1966 FBI Memo Details UFO Sightings and Reported Crewmen

A 1966 internal FBI memo that summarized witness reports of unidentified flying objects and small beings wearing what appeared to be space suits and helmets was made public on Friday. The memo, dated Oct. 19, 1966, states that 1965 recorded the greatest number of UFO sightings.

It reports that some witnesses described seeing crewmen who had landed from the objects and were three and a half to four feet tall, wearing what appear to be space suits and helmets. The document focuses primarily on the 1966 book "Flying Saucers – Serious Business" by Frank Edwards.

The memo says Edwards described UFOs as space vehicles sent to observe activities on Earth and asserted that the United States Air Force had deliberately withheld information and given misleading explanations out of concern for possible public panic.

According to the memo, Edwards wrote that the objects were polished metal, radiated heat and light strong enough to burn nearby witnesses, and appeared in colors ranging from brilliant white to dull reds and brilliant orange. Some displayed blinding strobe-like lights.

The book identified three basic shapes: zeppelin-shaped craft up to 300 feet long, disc-shaped objects from a few feet to 100 feet in diameter, and egg-shaped objects that were the most recently reported at the time. The memo states the objects could move silently at high speeds, hover motionless, then accelerate away with strobes of light from underneath.

The memo reports that many individuals named in the book as having reported sightings were reliable, including law enforcement officers, military personnel on official duty and commercial airline pilots. It adds that wreckage from crashed objects had been recovered on at least three occasions, including samples of magnesium alloy, pure magnesium and an exceptionally hard unknown metal containing 15-micron metal spheres that showed evidence of micro-meteorite impacts.

Edwards predicted that UFOs would soon make an overt landing or deliberately make contact with Earth, the memo notes.

The 1966 memo was released alongside 161 other UFO files that include photographs, video footage and numerous witness accounts, among them a 1947 report of a flying disc. Officials stated that additional documents will be released on a rolling basis in the coming weeks. The files were made public by the Pentagon on Friday.