UAP AnalysisIndependent · the declassified record
← All incidents
FBIUnresolvedAmbiguous

Silver elliptical object at high speed — Portland, Oregon, September 11, 1947 (police officer detail)

Sep 11, 1947Portland, Oregon10,000 ft30s
⟳ 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

Section 2 of the FBI HQ case file provides additional detail on the September 11, 1947 Portland, Oregon sightings. Officers Adair, Caldwell, and Patrolman Raney are identified by name, along with Police Chief Jenkins. Individual officer descriptions ranged from 'large silver elliptical object at great speed' to a possible conventional airplane reflection. The discrepancy in descriptions among trained law enforcement observers is noted. This is the same incident as documented in Section 1; Section 2 adds named witnesses and additional contextual detail.

As reported — verbatim from the document
Officers Adair, Caldwell, Raney and Chief Jenkins observed silver round/egg-shaped object; individual descriptions varied from 'large silver elliptical object at great speed' to assessment as possible airplane reflection.
Analyst notes — caveats & confidence

Cross-reference incident also appearing in Section 1. Section 2 adds named officers. The reading was truncated at 1,206 of 4,052 total lines; this represents the first ~30% of the document. Subsequent content not read. Confidence moderate. Many of Section 2's readable pages are administrative/policy correspondence about FBI-Air Force coordination.

Provenance
Source document65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Section_2.pdf
Document typecase file compilation
Reporting agencyFBI
Source pages194
DeclassifiedFirst public at this release (2026)
Held classified~79 years (≥, to this release)
Extraction confidence ModerateHow 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.