Chronicle year
1947
1947-09-24 / Hobson, Ohio
Headquarters Eleventh Air Force forwarded a report to USAF Headquarters and Air Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in May and June 1948 documenting a flying disc sighting at Hobson, Ohio on the night of 8 May 1948. The report, sourced from FBI Special Agent D.K. Brown in Cleveland, described a round, phosphorescent object appearing nine inches in diameter from ground level, traveling at heading 90 degrees at an altitude of 6 to 8 miles, witnessed by New York Central System employees and a patrolman.
1947-09-11 / Portland, Oregon
On September 11, 1947, Portland Police Department officers in Districts 18 and 14, including Chief of Police Leon V. Jenkins, reported sighting a round silver object over Portland, Oregon between 5:21 and 5:27 PM. In July 1947, pilot Jack Peck and co-pilot Vince Daly of the Al Jones Flying Company observed a flying wing object near Bethel Airport, Alaska, describing it as approximately the size of a C-54 without any fuselage, flying at 1,000 feet at an estimated 300 miles per hour with no propeller, jet exhaust, or vapor trails.
1947-08-04 / Approximately midway between Everett (Mass) Fan Marker and Bedford Radio Beacon, approximately 10 miles NW of Boston, Massachusetts
On 4 August 1947 at 1600 EDT, Pan American Airways Captain Alpheus O. Powell and navigator Walter I. White separately sighted flying objects near Boston while piloting a Constellation from Gander, Newfoundland to La Guardia Field. Powell described his object as cylindrical, blunt at both ends, roughly the length of a P-40 fuselage, and bright orange; White described his as elliptical, deep gold, and approximately 15 feet long. Air Defense Command at Mitchel Field, New York interviewed both men and issued summaries of information on 12 and 15 September 1947.
1947-07-09 / Hackensack, New Jersey
On July 9, 1947, Raymond Edward Lane, a Dow Chemical Company employee, and his wife Laura reported hearing a puff noise and seeing a ball of white about the size of a bushel basket burning a foot off the ground in a Dow-owned field in Midland, Michigan. Lane brought recovered material to the Dow Physics Laboratory the next day; laboratory examination found ordinary sand, a small silver nugget, melted sand droplets giving off ammonia odor, and a grayish radioactive material. The FBI Detroit Division reported the incident to the Director on August 5, 1947, and recommended forwarding the material to the War Department.
1947-07-08 / Muroc Air Field, Muroc, California
On 8 July 1947, multiple witnesses at Muroc Army Air Field, California reported seeing silver disc-like or spherical objects at approximately 8,000 feet, traveling northwest toward Mojave at 300 to 400 MPH. Witnesses included 1st Lt Joseph C. McHenry, S/Sgt Gerald E. Nauman, T/Sgt Joseph Ruvolo, Jannette Marie Scott, S/Sgt Joseph Ruvero, and Major Richard R. Shoop, whose sighting occurred at approximately noon. The observations are recorded across at least four numbered incident check-lists by the Department of War; Incident #1b is evaluated as "Confirmed by other sources."
1947-07-01 / Grafton, Wisconsin
FBI headquarters case file 62-HQ-83894 collects press clippings, public letters, and internal memos concerning "flying disc" and "flying saucer" reports across the United States in July 1947. Reports include Rev. Joseph Brasky of Grafton, Wisconsin, who told the United Press he found an 18-inch metal disc with "gadgets and some wires" in his churchyard and was holding it for the FBI. Civilian Fred R. Reibold wrote to the Bureau describing a flaming circular object that fell in the street in Cornola, Nebraska on July 1, 1947; Director Hoover forwarded that letter to the War Department's Director of Intelligence on August 5, 1947.
1947-07-01 / Oak Ridge, Tennessee
In July 1947, W.R. Presley of 218 Illinois Avenue, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, photographed what the Knoxville News-Sentinel called a flying saucer. Presley had been photographing his family and house and used his last frame on a shot of a nearby mountain; when the roll was developed, a bright circular object appeared in that final image. The newspaper reported it as the first time a flying saucer had ever been photographed over Oak Ridge and noted that the picture had "all of Oak Ridge talking." The FBI Knoxville Field Office forwarded two prints and a photostatic copy of the newspaper clipping to FBI Headquarters under an Internal Security file.
1947-06-24 / Ft. Adams district (prospector sighting location, June 24, 1947)
On August 25, 1947, Lt. Col. Donald L. Springer of Headquarters Fourth Air Force, A-2 Intelligence, Hamilton Field, forwarded to the FBI SAC in San Francisco a letter from F. M. Johnson, a prospector who wrote from Portland, Oregon on August 20, 1947, reporting that he had observed flying discs in the Ft. Adams district on June 24, 1947, the same date as the Kenneth Arnold sighting. Johnson described the objects as round, about 30 feet in diameter, tapering to a point at the head end, with a bright top surface, no engine noise, and a tail object shifting side to side like a big magnet.
1947-01-01 / Grand Blanc, Michigan