FBIUnknown

William Rhodes Phoenix disc photographs follow-up — Arizona Republic inquiry, November 1958

Nov 17, 1958Phoenix, Arizona

⟳ 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

This document records a 1958 follow-up to the July 1947 William Rhodes disc photographs. SAC McMahon of the Phoenix Office advised FBI HQ on November 17, 1958 that the Arizona Republic newspaper was inquiring about the Rhodes photographs in connection with a flying saucer retrospective. Rhodes had reported to the Phoenix FBI in April 1947, brought negatives on August 30, 1947, and was informed at that time that they would be turned over to Air Force intelligence. On April 17, 1950, Rhodes had requested return of the negatives and was told this was unlikely. FBI HQ instructed Phoenix to advise the Arizona Republic that negatives were immediately transferred to Air Force intelligence in 1947 with Rhodes' knowledge and should contact OSI for further information.

As reported — verbatim from the document

“"Rhodes brought negatives of the photographs he allegedly took at that time into the Phoenix Office and he was advised by SA J. Bailey Brower that the negatives were being accepted by the FBI for Air Force intelligence; that there was a question as to whether he would ever get the negatives back"”

Analyst notes — caveats & confidence

Procedural/chain-of-custody record for the 1947 Rhodes photographs. The original sighting incident appears in Section 7. This document confirms that physical photographic negatives existed, were accepted by the FBI, transferred to Air Force intelligence (via George Fugate Jr., military representative) in 1947, and were never returned. No analysis of photograph content appears here. OCR quality is good.

Provenance

Source document65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Section_9.pdf

Document typecorrespondence collection

Reporting agencyFBI

Source pages290

DeclassifiedFirst public at this release (2026)

Held classified~68 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.