FBI-UAP-D011, Pastor's 1949 Letter to J. Edgar Hoover on Beams over the Cascades
- Date
- Letter dated Jan. 31, 1949 (sighting "last May," i.e., May 1948); FBI stamp Feb. 1949
- Location
- McMinnville, Oregon (letterhead); beams seen converging in the Cascade Mountains
- Agency
- FBI
- Release
- Release 03 (June 12, 2026)
- Type
- document
Summary
Rev. Charles C. Barnes, a Presbyterian pastor, writes to J. Edgar Hoover that one afternoon the previous May he saw four narrow beams in the sky passing northwest to southeast and converging in the Cascade mountains, with small clouds forming in them and "a great explosion effect" where they met, visible for at least 10 minutes. He links it to a prewar article on radio-beam experiments to cause rainfall and to the Columbia River flood, and adds that the explosion effect seemed to rise about ten thousand feet. Hoover's Feb. 9, 1949, reply thanks him for the information; FBI routing stamps follow.
Note
A citizen letter with the writer's own theory; the FBI's reply is a brief acknowledgment.