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.
“Los Angeles Times”1 page
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
A large white ball of fire was observed some four to five miles directly ahead of and slightly above the aircraft. It was observed for only a split second and was comparable to the explosion of a shell There were no streamers or "tails" observed such as usually related to a meteor or a distress signal. As the aircraft approached the approximate position where the ball of fire was observed a single white light was seen on the water surface. However, this disappeared within a few seconds after sighting because of the existing cloud coverage. More lights were immediately observed on the water surface some 10 miles north of the plane's course. It is the opinion of the witness (Bapt Barnes) that these were from a surface vessel. Some 10 minutes elapsed after these lights were observed on the water surface when an aircraft was sighted flying a reciprocal course $ (240^{\circ}) $ at about 1000 ft below the observers's aircraft and slightly to the right of the course. Capt Barnes made numerous attempts to contact this aircraft on Channel "B" and "C", "VHF" but acknowledgment of his transmission was never received. 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.