FBI-UAP-D014: Correspondence Relating to UFO Sightings — a Chicago Child's Report (1967) and the Larry Bryant Exchange (1974)

Source file: FBI-UAP-D014_Correspondence-Relating-to-UFO-Sightings_1967_1974.pdf Originating agency: Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Chicago Field Office Document type: Correspondence file: internal memorandum, citizen inquiry letter, and official reply (file 100-44501) Date: September 22, 1967; September 30, 1974; October 10, 1974 Classification: Unclassified; released per the FBI Automatic Declassification Guide (May 24, 2007) Page count: 5 (all read) VIRIN: 260710-O-D0360-1133 PURSUE Release: 4

Summary

This is a thin file from the archives of the FBI's Chicago field office, filed under subject classification 100-44501 and containing two unrelated pieces of correspondence seven years apart. The opening page is a standard Department of Justice file cover bearing a stamp noting that declassification authority derives from the FBI Automatic Declassification Guide issued May 24, 2007.

The first item (1967) is an internal memorandum from Special Agent C. Leonard Treviranus to the Special Agent in Charge, Chicago, recording a telephone call received at 9:10 PM on September 16, 1967, from Tom Mitchell, an eleven-year-old boy from Chicago's South Side. The boy said that at about 8:30 PM he heard a "weird" noise, looked out his window, and saw a "flash of light going north in the sky," and claimed it was a UFO. The Bureau passed the information to Sergeant Eugene Ripka of the Army-Air Force 755th Radar Squadron, Arlington Heights, Illinois.

The second item (1974) is an exchange of letters between Larry W. Bryant of Arlington, Virginia, and the Chicago office. Bryant, noting that through an inquiry to the Department of the Air Force he had obtained a copy of an Army report, requested documentation of any FBI follow-up on an "alleged April 8, 1954 sighting of an occupied Unidentified Flying Object (UFO)," as well as contact details for the principal observer, Chicago resident Mrs. Lelah H. Stoker. The October 10, 1974, reply by Special Agent in Charge Richard G. Held is unambiguous: the Bureau has no information on the sighting, and the FBI does not collect information regarding UFO sightings at all — the subject not being among the matters delegated to it by Congress.

Research Article

Chicago file 100-44501

According to the file-stamp serials on the documents (100-44501-1 through 100-44501-3), the three items were serialized consecutively in the same Chicago field office subject file. Classification 100 was used by the Bureau for general internal-security files, and the cover warns explicitly: "MATERIAL MUST NOT BE REMOVED FROM OR ADDED TO THIS FILE." The cover also carries the archival release number (NW 90692) and the 2007 declassification stamp. The document itself does not explain why these two particular items were bound together beyond their shared subject classification.

1967: the boy who heard a weird noise

The September 22, 1967, memorandum is a rare, almost minimalist example of how citizen reports were handled in the late Project Blue Book era. The writer, Special Agent C. Leonard Treviranus, records matter-of-factly: "TOM MITCHELL, 7825 South Colfax, Chicago (375-9258) telephonically advised the writer at 9:10 PM on September 16, 1967." The testimony itself is brief: the eleven-year-old heard a "weird" noise at about 8:30 PM, looked outside, and saw a "flash of light going north in the sky." The memo notes dryly that "He could furnish no additional information but claimed this to be a UFO."

The interesting detail is the routing: the Bureau opened no investigation but forwarded the information to a military addressee — Sergeant Eugene Ripka of the 755th Radar Squadron at Arlington Heights, Illinois. This is the practical application of the division of labor set down as early as the late 1940s: UFO reports belong to the Air Force, not the Bureau.

1974: Larry Bryant's inquiry

The second item opens with the original envelope, scanned into the file, postmarked Washington, D.C., October 2, 1974. The letter itself, dated September 30, 1974, was sent by Larry W. Bryant of Arlington, Virginia, to the Special Agent in Charge in Chicago. Bryant writes that through an inquiry to the Department of the Air Force he obtained "a copy of a U. S. Army report of an alleged April 8, 1954 sighting of an occupied Unidentified Flying Object (UFO)." By his description of that report, the object was pursued by U.S. Coast Guard personnel, landed briefly on the ground ("discharging the occupant, who strolled about and returned to the object"), and was seen by at least three civilian observers before it departed. Bryant added that the report's distribution notation cited the Chicago office as receiving a copy.

His requests were three: a copy of any documentation of FBI follow-up actions on the matter; copies of any other UFO-sighting case files held by the office for all of 1954; and the current mailing address or telephone number of the principal observer, "Chicago resident Mrs. Lelah H. Stoker." A handwritten "b(7)(C)" notation — the Freedom of Information Act privacy exemption code — appears near his signature, evidence of the file's processing for release.

The FBI's reply: "UFO sightings are not such matters"

The reply from Special Agent in Charge Richard G. Held, dated October 10, 1974, is the file's most quotable document, because it states the Bureau's position of the day with complete clarity: "the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has no information regarding the UFO sighting you describe in your letter, and, in fact, the FBI does not collect information regarding UFO sightings in general." Held reminds Bryant that the FBI is the investigative arm of the Department of Justice, authorized to investigate only those matters specifically delegated to it by Congress, and rules: "UFO sightings are not such matters." The third question also draws a negative: the Bureau's files contain no information on Mrs. Stoker's current residence or telephone number.

The document's limits should be noted: the file does not include the alleged 1954 Army report itself, and it neither confirms nor refutes that the sighting occurred. All it records is that nothing was found in the Chicago office's archives — and the official policy formulation of 1974.

Significance

Taken alone, the two items are marginal: a child's report passed along, and an archival query that came up empty. But that is precisely their value: the file illustrates the FBI's institutional posture toward the subject in the decades after the 1947-1952 scare years, which the "flying discs" files in this archive document at length. Held's statement that the FBI "does not collect information regarding UFO sightings" is an official, written, real-time formulation of Bureau policy as of 1974 — a few years after Project Blue Book's closure (1969) — and serves as a useful reference point for researchers of government policy on the subject. The inquirer, Larry Bryant, is publicly known as a veteran UFO researcher who conducted extensive correspondence and disclosure litigation with federal agencies; this document is an early, characteristic example of his method.

Key People

Locations

Incidents

Notable Quotes

"At approximately 8:30 PM he heard a 'weird' noise and looked out the window of his residence and saw a 'flash of light going north in the sky.'" -- page 2

"He could furnish no additional information but claimed this to be a UFO." -- page 2

"...a U. S. Army report of an alleged April 8, 1954 sighting of an occupied Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) which was pursued by U. S. Coast Guard personnel, landed briefly on the ground (discharging the occupant, who strolled about and returned to the object), and which was seen by at least three civilian observers before it departed." -- page 4

"...the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has no information regarding the UFO sighting you describe in your letter, and, in fact, the FBI does not collect information regarding UFO sightings in general." -- page 5

"UFO sightings are not such matters." -- page 5