Al Hixenbaugh's Saucer Film

At 4:15 pm on 27 June 1950 Al Hixenbaugh was at the corner of Longest and Everett Avenues in Louisville, on his way to film birds. He heard "the roar of a big plane -- a twin-motored DC-3" and looked up. West of the plane, which was heading towards Standiford Field, he saw "the large disk. It had a slight corona around it and seemed to be lower than the plane." He shot 50 feet of 16mm film. The object "appeared motionless for about ten seconds ... then it began to get smaller, finally vanishing into the west." The DC-3 soon left the frame; the disc is on every foot.

What is on the record

The record is a memo of 2 August 1950 from the FBI's Louisville office to J. Edgar Hoover, filed with the Louisville Times story of 28 June that printed three frames. It sits in the Bureau's flying-disc file 62-HQ-83894 (Section 5), released by the Department of War on 8 May 2026. Hixenbaugh told military officers at Godman Field, and the film was later shown on a national television network.

The rest of the memo is the case against the film. On 29 July Robert Steinau, a Courier-Journal staff photographer, came to the FBI office. He and William Davis, head of photographers at both papers, doubted it. About two years earlier Hixenbaugh had published a night picture of a "flying disk". A friend of his later called it "a fraud", made by flicking lighted matches across the camera's field. Steinau noted that the trees and the aircraft are out of focus while the disc is sharp, which would put it close to the lens. He suggested a spot on a window with the camera drawn away, though he admitted he did not know how it was done. The memo closes: "The above is furnished for the Bureau's information."

Loren Gross's history quotes Air Force papers in which General Cabell, the Air Force's intelligence chief, asked for the film and an interview without revealing Air Force interest.

Why it sits where it does

L4 · OFFICIAL RECORD — a released government record names who saw it. Hixenbaugh is the only witness and the camera was his own. The hoax charge was never tested in the file. No independent testimony sits beside the memo in the archive, and the tier measures sourcing rather than truth. What is on the film is not resolved here.