What is the FBIs “flying-disc file”?
Maccabee: The FBI’s flying-disc file began in the summer of 1947 after sightings of what we now call UFOs began in earnest. A sighting in Mount Rainer, Washington, was the first such event to be publicized in national newspapers in the United States. Kenneth Arnold, the witness and an experienced pilot, talked about semicircular craft traveling at great speed and flipping and flashing as they bounced along. He said it was somewhat like skipping a saucer on the water, which led to some clever newsman coining “flying saucers.” A barrage of flying saucer sightings followed, including reports from Air Force officers seeing unknown things fly over their bases. On July 10, top Air Force intelligence generals asked the FBI if they would investigate to see if Communist sympathizers were generating spurious, false stories about craft with extreme dynamic capabilities to scare the American people into thinking that the Soviet Union had gotten far ahead of us. That was considered subversive activ
