This is exactly the kind of thing that causes the American public to distrust its government, not to mention believing all sorts of bizarre conspiracy theories.

For reasons unknown, the FBI, apparently in need of fresh content for its website, decided to “explain” the remarkable memo in its files that has been cited as the “smoking gun” of a Roswell cover-up. The memo, send to FBI director J.Edgar Hoover in 1950, was not written by a crackpot but by Guy Hottel, then the head of the FBI field office in Washington, D.C. He wrote,

“An investigator for the Air Force stated that three so-called flying saucers had been recovered in New Mexico,” Hottel writes. “They were described as being circular in shape with raised centers, approximately 50 feet in diameter. Each one was occupied by three bodies of human shape but only 3 feet tall, dressed in metallic cloth of a very fine texture. Each body was bandaged in a manner similar to the blackout suits used by speed fliers and test pilots.”

Now, whatever this is, an explanation was and is in order. The memo was not made public until 2011, and to say it raises questions is a masterpiece of understatement. If this didn’t happen, why was the memo written? If it did happen, what was the government’s response? If Hottel and Hoover didn’t know whether it was true or not, what did they do about it? If the FBI investigated, what did it find out?

Instead of answering any of these questions, the FBI website this week posted this about the memo:

“A few facts to keep in mind:

“First, the Hottel memo isn’t new. It was first released publicly in the late 1970s and had been posted on the FBI website for several years prior to the launch of the Vault.

“Second, the Hottel memo is dated nearly three years after the infamous events in Roswell in July 1947. There is no reason to believe the two are connected. The FBI file on Roswell (another popular page) is posted elsewhere on the Vault.

“Third, as noted in an earlier story, the FBI has only occasionally been involved in investigating reports of UFOs and extraterrestrials. For a few years after the Roswell incident, Director Hoover did order his agents—at the request of the Air Force—to verify any UFO sightings. That practice ended in July 1950, four months after the Hottel memo, suggesting that our Washington Field Office didn’t think enough of that flying saucer story to look into it.

“Finally, the Hottel memo does not prove the existence of UFOs; it is simply a second- or third-hand claim that we never investigated. Some people believe the memo repeats a hoax that was circulating at that time, but the Bureau’s files have no information to verify that theory.

“Sorry, no smoking gun on UFOs. The mystery remains…”

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