FBI Case File 62-HQ-83894
The FBI's central case file aggregating "Unidentified Flying Objects" and "flying disc" investigations between June 1947 and July 1968. 18 PDFs were released through the Trump PURSUE disclosure on May 8, 2026 - including pages newly declassified beyond what the FBI Vault has previously posted. Here is the breakdown.
What 62-HQ-83894 is
62-HQ-83894 is the FBI's central case file for what the Bureau formally called "Unidentified Flying Objects" and "flying disc" activity in the United States during the early Cold War period. The case was opened in June 1947, the same month as the now-famous Kenneth Arnold sighting over the Cascade Range, and the most recent investigative records in the case file are dated July 1968. The case ran for 21 years.
According to the file metadata released with the PURSUE disclosure, the case file contains investigative records, eyewitness testimonies, public reports, high-profile incident accounts, photographic evidence (the metadata specifically mentions Oak Ridge, Tennessee), technical proposals regarding potential propulsion systems, convention programs, researcher accounts, and media coverage from the period.
"This file is partially posted on FBI vault with more redactions and some pages missing. Included here is the complete case file with several newly declassified pages and only minor redactions."
- File summary, NASA/war.gov PURSUE metadata
That sentence is the operationally significant claim: the version released through PURSUE is more complete than the version the FBI Vault has hosted publicly. New pages are visible in the PURSUE release that were not previously available.
How the 18 PDFs break down
The case file's 18 PDFs in the PURSUE release divide into three groups by the way the FBI organized the original case binder.
10 main sections (Section 1 - Section 10)
The case file's chronological investigative record. Each section is a portion of the running case file as the case progressed from 1947 through 1968.
7 serial-numbered records (specific catalogued items)
FBI case files cross-reference specific documents by serial number. The seven serials in the PURSUE release are individual records pulled out of the main sections for separate handling.
1 sub-file (Sub A)
A subdivision within the case file, typically reserved by the FBI for related case material that is not part of the main sequence.
Why every file in this cluster scores 58
The site applies a six-axis rubric to every file. The 18 PDFs in 62-HQ-83894 share the same evidentiary profile: paper investigative records, no instrumented sensor data, no kinematic measurement, single-agency origin (FBI investigators and the public reports they received), and an official disposition consistent with "investigative records, closed." That profile produces a score of 58 across the cluster.
That score is below the high-scoring tier (the 66-tied CENTCOM infrared captures from 2022) and well below Gemini 7's 72, because the rubric weights instrumented sensor data and astronaut-level witness credibility highly. Eyewitness paper reports - even from FBI field investigators - score lower than multi-sensor military captures or astronaut testimony, and that is the rubric working as intended. It is not a comment on whether the underlying events were real, just on the evidentiary weight of paper records relative to other modalities.
What the case file does NOT establish
- It does not establish that any of the reported objects were extraterrestrial. The FBI's case file is an investigative record of reports the Bureau received, not a determination of origin.
- It does not constitute FBI confirmation that any specific incident is "unexplained." Investigative records frequently include conventional explanations the Bureau or its sources proposed.
- The score of 58 is the rubric's read on evidentiary weight, not on whether the underlying events occurred.
How to verify everything on this page
- Each of the 18 PDFs links above to its dedicated page on this site, where you can view the document inline, download the original (SHA-256 verified against war.gov), and click through to the war.gov source URL.
- The case-file metadata quoted above ("partially posted on FBI vault... newly declassified pages") is sourced from the released file summaries, which are derived from the war.gov PURSUE catalogue.
- The 1947-1968 date range and the 21-year duration are also from the released file metadata.
- For the full FBI category (all 57 FBI files in PURSUE, including this case plus other Bureau records), see /fbi-ufo-files/. For the broader methodology, see /methodology.
Bottom line
62-HQ-83894 is not the strongest-scoring cluster in the PURSUE archive, but it is the longest-running single case file in the release - 21 years of FBI UFO investigations, organized into 18 PDFs that include pages the public FBI Vault has not previously hosted. For researchers focused on the early Cold War period of U.S. government UFO inquiry, this is the largest single block of newly available primary-source material in the disclosure.