Info Twitter 
 
 Facebook 
 
 Share 
 
 
 
 UFOs and the Guy Hottel Memo An FBI memo in 1950 regarding an unconfirmed account of “flying saucers” still stirs interest. 
 
 A single-page March 22, 1950 memo by Guy Hottel, special agent in charge of the Washington Field Office, regarding UFOs is the most viewed document in the FBI Vault , our online repository of public records. 
 
 UFOs or No? 
 
 The Guy Hottel Memo 03/25/13 
 
 It’s the most popular file in the FBI Vault—our high-tech electronic reading room housing various Bureau records released under the Freedom of Information Act. Over the past two years, this file has been viewed nearly a million times. Yet, it is only a single page, relaying an unconfirmed report that the FBI never even followed up on. The file in question is a memo dated March 22, 1950—63 years ago last week. It was authored by Guy Hottel, then head of our field office in Washington, D.C. (see sidebar below for a brief biography). Like all memos to FBI Headquarters at that time, it was addressed to Director J. Edgar Hoover and recorded and indexed in FBI records. The subject of the memo was anything but ordinary. It related a story told to one of our agents by a third party who said an Air Force investigator had reported that three “flying saucers” were recovered in New Mexico. The memo provided the following detail: “They [the saucers] were described as being circular in shape with raised centers, approximately 50 feet in diameter. Each one was occupied by three bodies of human shape but only three feet tall, dressed in metallic cloth of a very fine texture. Each body was bandaged in a manner similar to the blackout suits used by speed fliers and test pilots.” 
 
 After relaying an informant’s claim that the saucers had been found because the government’s “high-powered radar” in the area had interfered with “the controlling mechanism of the saucers,” the memo ends simply by saying that “[n]o further evaluation was attempted” concerning the matter by the FBI agent. 
 
 
 
 Guy Hottel Biography 
 
 Guy L. Hottel was born around 1902. He was a graduate of George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where he was a star football player. He was later inducted into the university’s athletic hall of fame. He entered the FBI as a special agent in 1934. In December 1936, he was named acting head of the FBI’s Washington Field Office; he was appointed special agent in charge the following May and served until March 1941. Hottel was re-appointed special agent in charge in February 1943 and served until 1951, when he took a position in the Identification Division. He retired in 1955. Hottel was married three times and had two sons. Following his FBI career, Hottel served as executive secretary of the Horseman’s Benevolent Association. He died in June 1990. That might have been the end of this particular story, just another informational dead end in the FBI files. But when we launched the Vault in April 2011, some media outlets noticed the Hottel memo and erroneously reported that the FBI had posted proof of a UFO crash at Roswell, New Mexico and the recovery of wreckage and alien corpses. The resulting stories went viral, and traffic to the new Vault soared. So what’s the real story? A few facts to keep in mind: First, the Hottel memo isn’t new. It was first released publicly in the late 1970s and had been posted on the FBI website for several years prior to the launch of the Vault. Second, the Hottel memo is dated nearly three years after the infamous events in Roswell in July 1947. There is no reason to believe the two are connected. The FBI file on Roswell (another popular page) is posted elsewhere on the Vault. Third, as noted in an earlier story, the FBI has only occasionally been involved in investigating reports of UFOs and extraterrestrials. For a few years after the Roswell incident, Director Hoover did order his agents—at the request of the Air Force—to verify any UFO sightings. That practice ended in July 1950, four months after the Hottel memo, suggesting that our Washington Field Office didn’t think enough of that flying saucer story to look into it. Finally, the Hottel memo does not prove the existence of UFOs; it is simply a second- or third-hand claim that we never investigated. Some people believe the memo repeats a hoax that was circulating at that time, but the Bureau’s files have no information to verify that theory. Sorry, no smoking gun on UFOs. The mystery remains… Resources: 
 
 - The Guy Hottel memo 
 
 - Records on other unexplained phenomenon 
 
 Twitter 
 
 Facebook 
 
 Share 
 
 
 
 ||||| A single-page March 22, 1950, memo by Guy Hottel, special agent in charge of the Washington Field Office, regarding UFOs is the most viewed document in the FBI Vault, an online repository of public records. 
 
