This story is part of an occasional series looking at the Flint-area's involvement in prominent federal investigations, which are highlighted in the Federal Bureau of Investigation's online "Vault."
GRAND BLANC, MI - Something possibly in the Flint-area's nighttime skies caught the interest of federal authorities in 1960.
A Grand Blanc pizzeria owner claimed to photograph a flying saucer in 1960, and shared his discovery with federal officials.
The incident was documented in a trove of information made public in the Federal Bureau of Investigation's online "Vault." The Vault is the FBI's library of documents that have been released through Freedom of Information Act requests and detail some of the most-prominent figures and controversial investigations in the bureau's history.
Documents included in the release identified Joseph Perry as the owner Perry's Pizza Grill in Grand Blanc. Perry, then 44, was an amateur photographer who liked to take pictures of the moon through his big homemade telescope, according to the documents.
About 1 a.m. early one February day, Perry said he made a color photo where an unidentified flying object can be seen against the moon, according to a story in The Flint Journal that was published March 27, 1960.
Perry contacted the Detroit office of the FBI about the suspected UFO captured in the photograph, according to a letter from then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to the Office of Special Investigations with the Air Force.
"He said that when blown up, this object is flat on the bottom, is oval shaped, and appears to have a fluorescent glow around the entire object, and that it is apparently moving as it has a vapor trail running behind it," the internal FBI memo said.
Perry said he took the photo using a 35 mm Retna German camera with Super Ansco Color film and took the pictures through his homemade telescope that was set at between 350-400 power, the FBI memo said.
After a story about Perry's UFO photograph was published by the Detroit Times, the Grand Blanc pizza-maker wrote President Dwight Eisenhower.
"Quoting from a letter of March 14 from Major Donald E. Kehoe, 'From past experience with photographic evidence, we consider it unlikely that you will ever see your picture again,'" Perry wrote to the president on March 21, 1960. "I would like the assurance that this colored transparency will be returned to me within a short time, as it would be financially profitable in the pursuit of my hobby, (cameras and equipment)."
Perry told the FBI he received more than 50 letters and phone calls asking to see the photo.
Ultimately, federal authorities returned the picture.
The Air Force gave Perry a letter when it returned the photo "explaining that what appears to be a flying object in this slide is actually a part of the negative which was not properly developed," according to an FBI memo.
The cache of information included letters and documents from to people from Seattle, Wash., to New Iberia, Louisiana.
There are hundreds of pages detailing alleged UFO sightings throughout the country, asking about the existence of and other info about flying saucers included in the FBI documents.