FBIUnknown

Flying saucer photographed at Oak Ridge, Tennessee — July 1947

~Jul 1947Oak Ridge, Tennessee

⟳ Deeper read pending. This record is from the FBI 62-HQ-83894 flying-disc file, whose cursive, clippings and faint scans are under-read by automated OCR. It is flagged for a vision-transcription pass and likely undercounts what the source contains — see the documents collection note.

Analysis — our summary

An FBI Knoxville office file reference documents a photograph of an alleged flying saucer taken at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, in July 1947 by a civilian named Presley at 218 Illinois Avenue, Oak Ridge. The record consists primarily of a newspaper clipping with the headline 'FLYING SAUCER PHOTOGRAPHED AT OAK RIDGE.' No further details about the object's appearance, behavior, or the photograph's disposition appear in this document section.

As reported — verbatim from the document

“"FLYING SAUCER PHOTOGRAPHED AT OAK RIDGE" (newspaper clipping headline)”

Analyst notes — caveats & confidence

Document is very sparse — 81 lines total, largely blank or fragmentary. Content consists of an internal FBI file reference and a newspaper clipping headline; no substantive descriptive content or investigative details are present in this section. OCR quality is poor. No analysis of photograph or further investigative outcome documented here. The Oak Ridge location (nuclear facility) would have been a significant security concern in 1947.

Provenance

Source document65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Serial_153.pdf

Document typecorrespondence collection

Reporting agencyFBI

Source pages9

DeclassifiedFirst public at this release (2026)

Held classified~79 years (≥, to this release)

Extraction confidence LowHow cleanly this record could be parsed from the source — driven by legibility & redaction. It is not a measure of how credible or anomalous the sighting is.