Documents / Report

U.S. Air Force Analysis of Flying Objects in the United States, 101-172

U.S. Department of War · 210 pages · text by OCR

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.

  • p. 68 …Place of observation Ranch house in neighborhood of Villa Hayes 8. Number of objects 1 9…
of February 16 over northern Kansas was just that, inasmuch as meteorites have been recovered from it." There were found, beginning April 24, first several smaller fragments up to one of 4 1/2 pounds. Then a disturbed spot in a clover field led to the digging up of a piece of some 109 pounds embedded about two feet in the soil. The stone is what is termed as an "achondrite", a technical name for an unusual type of stony meteorite. It is reported to be of a type which will deteriorate rapidly.

A photograph of the trail of the meteor, made by amateur photographer Duane N. Wray of Norton, shows the vapor trail left in the sky by the explosion of a meteor which was seen in Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, and ebraska. It was made at Wray's home, nine miles north of Norton, just four minutes after the meteor exploded. A smudge of blue-white smoke remained in the sky for an hour February 18th. This photograph is in file under Incident #101.

Further remarks are contained in supplement.

Cases discussed

About this file

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.