 Credit: FBI View full size image 
 
 The FBI says its most viewed public record is a memo from 1950 recounting a strange story someone told an agent about three "flying saucers" that were allegedly recovered in New Mexico. 
 
 The so-called Hottel memo was first released in the late 1970s under the Freedom of Information Act, but it's been viewed nearly a million times since 2011, when the FBI launched an online database of public records called the Vault. 
 
 Dated March 22, 1950, the memo was addressed to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and written by Guy Hottel, then head of the Bureau's field office in Washington, D.C. Hottel was reporting what an Air Force investigator said that someone else told him about the crashed saucers. 
 
 The following details of the report have perhaps fueled the hopes of those who want to believe: "They [the saucers] were described as being circular in shape with raised centers, approximately 50 feet in diameter. Each one was occupied by three bodies of human shape but only three feet tall, dressed in metallic cloth of a very fine texture. Each body was bandaged in a manner similar to the blackout suits used by speed fliers and test pilots." 
 
 For the record, FBI officials said in a statement on Monday (March 25) that the Hottel memo "does not prove the existence of UFOs; it is simply a second- or third-hand claim that we never investigated." 
 
 Bureau officials also say there is no reason to believe that the story has anything to do with the infamous 1947 Roswell crash in New Mexico. Hoover did actually order his agents to verify any UFO sightings after the Roswell incident and until July 1950. That the Hottel report was never investigated suggests "our Washington Field Office didn't think enough of that flying saucer story to look into it," the FBI statement says. 
 
 Follow Megan Gannon on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. ||||| Info The Vault 
 
 
 
 The Vault is our new FOIA Library, containing 6,700 documents and other media that have been scanned from paper into digital copies so you can read them in the comfort of your home or office. Included here are many new FBI files that have been released to the public but never added to this website; dozens of records previously posted on our site but removed as requests diminished; files from our previous FOIA Library, and new, previously unreleased files. 
 
 The Vault includes several new tools and resources for your convenience: Searching for Topics: You can browse or search for specific topics or persons (like Al Capone or Marilyn Monroe) by viewing our You can browse or search for specific topics or persons (like Al Capone or Marilyn Monroe) by viewing our alphabetical listing , by using the search tool in the upper right of this site, or by checking the different category lists that can be found in the menu on the right side of this page. In the search results, click on the folder to see all of the files for that particular topic. 
 
 Searching for Key Words: Thanks to new technology we have developed, you can now search for key words or phrases within some individual files. You can search across all of our electronic files by using the search tool in the upper right of this site, or you can search for key words within a specific document by typing in terms in the search box in the upper right hand of the file after it has been opened and loaded. Note: since many of the files include handwritten notes or are not always in optimal condition due to age, this search feature does not always work perfectly. 
 
 Viewing the Files: We are now using an open source web document viewer, so you no longer need your own file software to view our records. When you click on a file, it loads in a reader that enables you to view one or two pages at a time, search for key words, shrink or enlarge the size of the text, use different scroll features, and more. In many cases, the quality and clarity of the individual files has also been improved. 
 
 Requesting a Status Update: Use our new Use our new Check the Status of Your FOI/PA Request tool to determine where your request stands in our process. Status information is updated weekly. Note: You need your FOI/PA request number to use this feature. 
 
 Please note: the content of the files in the Vault encompasses all time periods of Bureau history and do not always reflect the current views, policies, and priorities of the FBI. New files will be added on a regular basis, so please check back often.
– Of the 6,700 documents that the FBI has posted publicly at its Vault since 2011, the most popular of them all is ... a 1950 memo on UFOs, reports Live Science. In the so-called Hottel memo, an agent recounts that someone reported seeing three "flying saucers" that crashed in New Mexico, with three apparent dead aliens in each. The agent didn't seem to take it very seriously, concluding that "no further evaluation was attempted." The memo has been publicly available since the 1970s, but with the launch of the Vault, the one-page memo went viral and has since then received nearly 1 million hits. The FBI again takes pains to point out "the Hottel memo does not prove the existence of UFOs," in its own writeup on the popularity of the document. "It is simply a second- or third-hand claim that we never investigated," possibly the result of a tall tale floating around at the time. "Sorry, no smoking gun on UFOs."