A recently declassified FBI memorandum describes the bureau’s 1947 investigation into metal fragments found in West Rindge.
The documents, released by the Pentagon on May 8, are part of FBI file 62-83894 and are available through the bureau’s online records vault.
According to the records, at about 3 p.m. on July 7, 1947, several people sitting on a porch saw “little curls of smoke” rising from the lawn of Earl Whitehead’s property on Route 202. The account appears in a July 8 teletype from the FBI’s Boston field office to Director J. Edgar Hoover.
Witnesses found small burned spots, about 1.5 inches across, on the lawn. In the dry grass along both sides of the road, a roughly 200-foot circle of small blazes ignited. The fire department was called.
The Whitehead residence was located about 800 feet east of nearby railroad tracks.
Charles Tasker, a retired vice president of the New England Telephone and Telegraph Co. who lived in West Rindge, contacted the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The recovered fragments were examined by Prof. John Francis Reintjes, who told investigators “their general appearance are similar to the lining of V dash two bombs, which he had observed at New Mexico.”
A second MIT scientist, described in the teletype as “an outstanding metallurgist,” said the fragments were “possibly” from “a jet turbo plane.”
A follow-up memo dated July 29, 1947, reported that a spectrographic analysis identified the material as ordinary cast iron subjected to extreme heat. Scales on the surface, first thought to be an unknown alloy, were determined to have formed from the heat.
Investigators concluded the four fragments most likely came from a single hollow cylinder about 8 inches in diameter and three-sixteenths of an inch thick. MIT ruled out a locomotive, smokestack or other steam engine as the source.
An unnamed scientist told investigators that cast iron cylinders of similar size had been used in guided missile research in New Mexico, though he did not rule out other possibilities.
Both memos were classified “Security Matter – X.” The July 18 teletype concluded that “opinions of scientists as set forth above suggest possible military interest” and noted that “military authorities at Boston have not been notified.”
The Boston office planned to destroy the specimens by Aug. 15, 1947, unless directed otherwise.
Editor’s note: The Ledger-Transcript is interested in hearing from anyone who remembers the July 1947 incident in West Rindge, or who has family connections to Earl Whitehead, Charles Tasker or others mentioned in this story. Contact Ryann Brooks at rbrooks@ledgertranscript.com or 603-331-4961.
