Location file

Oak Ridge, Tennessee

FBI internal memos from August through October 1950 document OSI concern over green fireballs, discs, and meteors appearing near sensitive installations in New Mexico. Dr. Lincoln La Paz of the University of New Mexico concluded roughly half the phenomena were meteoric; the remainder he attributed to U.S. guided missiles, while also raising the possibility of Soviet guided missiles launched from the Urals.

Map coordinates

36.0104, -84.2696

1947-07-01 / unresolved

In July 1947, W.R. Presley of 218 Illinois Avenue, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, photographed what the Knoxville News-Sentinel called a flying saucer. Presley had been photographing his family and house and used his last frame on a shot of a nearby mountain; when the roll was developed, a bright circular object appeared in that final image. The newspaper reported it as the first time a flying saucer had ever been photographed over Oak Ridge and noted that the picture had "all of Oak Ridge talking." The FBI Knoxville Field Office forwarded two prints and a photostatic copy of the newspaper clipping to FBI Headquarters under an Internal Security file.

Flying saucer photographed over Oak Ridge; appears as a bright, circular object in the sky in a black-and-white photograph taken by Mr. Presley while photographing a mountain with his remaining film exposure