Guy Hottel

Guy Hottel was the special agent in charge of the FBI's Washington Field Office. Almost nothing about him is famous except one document: a memo dated March 22, 1950, that he sent to the FBI Director about flying saucers.

The memo passes along a story from an informant. An Air Force investigator had reportedly said that three saucers were recovered in New Mexico, each with small occupants. The FBI says the account was third-hand, that no further evaluation was attempted, and that the Bureau stopped looking into saucer reports a few months later.

The memo had been public since the late 1970s, but after the FBI launched its online Vault in 2011 it became the most-viewed record there, with close to a million views in two years. Many online stories presented it as proof of a recovery. The FBI's own explanation is that it simply records hearsay. Some researchers link the story to the crashed-saucer hoax associated with Silas Newton that was circulating at the time; the FBI says its files cannot confirm that.