FBIUnknown
Flying saucer sighted near Lake of the Woods, Canada — OSI-FBI coordination
~Jul 1, 1949Lake of the Woods, Canada (approx.)
⟳ 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 OSI officer from Benjamin Harrison Air Base contacted the FBI Indianapolis office regarding a flying saucer allegedly observed near Lake of the Woods, Canada, on or about July 1, 1949. Witnesses reportedly included Dr. Richard K. Parrish of Decatur, Indiana, and an unnamed FBI agent from the Omaha office. Dr. Parrish subsequently theorized a correlation between flying saucer sightings and polio outbreaks, a claim treated skeptically by Indiana University Medical School physicians.
As reported — verbatim from the document
“"a flying saucer allegedly observed in the vicinity of Lake of the Woods, Canada, on or about July 1, 1949. An FBI Agent by the name of McALF of the Omaha office was alleged to have seen the same saucer."”
Analyst notes — caveats & confidence
Secondhand report; no direct witness statements obtained. The polio-saucer correlation theory is unsupported speculation noted in the document. The Omaha FBI agent's name is garbled in OCR ('McALF'). Investigation transferred to Air Force/Wright Field.
Provenance
Source document65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Section_5.pdf
Document typecorrespondence collection
Reporting agencyFBI
Source pages209
Redaction markers in doc6
DeclassifiedFirst public at this release (2026)
Held classified~77 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.