In a document released on May 8, 2026, the FBI’s internal correspondence from July 26, 1949 confirms that the agency was keeping tabs on a planned convention for people who claimed to have seen “flying saucers.” The memo, part of the larger case file 62‑HQ‑83894 that spans June 1947 through July 1968, was made public through the PURSUE archive, a recent effort to declassify Cold‑War‑era UFO records. The memo was sent by the FBI Director to the Special Agent in Charge of the San Antonio, Texas office and copied to the New Orleans field office (file number 100‑7545).
It was prompted by a tip from the Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff, G‑2, Fourth Army, which on July 15, 1949 alerted the FBI to a brief article in the Galveston News.
The newspaper piece, published five days earlier, announced that the Young Men’s Business Club of Alexandria, Louisiana, would host a convention “to gather persons from all over the nation who have seen flying saucers.” The FBI note records that the purpose of the gathering was to allow witnesses to “compare notes.” It also highlights that two sightings of “flying disks” had been reported in the week preceding the article, both occurring in Alexandria, the very town slated to host the meeting. The memo is labeled “FLYING DISKS — INTERNAL SECURITY — R,” with the “R” indicating a restricted classification.
At the time, the modern UFO phenomenon was still in its infancy. Kenneth Arnold’s famous sighting over Mount Rainier had taken place in June 1947, followed weeks later by the Roswell incident.
By 1949, the U.S. Air Force was already operating Project Sign, later renamed Project Grudge, to assess unidentified aerial phenomena. While the public discourse was heating up, the FBI’s role, as demonstrated by the memo, was limited to documenting reports rather than launching investigations or covert actions. The tone of the July 1949 communication is purely informational.
It states that the convention information was “furnished as a matter of information” and contains no directives to infiltrate, disrupt, or otherwise intervene in the event. The agency simply recorded the Army’s tip, the newspaper announcement, and the associated file reference, then moved on.
What the released memo does not reveal is whether the Alexandria convention actually took place, who attended, or what was discussed. The document ends without further comment, leaving the trail cold after the brief entry. The PURSUE archive’s release of this 34.6‑MB PDF, approved by the Department of War (now the Department of Defense), adds another piece to the extensive mosaic of UFO‑related paperwork amassed by the government between 1947 and 1968.
While the memo does not expose any hidden crash sites, alien bodies, or coordinated cover‑ups, it does illustrate the bureaucratic process that logged civilian UFO sightings and related gatherings. Sixty‑five years after its creation, the memo provides a snapshot of a moment when the FBI treated UFO witnesses as a matter of record rather than a security threat.
It underscores a pattern of government agencies collecting and filing information on unexplained aerial phenomena, sometimes acting on it and sometimes simply archiving it for posterity.
