A LETTER FROM the Irish Embassy in Washington was sent to the Irish government in 1950.

The letter was sent to the Department of External Affairs by an embassy staffer, who enclosed a copy of the book The Flying Saucers Are Real, by Donald Keyhoe.

It is part of the ninth volume of documents released in the Documents on Irish Foreign Policy project.

In the letter, the staff member says that “the book speaks for itself”, pointing out that it was selling well in the States.

The book is considered a seminal book, which investigates numerous encounters between United States Air Force fighters, personnel, and other aircraft, and UFOs between 1947 and 1950.

Source: Wikimedia

In the letter home, releases from the US Department of Defence are included, with the writer saying that his “newspaper friends” had assured him the book was “completely factual”.

He tells a story of an American Airlines plane that was “circled three times by one of these manifestations”.

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The letter writer says that they do not “commit [themselves] to believe in any of the views” expressed in the book.

However, they say that there has been talk that the book was inspired by the American authorities which means people may accept the idea that “there is a possibility of the inhabitants of another planet visiting this one”.