Norman Garrett Markham (323 W. Tenth St., Pueblo, Colorado)

1948-02-18 / Norcatur, Kansas / identified

On 18 February 1948 at 5:01 P.M., an aerial explosion occurred over Norcatur, Kansas, logged as Incident 101 by the Department of War. Farmer Leland Sammons reported a funnel-shaped object roughly four feet long, with a pipe at the rear and fire belching from it, hovering near his farmhouse before departing northwest and exploding in a cloud of smoke. Beginning 24 April 1948, meteorite fragments were recovered, including a 109-pound achondrite piece found two feet underground in a clover field. Civilian Norman Garrett Markham wrote to the Office of the Chief of Staff speculating the object may have been a rocket or space-craft.

Mushroom-shaped bluish-white smoke smudge at altitude of 30,35 miles above earth