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.
The object, sighted at ten o'clock off his left wing, appeared to be a silver disc. He immediately completed a sharp bank to the left and was able to get a better look at the object, and described it as follows: "Top part of the object approximately eight feet in diameter, silver in color, had the appearance of a parachute. Attached to the bottom of this had been a dark cable or shroud which appeared to be approximately five feet long. Suspended upon the cable had been a large canister or ball (Colonel Hughes could not discern which) also silver in color. This canister or ball had the appearance of being slightly to the rear of the top part of the object. The overall appearance of the object looked something similar to the parachute and canister containing photographic testing equipment dropped from a V-2 rocket." At the time he lost sight of the object, hughes' aircraft had been indicating 310 miles per hour air speed, and the object had appeared to fly away from him on a horizontal plane rather than a vertical decline. A sketch of the object is attached.
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.