PROJECT 1947

            USAFE 14         TT 1524         TOP SECRET           4 Nov 1948

From OI OB

        For some time we have been concerned by the recurring reports on flying
saucers. They periodically continue to crop up; during the last week, one was
observed hovering over Neubiberg Air Base for about thirty minutes.  They
have been reported by so many sources and from such a variety of places that
we are convinced that they cannot be disregarded and must be explained on some
basis which is perhaps slightly beyond the scope of our present intelligence
thinking.

        When officers of this Directorate recently visited the Swedish Air
Intelligence Service.   This question was put to the Swedes.   Their answer
was that some reliable and fully technically qualified people have reached
the conclusion that "these phenomena are obviously the result of a high
technical skill which cannot be credited to any presently known culture on
earth."   They are therefore assuming that these objects originate from some
previously unknown or unidentified technology, possibly outside the earth.

        One of these objects was observed by a Swedish technical expert near
his home on the edge of a lake.   The object crashed or landed in the lake
and he carefully noted its azimuth from his point of observation.   Swedish
intelligence was sufficiently confident in his observation that a naval
salvage team was sent to the lake.   Operations were underway during the
visit of USAFE officers.   Divers had discovered a previously uncharted
crater on the floor of the lake.   No further information is available, but
we have been promised knowledge of the results.   In their opinion, the
observation was reliable, and they believe that the depression on the floor
of the lake, which did not appear on current hydrographic charts, was in
fact caused by a flying saucer.

        Although accepting this theory of the origin of these objects poses a
whole new group of questions and puts much of our thinking in a changed
light, we are inclined not to discredit entirely this somewhat spectacular
theory, meantime keeping an open mind on the subject.   What are your
reactions?

T O P     S E C R E T

(END OF USAFE ITEM 14)