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.
“Nevers”7 pages
but slightly east. Suddenly, about 1 and 1/2 minutes after he had seen the flash, there was a terrific explosion and jar, shaking the ground and causing the windows all around to rattle. Following the explosion, there were several loud reverberating rumblings across the heavens. He stated that the explosion must have been very high. Edgar Young, a boy living at Regar, just east of Norcatur, was outside the elevator, when he observed the explosion, looked up and saw the huge cloud of smoke. He stated that it was almost overhead but slightly west of him. He said that it was a big explosion. The elevator man was out in the elevator, when he heard the explosion. He thought that his oil-burner had exploded in the office and ran in to see about it. Finding it O.K., he ran outside to see what had exploded, saw the big cloud of smoke high overhead, slightly west. ## --- Eastern Kansas newspaper carried a story about 6 days ago of one just like this one, coming from the south to vicinity of Iola, Kansas, where it turned west and disappeared into the sky. ## --- --- --- --- Check with Chief Scott of Norton about a burned flashlight battery which fell in the street of Norton just after the explosion. It was too hot to be picked up for several minutes. Chief Scott has it. Note: A copy of Exhibit "C" referred to in letter from Dr. LaPaz, was not received.
Report, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. The text was read from the page images by an OCR model; expect the odd misread word. 210 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.