Detroit crystal-dome UFO memo, Serial 844

This document is a one-page FBI Detroit office memorandum dated April 17, 1958 and titled Unidentified Flying Objects. The Department of War's PURSUE Release 01 page lists the record as FBI material from Detroit, Michigan, and hosts the official PDF under the filename 65_HS1-101634279_100-DE-18221_Serial_844.¹²

The memo is not a technical analysis of an aerial object. It is a field-office routing record: Special Agent Robert Ross Reynolds wrote to the Special Agent in Charge in Detroit after David Weaver telephoned the office at 4:08 a.m. the same day.² Weaver had first tried to reach Selfridge Field and the Air Force, but the memo says those attempts were not productive. He then called the FBI to pass along what he had just seen.²

Weaver described a circular object with a crystal-type dome that reflected lights. According to the memo, the object moved north from the southwest and crossed Detroit three blocks south of Six Mile at Lamphere Street.² The report places the sighting in the early-morning hours, with Weaver returning home from work when he observed the object.²

The strongest part of the record is its compact witness context. Reynolds recorded Weaver as a 23-year-old Detroit resident, the son of a Detroit policeman, and someone with prior Civil Air Patrol experience.² The same sentence also limits the weight of the account: Weaver was not very familiar with aircraft identification.² That caveat is important because the memo preserves a first-report description, not a validated identification.

The final action is equally narrow. Under Recommendation, the memo says to advise the proper Air Force authorities.² No investigation results, radar data, photographs, interviews, or Air Force response appear in this one-page serial. The document therefore supports a specific conclusion: by April 17, 1958, the FBI Detroit office had recorded a civilian UFO call, identified the witness and route of referral, and treated the Air Force as the appropriate authority for follow-up.²

As a dossier item, Serial 844 is useful because it shows how a local UFO report entered federal paperwork before any later interpretation. The origin is Weaver's direct telephone report; the described event is a brief early-morning sighting over Detroit; the institutional handling is an FBI office memorandum recommending Air Force notification. The released page and PDF do not, by themselves, prove what Weaver saw.¹²

  References

  References

1. war.gov ↩ ↩²

2. war.gov ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