PURSUE Release 01 dropped 162 files. Most of the coverage went to the orb videos and the Apollo 17 photo. Buried in Section 4 of FBI case file 62-HQ-83894 (serial 62-83894-169) is a Dayton Journal-Herald clipping from April 27, 1948, preserved by the Bureau as an enclosure to a civilian letter forwarded to Hoover. It contains Captain Thomas F. Mantell's last radio transmission verbatim: "I'm closing in to take a good look. It looks metallic and of tremendous size. It's going up now as fast as I am. That's 360 miles an hour. I'm going up after it. At 20,000 feet, if I'm no closer, I'll abandon chase." His P-51 crashed minutes later over Fort Knox. He was killed. This is the only in-archive case in the entire 62-HQ-83894 file involving a US military pilot fatality during an active intercept. (Davidson and Brown died in a B-25 crash returning from Maury Island, but their flight was investigative, not an intercept.) The same clipping preserves Project Sign's aggregate statistics: 240 domestic and 30 foreign sightings investigated. 30% weather balloons. 30% possibly conventional. 40% unexplained. The evaluation teams' own finding: "We can't prove or disprove the existence of some of the remaining unidentified objects as real aircraft of unconventional design." That language came before General Vandenberg rejected the formal Estimate of the Situation in August 1948 and the whole thing got reorganized into Project Grudge. The handling is worth noting on its own. Hoover forwarded the package to the USAF Director of Special Investigations at the Pentagon by Special Messenger (hand delivered, not mail) at Confidential classification. The standard protocol for civilian UFO correspondence was a form reply and redirect to Air Force. This one got upgraded. Source: FBI 62-HQ-83894, Section 4, pages 149-151. Available in the PURSUE Release 01 tranche. submitted by /u/PunchbowlPorkSoda [link] [comments]