The Smith Memo

On 21 November 1950 Wilbert B. Smith, a senior radio engineer at Canada's Department of Transport, sent his superiors a short memo proposing a geomagnetics study. It became one of the most quoted documents in UFO history because of four claims Smith said he had picked up in Washington: that the subject was "the most highly classified subject in the United States Government, rating higher even than the H-bomb," that "flying saucers exist," that a "small group headed by Doctor Vannevar Bush" was studying how they worked, and that US authorities considered the matter "of tremendous significance" [S1][S2]. Eleven days later the department approved his study, which became Project Magnet [S3].

The memo is genuine. What it proves is narrower than its reputation: it is Smith's own summary, written six weeks after a conversation he may have had only through an intermediary.

"Mental phenomena"

The sentence after the four famous points is less often quoted. Smith wrote that "the United States authorities are investigating along quite a number of lines which might possibly be related to the saucers such as mental phenomena and I gather that they are not doing too well since they indicated that if Canada is doing anything at all in geo-magnetics they would welcome a discussion" [S1]. The wording is confirmed from a scan of the memo. It is Smith's paraphrase, not a quote from his source. It does not appear in his interview notes, and it does not use the words ESP or telepathy [S1][S4].

Later researchers read the line as the earliest official hint that the UFO question was tied to consciousness. Grant Cameron says it was left out of the literature for thirty years [S5]. That reading is theirs, not the memo's. See Psychic Ability. The man who wrote the line later went further himself. In the late 1950s Smith said he was in telepathic contact with extraterrestrials, writings later collected as The Boys from Topside, which is worth knowing when weighing him as a witness [S6].

Where it came from

Smith's source was the physicist Robert Sarbacher. Smith's handwritten notes of 15 September 1950 (1950 Briefings on UFO Crash Retrievals) are headed "Notes on interview through Lt/C. Bremner with Dr. Robert I. Sarbacher." Bremner was the Canadian defence attaché in Washington, and the historian Matthew Hayes notes it is unclear whether Smith spoke to Sarbacher directly at all [S2]. Smith added that the notes were "written out from memory following the interview" [S4]. They contain Sarbacher's own "classified two points higher even than the H-bomb," but they do not name Bush. Bush and the mental-phenomena line enter only in the memo [S4]. Smith had asked Sarbacher about Frank Scully's Behind the Flying Saucers [S7], whose Aztec story came from men later convicted of fraud [S8].

In 1950 Bush was not chairing the Research and Development Board. He had left that post in October 1948 and was running the Carnegie Institution of Washington [S9][S10]. The memo never claims otherwise, but later retellings that put Bush's group inside the Board do.

Custody

There are two copies. The Department of Transport original is cited to Library and Archives Canada, RG 97, vol. 182, file 5010-4 [S2]. A second copy, with Smith's interview notes and Sarbacher's 1983 letter to William Steinman, sits in the papers of Arthur Bray at the University of Ottawa Archives. Bray obtained them from Smith's widow and son [S11]. The memo was stamped Top Secret and downgraded to Confidential on 15 September 1969 [S12].

The often-repeated story that Bray and Stanton Friedman found the memo together in 1978 is wrong. Bray published excerpts in 1979, and Friedman dates his own copy to 1979 [S2][S13]. Sarbacher became the centre of the story only when Bray named him in 1982 [S7].

Sources

[S1] "Memo to the Controller of Telecommunications by Wilbert Smith, 21 November 1950" (scan) URL: https://www.sunrisepage.com/ufo/files/government/Canada/Memo_to_the_Controller_of_Telecommunications_by_Wilbert_Smith,_21_November_1950.pdf Accessed: 2026-09-18 Claim: Memo text, including the four points and the mental-phenomena sentence

[S2] Matthew Hayes, "Search for the Unknown: Canada's UFO Files and the Rise of Conspiracy Theory" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2022) URL: https://dokumen.pub/search-for-the-unknown-canadas-ufo-files-and-the-rise-of-conspiracy-theory-9780228012290.html Accessed: 2026-09-18 Claim: LAC file reference; notes headed "through Lt/C. Bremner"; Bray's 1967 and 1979 books

[S3] Timothy Good, "Above Top Secret," ch. 8 (reproduced) URL: https://www.stealthskater.com/Documents/Smith_03.pdf Accessed: 2026-09-18 Claim: Project Magnet approved 2 December 1950 by C.P. Edwards

[S4] "Smith–Sarbacher interview notes, 15 Sept 1950" (reproduced from Campagna, The UFO Files) URL: https://luforu.org/smith-sarbacher-interview/ Accessed: 2026-09-18 Claim: Sarbacher's "two points higher even than the H-bomb"; notes written from memory; Bush absent

[S5] "Grant Cameron — UFO Sightings and Extended Consciousness" (Skeptiko) URL: https://skeptiko.com/grant-cameron-ufo-sightings-and-extended-consciousness Accessed: 2026-09-18 Claim: Cameron's view that the mental-phenomena line was left out for thirty years

[S6] "Project Magnet (Canada)" (Wikipedia) URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Magnet_(Canada) Accessed: 2026-09-18 Claim: Smith's belief in telepathic contact; his Topside articles

[S7] Kevin Randle (attrib.), "Case MJ-12" URL: https://dokumen.pub/case-mj-12-1628157453-9781628157451.html Accessed: 2026-09-18 Claim: Smith asked about Scully's book; Bray named Sarbacher at the 1982 MUFON symposium

[S8] "Aztec crashed saucer hoax" (Wikipedia) URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aztec_crashed_saucer_hoax Accessed: 2026-09-18 Claim: Scully's Aztec sources were exposed as fraudsters

[S9] "Vannevar Bush" (Wikipedia, offices infobox) URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vannevar_Bush Accessed: 2026-09-18 Claim: Bush chaired the RDB 30 September 1947 – 14 October 1948

[S10] "Vannevar Bush papers, biographical note" (MIT ArchivesSpace) URL: https://archivesspace.mit.edu/repositories/2/resources/638 Accessed: 2026-09-18 Claim: Bush was president of the Carnegie Institution until 1955

[S11] "Research on Wilbert B. Smith," Arthur Bray fonds (University of Ottawa Archives) URL: https://arcs-atom.uottawa.ca/index.php/research-on-wilbert-smith Accessed: 2026-09-18 Claim: Bray acquired Smith's papers from his widow and son; many items are photocopies

[S12] Kevin Randle, "Wilbert Smith and Project Magnet" (full memo transcription) URL: http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2012/02/wilbert-smith-and-project-magnet.html Accessed: 2026-09-18 Claim: "TOP SECRET (downgraded to CONFIDENTIAL 15/9/69)"

[S13] "Crash at Corona" chapter summary (Stanton Friedman) URL: https://www.bookey.app/book/crash-at-corona Accessed: 2026-09-18 Claim: Friedman received the memo in 1979

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