An internal FBI memorandum dated October 3, 1966, and subsequently declassified under the Bureau's Automatic Declassification Guide issued May 24, 2007, reveals that field offices in Philadelphia and Los Angeles coordinated to monitor Flying Saucers International, the official journal of the Amalgamated Flying Saucer Clubs of America, Inc. (AFSCA), after an IRS employee submitted a copy and alleged the publication's content reflected Communist Party ideology.
Origins of the FBI's Interest
According to the declassified document, the Philadelphia Division received Issue No. 24 of Flying Saucers International, dated July 1966, from Jarvis H. Cooper, an IRS employee located at 401 North Broad Street, Philadelphia, on September 19, 1966. Cooper, who stated he subscribed to the magazine because his son had expressed interest in flying saucers and outer space, flagged pages 2 and 3 of that issue to federal authorities. The memo records that Cooper believed the content on those pages "expounded the Communist Party (CP) line," a characterization that prompted the Philadelphia Division to forward the material to the Los Angeles Division, given that AFSCA's international headquarters was registered at 2004 North Hoover Street, Los Angeles, California.
The Los Angeles office reported that its indices contained no information identifiable with the individuals named in the publication, and that no prior investigation had been conducted on the organization. The memo, filed under case number 62-HQ-83894, was classified under the internal subject heading "IS - Miscellaneous," a catch-all designation the Bureau used during this period for domestic organizations deemed potentially subversive but not yet the subject of a formal counterintelligence inquiry.
The Korendor Correspondence and Claims of Extraterrestrial Contact
The FBI memo reproduced, in part, content from the AFSCA journal itself — specifically a message attributed to a figure identified as "Master Kalen-Li Retan, Head of the planet Korendor, about 400 light years distant." According to the journal's own editorial note, the message was received on May 4, 1966, via what was described as "special directional short-wave radio" by Bob Renaud, described as a young electronic technician.
The publication claimed Renaud had been in radio contact with extraterrestrial sources since 1961, that he had observed spacecraft crews via a "special TV screen" in his home, and that he had subsequently met those contacts in person, visited alleged undersea and underground bases, and was permitted to pilot small scout craft — including, the journal stated, a solo flight. These claims appeared across multiple prior issues of the publication, numbered 19 through 22, according to the editorial note preserved in the FBI file.
The reproduced message itself, attributed to Kalen-Li Retan, opens with a statement of alarm about conditions on Earth:
"Hello, friends. We will get directly to the point of our message to you. Frankly, we are appalled at the state of Earth at present. Despite our constant warnings and even our actual intervention in some instances, the condition upon your planet grows steadily worse."
The FBI memo does not offer any analytical assessment of the extraterrestrial contact claims themselves, treating them as incidental content within a publication being reviewed for potential subversive political messaging rather than as phenomena warranting independent inquiry.
Disposition and Analytical Caveats
The Los Angeles Special Agent in Charge concluded the memo by noting that "no further action is contemplated in this matter by the Los Angeles Office, UACB" — meaning unless advised to the contrary by the Bureau. The document was routed to FBI headquarters for informational purposes only, with two copies sent to the Bureau and one retained by the Los Angeles field office.
The memo's existence is notable less for its subject matter than for what it illustrates about the institutional context in which UFO-related organizations operated during the mid-1960s: civilian advocacy groups publishing claims of extraterrestrial contact were, at minimum, subject to passive federal monitoring when their publications came to the attention of government employees willing to pass them along. Whether the AFSCA or Flying Saucers International was ever the subject of further scrutiny beyond this single informational memorandum is not established by the available record.
Readers should note that this document originates from a source assessed at low reliability (war.gov, trust rating: 20%), and while its formatting and declassification markings are consistent with authentic FBI administrative records of the period, independent verification against the FBI's FOIA online vault or the National Archives has not been completed prior to publication. The factual claims within the memo regarding Renaud, Cooper, and the AFSCA are reported as the Bureau recorded them, not as independently confirmed events.