year span. The file opens with July 1952 newspaper clippings from Pasco and Kennewick (the Tri-Cities area, adjacent to the Hanford nuclear reservation), then accumulates reports through August 1960. The documents span multiple genres: citizen phone-in complaints logged on FBI Form FD-71, multi-agency intelligence conference minutes, Confidential Air Force OSI letters quoting radar and airborne intercept data, citizen-written letters with attached sketches, and newspaper clippings forwarded for record purposes.

The collection's significance lies in three areas: (1) it documents a formal, recurring protocol by which the FBI Seattle office funneled civilian UFO reports to the Air Force OSI at McChord Air Force Base; (2) it contains at least one incident — the Neah Bay radar case of June 22, 1954 — in which ground and airborne radar simultaneously tracked an unknown target and two F-86D interceptors were scrambled and obtained airborne radar contact; and (3) it situates a disproportionate number of sightings in the Columbia Basin counties immediately adjacent to the Hanford Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) reservation, a pattern that mirrors findings elsewhere in the PURSUE collection.

Research Article

Background: The FBI-OSI information-sharing framework

The file opens with a record of a semi-monthly intelligence conference held August 7, 1952, at the offices of Colonel Spencer Raynor, Commanding Officer, 20th District, Office of Special Investigations (OSI), McChord Field, Washington (page 4). FBI attendees were ASAC Fred T. McIntyre, SA Charles H. DeFord, and SA Lloyd A. Ducommun. Among the matters discussed under the heading "REPORTING AND EXCHANGING OF INFORMATION CONCERNING FLYING SAUCERS," the parties reached two formal understandings:

1. Flying saucer reports received by the FBI from the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) would be disseminated to the Regional Office No. 3 (115th CIC) and the Security Office, AEC — this last at the specific request of an AEC representative at the preceding AEC conference.

2. Any immediate flying saucer report received by the FBI from a complainant would be forwarded to all intelligence agencies. Historical sightings would require only a letter to OSI for referral to Air Force Intelligence.

A subsequent undated memo (page 7) quotes Bureau Bulletin No. 57, Paragraph D (October 1, 1947) and SAC Letter No. 38 (March 25, 1949), reiterating that investigation of flying discs was the responsibility of the Air Force, and that field offices should obtain details from complainants and furnish them promptly to OSI locally. This framework explains the routing stamps and annotations visible throughout the file.

Early Tri-Cities sightings, July 1952

The earliest documents are newspaper clippings from the Columbia Basin News (Pasco, Washington), dated July 29-31, 1952, describing multiple witnesses in the Navy Homes Project area of Pasco who observed a round object moving at "terrific speed" with flashing lights. Descriptions were consistent across independent witnesses. One witness, Mrs. Fern Jorgenson, described the object as "round and seemed ringed with flashing lights, mostly green." Timothy Hogland (age 14) described it as "just like a giant pinwheel." A second article from July 31, 1952, adds additional Kennewick witnesses, including William J. Luedke, who saw an "eerie object" in the sky "that appeared round at times and triangular at times." E. C. Keller of 520 South Rainier independently reported "tandem-saucers" at 10:15 p.m.

A separate October 8, 1952 clipping from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (page 8) reports Arthur Owley, a former anti-aircraft artillery major, observing a "flying saucer" through binoculars over South Seattle that "hung motionless for nearly five minutes, then streaked away" in seconds.

The Richland/Hanford cluster, 1953

Multiple 1953 incidents are geographically clustered around Richland, Washington, and the AEC Hanford reservation:

• February 1953 (pages 10-11): SA W. Mark Felt (later Deputy Director of the FBI) reported that Seattle Civil Defense telephonically contacted the office about Mrs. Wiskerken, who had observed "a very large object quite high directly above and somewhat West of Sand Point Naval Air Station," described as "very like a large parachute" and "so silver that she could hardly look at it." Separately, Mrs. Kathleen Carter, an employee of the Signal Division, Seattle Port of Embarkation, reported a bright object high over Sand Point Naval Air Station on February 9, 1953.

