On May 8 2026 the U.S. Department of War added a previously heavily redacted 1967 letter from former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to the public PURSUE archive. The document, catalogued as “65_HS1-834228961_62‑HQ‑83894_Section_10,” is now fully viewable on the agency’s official website.
The correspondence was addressed to Mrs. Levi Cnow of Goffstown, New Hampshire.
In her August 31 letter, Mrs. Cnow had inquired about a “Flying Saucer Club.” Hoover’s reply, dated September 6, 1967, acknowledges receipt of her letter and enclosures, then clarifies the Bureau’s role: “this Bureau is strictly an investigative agency of the Federal Government and, as such, neither makes evaluations nor draws conclusions as to the character or integrity of any organization, publication or individual.” He concluded, “I am sorry I cannot be of assistance to you; however, you may be sure your communication will be made a matter of record,” and signed the response himself.
Internal routing notations on the bottom of the page provide additional context. A handwritten note reads, “Bufiles contain no record of correspondent or ‘Flying Saucer Clubs of America, Inc.’” This indicates that, at the time, the FBI’s central files held no prior information on Mrs. Cnow or the organization she referenced.
The same page lists a distribution list that includes senior officials identified only by surnames—Tolson, DeLooch, Mohr, and Wick—along with other Bureau personnel. The letter is part of a larger case file, designated 62‑HQ‑83894, which the PURSUE description says contains “investigative records, eyewitness testimonies, and public reports concerning Unidentified Flying Objects and flying discs documented between June 1947 and July 1968.” The file reportedly holds accounts of high‑profile sightings, photographic material from locations such as Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and technical proposals for possible propulsion systems.
Earlier, portions of the file had been posted on the FBI’s public Vault website, but those releases featured extensive redactions and missing pages. The current PURSUE upload claims to present “the complete case file with several newly declassified pages and only minor redactions.” While the Hoover letter does not discuss any specific UFO incident, its unredacted form offers a rare glimpse into how the FBI handled public inquiries about civilian UFO groups during the Cold War era.
The agency’s stated policy—that it does not evaluate or pass judgment on such organizations—remains evident in Hoover’s brief response. Background on the broader declassification effort underscores the significance of the release. Wikipedia’s entry on “United States UFO files” describes the collection—often called the UFO or UAP files—as a series of documents declassified by the Trump administration beginning on May 8 2026. The entry notes that the releases are intended to continue as “repeated, ongoing, expanding releases of UFO materials.” The PURSUE archive, hosted at war.gov, serves as the central repository for these materials.
Despite the added transparency, several questions persist. The official summary of the 62‑HQ‑83894 file does not specify which incidents are covered, the total page count, or the criteria used for the remaining “minor redactions.” Mrs. Cnow’s original letter and any enclosures she sent are absent from the release, leaving the exact nature of her request unknown.
Likewise, the “Flying Saucer Clubs of America, Inc.” receives no further description within the document. The Department of War’s release notes that “several newly declassified pages” are now available, but it does not detail which sections were previously withheld or why. Future PURSUE uploads are expected to provide additional insight, potentially including the Oak Ridge photographs and the technical propulsion proposals mentioned in the case‑file overview.
For now, the Hoover letter stands as a concise, procedural example of the FBI’s bureaucratic response to citizen interest in UFO phenomena during the 1960s, offering scholars and the public a concrete data point on the agency’s internal handling of such matters.
