Documents / Report
This U.S. Air Force file of unidentified flying object check lists covers incidents 101 to 172 from 1948. Most of the pages concern the February 18, 1948 explosion over Norcatur, Kansas: witness statements, B-29 crew sightings, and letters from Norman Markham suggesting a spacecraft travelling to and from the moon. An excerpt from Dr. Lincoln LaPaz calls the event a genuine meteorite fall. Other entries record sightings at Smyrna, Tennessee, Los Angeles, the Pacific, the Netherlands, Ohio, Turkey and near Moscow.
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.
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(COPY)
323 W. Ton1,h t.,
Pueblo, Colorado
February 20, 1948
Uffi<•e of the Chief of J tnff
u. . ~rrr:,
,ash.in n, D. C.
l si ,, in the sky near l!orcntur, ..ans.
S1Jbject: L:00 p. n . ('",T) February lt, 19l,it
To call at.ten ti.on t.o so peculiarities
Purpose: in connection, whe her coincid ntal er not
AccordinG to 'Vl AP bulletin appeari"' 1n the Pueblo CHIEFTAIN
for Fehruary US , 19116, sone ohj ect was seeu moving eastward
across the sky or tt-.n late artemoon of 1" bruary IBth, ard
en this UiinG re'lcl ed a po:iition ap1,roxi.mate to l!orcatur ,
Kansas, c:xploded , or disrupted, or disappeared. The ex
plosion is said t.o ha· e been terrific.
Dir,..ction:i gi.vi::n as to •he prccress or tJ is appearance i n
rticate Unt it rii< ved from west to east.
Information con ,ained in t,hc dispatch under a Denver dateline
in1i ·ate that ile mar,y would call this object a bolide -
e . , . , expl din meteor - the astronomP.rs of Chamberlin
Vbservator y (iJenvor) did not so assess it : it is said in
U e dispatch that t se offic1al• could offer no explanation
of it.
If this 1.s t ca· e, the a ;:,para.nee is anomalous , a nd may lend
1 tseli to other meteoric expla nation .
A sb tch~iaGJ"Bm of t ~ earth and moon I s orbit reveals a pe
culiarity in coMcction wi tt thP appearance, 1'hich may be
&1E;nJ.ficant .
Ir a line i s s •r icken r..it r ight- anrl"'s 'lcross the meridio"'a.l
position o r the s:ite of expl "'sion r this oeteor at hour
argl • fo •ir o'clock (local time) and t ds line be con::idered
the west- to-eai:;t cours of thP object, tten it will bo St en
t 1at if • iB line i .. c !'It n' d tward ir to 'lpace toward t.ho
orbit of t t e moon it will intersect the lunar orbit at a
pla nPar to wt re the moon would be at fron 60 to one huncir ed
h urs after the explosion t .,ok }lace.
Uew moon occ11rrud at 9 0 10 H 2 U Februarn First uurt er
at 1 7D 'H . F'e' ruary - the noon ciov s -i1 I r ox1111ately
12. 5 do r rees per d::i:• alon 1~ its orbit. Report, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 210 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.