• July 15-16, 1953 (pages 11-15): Robert T. Jaske, a design supervisor at General Electric's Hanford project, wrote a detailed letter to the FBI describing a sighting over Richland at approximately 14:30 hours. Through a 30-power Bausch and Lomb telescope, he observed an object he initially mistook for a helicopter but concluded had "no wings" and a "thin vaporous ring about whitish blue in color." He included a hand-drawn sketch (page 13) showing the object with four "heliocopter-like arms" and an "indistinct ring." The object departed at "incredible speed toward the east disappearing on the eastern horizon in about 10 seconds." FBI SA D.J. Krauter reported the matter to the AEC Security Division; the 5th AAA Group checked its airport records and reported it had released a meteorological balloon at 2:05 p.m. that day, tracked by radar to 25,000 feet. The FBI forwarded Jaske's report to OSI McChord as well.

• August 2, 1953 (pages 16-17): SA Douglas J. Krauter reported that Allen Eddy of the CIC Resident Agency, Richland, had been contacted by A.I. Moore of Kennewick, who reported two "reddish-orange balls of fire" traveling at approximately three times the speed of a B-47, disappearing over Rattlesnake Mountain "which borders the southwest edge of the Hanford Reservation." A nurse, Mary Eleanor Hodson, independently corroborated the sighting.

The Neah Bay radar intercept, June 1954

The most operationally significant document in the file is a three-page Confidential letter from Col. Spencer W. Raynor, District Commander, 20th OSI, to FBI Special Agent in Charge R.D. Auerbach, dated June 24, 1954 (pages 31-33). It quotes in full the Intelligence Summary submitted by the 25th Air Division to the Air Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC), Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, regarding events of June 22, 1954.

The summary reports that at 0314Z, the TIMOTHY radar control site picked up an unknown blip or target at an estimated 200 knots and 15-degree angle, within grid reference LE 1604, 38-40 miles southwest of Neah Bay at 1,500-2,000 feet altitude. Over a ten-minute period, TIMOTHY logged three separate returns. The MERCURY Direction Center vectored two F-86D interceptors (designated "Pronto Blue #1" and "Pronto Blue #2") off their combat air patrol. Pronto Blue #2 obtained an airborne radar pickup at approximately 28 miles, at which point the single blip "separated into two clear distinct blips at 0435Z" at 25,000 feet. Pronto Blue #2 descended from 25,000 to 6,000 feet in an attempt to close, with speed increasing to 0.85-0.9 Mach; the blip slid off the scope. Pronto Blue #1 then obtained a 20,000-foot pickup at 0436Z and held it for 20 seconds (three radar sweeps), after which the blips again departed off scope from 30 degrees port to 60 degrees port.

The OSI letter notes that radar malfunction was "definitely ruled out" by a site technician who was on-site monitoring the scope. All weather stations, the Navy, Coast Guard, and 5 ADDC (Vancouver, B.C., Canada) were checked, ruling out weather balloons, boats, ships, or aircraft. The evaluation section concludes: "The blips or targets observed are tentatively evaluated as true airborne targets, similar in presentation size and general configuration (on ground-based and airborne equipment) to B-36, B-52 type aircraft with an estimated pullout speed of Mach One or better."

This intercept is the strongest case in the file, combining independent ground radar tracking, dual airborne radar returns, scrambled fighter aircraft, and a multi-agency negative-explanation check.

Tacoma and Pasco sightings, June 1954

Contemporaneous with the Neah Bay incident, a cluster of sightings occurred in the Tacoma-Pasco corridor:

• June 3, 1954: A Tacoma News Tribune clipping (page 23) reports that officer Oliver Tiedeman, while driving from Doty toward Chehalis, observed a saucer that "seemed to be traveling northward at a terrific speed and then was suddenly allowed to a stop. It seemed entirely motionless for a few seconds and then sped suddenly eastward." Officers Stan Johnson and Evan Davies had also seen a saucer stop over The Narrows in July 1947.

• June 6-7, 1954: Gail Peck, supervisor of the local Ground Observer Corps Post in Pasco, reported two half-moon shaped objects at approximately 1,000 feet altitude that formed into a "large fire-ball" and disappeared. The 25th Air Division made an official release stating there had been no radar pickup of the objects.

