Night Ledger

Record 002 · 22 March 1950

FBI Guy Hottel memo

Federal Bureau of Investigation · United States

Ledger illustration of the record — not a scan of the original paper. — Night Ledger illustration of the file

MemoUnclassified

The Guy Hottel memo is among the most requested files in the FBI Vault. It is a short field-office note: an informant, already unnamed in the paper, claimed an Air Force investigator had recovered three saucers in New Mexico, each with three small bodies. The Bureau did not investigate. The memo is a record of a rumor that reached Washington, not a confirmation that anything was recovered.

The FBI later said the story tracked a known hoax of the period. The paper remains useful as a specimen of how saucer talk entered official traffic — typed, dated, filed — without becoming a finding.

Public file: FBI Vault, UFO file

Related paper

FOIA / archiveUnclassified

2023–2025

Records from the Office of the Secretary of Defense Relating to Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, October 1, 2023–2025

National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) / Office of the Secretary of Defense · United States

This Record Group 615 collection at the National Archives aggregates declassified and unclassified U.S. government records on UAP, technologies of unknown origin, and non-human intelligence (explicitly excluding ordinary non-attributed objects), produced in response to the 2024 NDAA.

FOIA / archiveDeclassified

August 2026

PURSUE Release 05: Declassified UAP Files (August 2026 tranche)

Department of Defense / Department of War · United States

Fifth tranche of the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE), releasing 41 additional files including historical documents from 1953 onward, videos of orbs and spheres, digital renderings, and investigative PDFs from FBI, DoD, and other agencies. Materials cover global sightings and analyses but attribute most to explainable phenomena or unresolved due to limited da

FOIA / archiveDeclassified

August 2026

PURSUE Release 05 (August 2026 UAP Files)

Department of Defense · United States

This tranche of the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE) releases additional historical and modern UAP-related documents, imagery, and sensor data from multiple agencies as part of a rolling declassification effort. Materials include reports of orb-like phenomena, sensor data from military platforms, and archival records. Consistent with other PURSUE releases and