White House Releases Seventh Tranche of UAP Files: Catalina Island Sightings, Including a 1952 Boy Scout Report, Among the Records
The U.S. federal government on Friday, October 23, released the seventh tranche of declassified records on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) through the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters, known as PURSUE. Among the records are several historical sighting reports from Santa Catalina Island, California, including a 1952 Air Force intelligence report. (GSM, based on reporting by the New York Post)
According to the New York Post, its reporters and a small group of other journalists were briefed by senior government officials on Thursday ahead of the release. One Air Force intelligence report in the files describes an alleged encounter on August 25, 1952: three Boy Scouts hiking in the mountains of Catalina Island near Camp Fox at noon Pacific time saw an "object silver in color" that moved "faster than a conventional jet." The weather was clear, and the Scouts could not estimate the object's altitude, speed or distance. The report also notes that a sketch of the object drawn on the back of the original report is missing and remains unaccounted for despite searches through decades of archives.
Another file is a handwritten letter dated May 1, 1947, signed by Percy E. Mackey. The letter says that at about 8 p.m. on April 28, 1947, his wife and a school teacher saw six objects in the sky, "not in a group, but singly," and minutes later, at his daughter's home, the family saw four more traveling in the same direction. The official conclusion on that sighting was "insufficient data for evaluation." A historical account published by The Catalina Islander also records that on July 8, 1947, at about 1 p.m., three visiting Army Air Force veterans reported six "flying discs" in formation over Avalon that disappeared over East Peak; one witness, Alvio Russo, estimated their speed at 850 mph, and former aerial photographer Bob Jung said he photographed one of the objects, in an image published by the Los Angeles Examiner.
In a review of the newly posted files, Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb noted that the seventh tranche contains 28 PDF files and, unlike earlier tranches, no videos. The files include a March 2009 monthly report concerning Skinwalker Ranch in Utah and a May 1963 White House-level report on whether to tell the public about recovered space-vehicle fragments, in which Arnold Fruitkin, NASA's chief of international relations, argued that a White House statement would scare people needlessly.
PURSUE is the public channel the Trump administration set up for rolling releases of UAP records, published by the Department of War and other agencies. Friday's disclosure is the system's seventh tranche, the New York Post reported, with more files expected to follow. Many of the released cases remain unresolved because the underlying data are incomplete.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：加州 Santa Catalina Island 的 Avalon 与 Catalina Casino（资料图）。Don Ramey Logan 摄，CC BY-SA 4.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: Avalon and the Catalina Casino on Santa Catalina Island, California (file photo). Photo by Don Ramey Logan, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
- 2026-10-23White House Releases Seventh Tranche of UAP Files: Catalina Island Sightings, Including a 1952 Boy Scout Report, Among the RecordsThis story
- 2026-10-24Pentagon's Seventh UAP Release: Federal Agents Describe Silent Black Triangle Rising Vertically, Hovering, Then Vanishing at Fighter-Jet Speed