The Kennewick spherical object, 1956

One of the more detailed individual witness accounts in the file comes from Sergeant Gordon Richardson, Kennewick Police Department, who reported to SA Clement W. Parkhurst in June 1956 (pages 39-41). Richardson, describing himself as a skilled observer, stated that approximately one year earlier he was on night shift near 1st and Washington, Kennewick, at about 10 p.m. when "a large, shining, metal ball about 30 feet in diameter swoosh in from the West at rather low altitude -- only 200 or 300 feet in the air or less." The ball traveled at high speed, stopped completely for several minutes "about three blocks east of Washington Street," then "took off with a speed so great that it disappeared from sight in a matter of seconds." When stationary, Richardson heard "the 'chug chug' of the engine sounding like a tractor engine and apparently an internal combustion engine." He noted no fire or smoke on departure and speculated that "whoever built the ball is using the principle of likes attract and positives repel to defy gravity." The FBI forwarded the report to OSI; no investigation was initiated by either agency.

Later reports, 1957-1960

The final segment of the file contains more routine entries:

• November 1957 (pages 44-45): Albert Cressye telephoned the FBI to report that while fishing at Alaska Way near the Union Oil Company Docks on November 5, he observed "one large object like a big disk and...six other smaller objects fly away from the big disk."

• April 1959 (page 50): Mrs. E.R. Withrow, Marysville, Washington, reported a 40-minute observation of a UFO over the Whidbey Island area made with binoculars, confirmed by four neighbors.

• October 1959 (pages 52-53): Mrs. Neil Gotschall, wife of a Boeing Bomarc project administrator, reported a bright light observed between 4:00-4:45 a.m. that moved "vertically in and out of sight" but not horizontally, noted to disappear when two aircraft crossed the sky.

• February 28, 1960 (page 54): A Seattle Times clipping is filed, reporting the Air Force issued new regulations treating UFO investigations as "serious business directly related to the nation's defense."

• August 12, 1960 (page 55): The final document reports Muriel Bass of Spokane observing an object "like a football" with a "slight orange shade" at approximately 2:00-2:30 p.m., maneuvering at high speed over Spokane. The report was routed to OSI at Fairchild AFB.

Pattern and significance

The file's geographic distribution is notable: a significant proportion of the pre-1956 incidents cluster in Benton and Franklin Counties, Washington, which surround the Hanford AEC reservation. The Hanford facility produced plutonium for the U.S. nuclear weapons program, and the AEC Security Division appears as a routine recipient of UFO-related information in multiple documents. This proximity pattern recurs across the broader PURSUE collection.

The file also illustrates the bureaucratic complexity of 1950s UFO reporting: complaints received by the FBI were assessed not as matters within Bureau jurisdiction but as military and defense concerns, logged and systematically passed to OSI and occasionally to the AEC. The Neah Bay intercept represents one of the few cases in the file where the chain of evidence (civilian report, FBI notification, OSI formal summary, ATIC submission) is fully documented and the objects were tracked simultaneously on ground and airborne radar.

Key People

Locations

Incidents

Notable Quotes

"Flying saucer reports received by the FBI from the USCG would be disseminated to (a) Regional Office No. 3, 115th CIC; (b) Security Office, AEC (this request for dissemination to the AEC was received from Mr. McHale at the last AEC conference)." — August 12, 1952 semi-monthly intelligence conference summary, page 5

"The object was situated west of the site at an angle of sighting of approximately 70 degrees." (This quote is from the Jaske letter) "The heliocopter like arms, four in number, appeared to be surrounded by a thin vaporous ring about witish blue in color...It moved at incredible speed toward the east disappearing on the eastern horizon in about 10 seconds." — Robert T. Jaske letter, pages 11-12

"The blips or targets observed are tentatively evaluated as true airborne targets, similar in presentation size and general configuration (on ground-based and airborne equipment) to B-36, B-52 type aircraft with an estimated pullout speed of Mach One or better." — Col. Spencer W. Raynor, 25th Air Division Intelligence Summary, June 24, 1954, page 33

"I stopped the car and we both jumped out to watch it. It seemed to be traveling northward at a terrific speed and then was suddenly allowed to a stop. It seemed entirely motionless for a few seconds and then sped suddenly eastward, disappearing over the foothills." — Oliver Tiedeman, Tacoma News Tribune, June 3, 1954, page 23

"A large, shining, metal ball about 30' in diameter swoosh in from the West at rather low altitude--only 200 or 300 feet in the air or less...when it was standing still he could hear the 'chug chug' of the engine sounding like a tractor engine and apparently an internal combustion engine. The ball stood still several minutes and then took off with a speed so great that it disappeared from sight in a matter of seconds." — Sgt. Gordon Richardson, Kennewick Police Dept., as reported by SA Clement W. Parkhurst, June 1, 1956, page 39