The Hottel Memo: The FBI Vault's Most-Viewed UFO File
A one-page 1950 FBI memo about three "flying saucers" in New Mexico became the most viewed document in the FBI's online Vault.
The Hottel memo is a one-page 1950 FBI memo passing on an informant's story of three crashed "flying saucers" in New Mexico. The FBI says it never investigated the claim and that the memo proves nothing.
The FBI Vault, the Bureau's online FOIA library, holds a 16-part release simply titled "UFO." Its summary explains that in 1947 "a rash of sightings of unexplained flying objects (UFOs) swept America," and that although the newly formed Air Force was the main investigator, the FBI "received many reports and worked for a time with the Air Force to investigate these matters." The file covers the FBI's role from 1947 to 1954. It sits in the Vault's "Unexplained Phenomenon" section, next to a single 1947 Roswell teletype and files on UFO groups.
The most famous page is a memo dated March 22, 1950, from Guy Hottel, special agent in charge of the FBI's Washington Field Office, to the FBI Director. It passes along an informant's story: three "flying saucers" had been recovered in New Mexico, "circular in shape with raised centers, approximately 50 feet in diameter." Each was said to be "occupied by three bodies of human shape but only three feet tall, dressed in metallic cloth." The informant claimed that powerful government radar in the area had interfered with the saucers' controls.
The memo was not a new discovery. According to the FBI, it had been public since the late 1970s, and it was added to the Vault when the site launched in 2011. In a March 2013 story the Bureau called it "the most viewed document in the FBI Vault," with close to a million views in two years. FBI officials also stressed that there is no credible link between the memo and the 1947 Roswell incident.
The Bureau's own verdict is blunt: the memo "does not prove the existence of UFOs; it is simply a second- or third-hand claim that we never investigated." The FBI noted that some people believe the memo repeats a hoax that was going around at the time, but said its files have no information to confirm that. Researchers have linked the story to a hoax tied to Silas Newton, an oil man and con artist whose own FBI file is also in the Vault.
The informant's explanation for why the saucers came down: powerful government radar in New Mexico was said to have interfered with their controls.
The FBI calls the memo an uninvestigated second- or third-hand claim. Paranormal investigator Ben Radford and others trace it to the 1950 crashed-saucer hoax associated with Silas Newton, whom the FBI later investigated for fraud. In 1952 Newton revised his own claim, saying he had only repeated what he heard from others.
