Documents / Report
This declassified U.S. Air Force compilation of unidentified flying object incidents 101 to 172 contains check-list reports from 1948 and 1945. Incident 101 covers the 18 February 1948 sky explosion over Norcatur, Kansas, with letters from Norman G. Markham suggesting a lunar spacecraft, Dr. Lincoln LaPaz's reply judging it a genuine meteorite fall, and witness statements. The final incident, 172, records George F. Gorman's 27 minute F-51 pursuit of a white light over Fargo on 1 October 1948, corroborated by tower controllers and Dr. Cannon.
From the source:Release of 2026-06-12 Includes a "Check-List - Unidentified Flying Objects" that contains details about the incident. Many summaries also include witness lists or statements and other narrative reports or descriptions.
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
Shortly after checking Blackstone, at approx 0230, a trail was picked up that appeared to be a jet or rocket trail. The object leaving the trail was traveling at terrific speed in a southwesterly direction and as nearly as they could estimate they calculated the degree of travel as $ 2 3 0^{\circ} $
They were on a heading at the time of 215 $ ^{\circ} $ . The jet or rocket trail at no time crossed their flight path. It was on the distant western horizon at approx 20 $ ^{\circ} $ above the horizon. The trail covered an 80 $ ^{\circ} $ to 90 $ ^{\circ} $ arc laterally.
NOTE: There is a 15 minute difference in time f/this sighting (0230) to the rocket sighting at 0245 in Atlanta some 400 to 475 miles distant.
NOTE: The above time (0230) tallies with another sighting by another pilot in the vicinity of Blackstone, Va. who saw a very unusual meteor that appeared to be on a bearing of about $ 2 1 0^{\circ} $ from them traveling in a southerly direction above but close to the horizon. Report, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 210 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.