The National Declassification Center in College Park, Md., opened one of more than 100 cardboard boxes from the Air Force recently and came across a 114-page document from 1956 that will tantalize everyone with any interest in UFOs or Alien Lore. 

"These records have been classified probably since their creation during the '50s," Neil Carmichael, director of the declassification review division  told Popular Mechanics (the first media outlet to post the news of the document). "It’s like somebody went into somebody’s office, emptied out a filing cabinet, stuck it in a box, sealed it, and sent it off to the federal records center. It was deemed permanently valuable at some point in its life and that’s why we have it today."

An NDC spokesman told FoxNews.com that the group is “in the process of digitizing” the entire document and has not yet released it onto its website.  “We have about 400 million pages to get through the executive order President Obama signed in 2009,” he said. “I tell my techs, 'If you find anything interesting, let us know.'”  And they did. 

The saucer had an ejector seat and was powered by a “ram jet” that was designed to propel it to a height of 100,000 feet. The Air Force contracted the construction of the craft to a Canadian company, Avro Aircraft Limited in Ontario.

According to the specification document, the saucer had “Six Armstrong Siddeley Viper turbo-jets -- 1,900 lb. thrust, 22.0” overall diameter, 525 lb weight each -- are mounted radially in the wing, exhausting inwards; and used as gas generators to drive a pair of contra-rotating centrifugal impellers by means of a radial inflow turbine."

Much of the report contains detailed descriptions and schematics of the propulsion system, as tested in a scale model seen in numerous photographs. As it turns out, the saucer worked on paper much better than the scale models did in real life. 

“The efficiency of the airframe at supersonic speed appears good and that of the engine reasonable, so that a long supersonic cruise range is also forecast,” according to the report. But in testing, the craft, which was actually just a Frenchified hovercraft, critically malfunctioned. 

“Apparently, as it gained in altitude, it would start to wobble uncontrollably,” Carmichael explained.
The report also didcusses plans to develop weapons suitable for the saucer, to equip it for reconnaissance, as an interceptor or tactical bomber.