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.
“Hill”9 pages
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
Witnesses were attracted by sound of fighter aircraft in vicinity. They started searching the sky for the aircraft and sighted the objects. When first sighted, the witnesses thought the objects might be weather balloons. However, when they accelerated so rapidly in a northerly heading, they determined the objects could not be balloons. They were in a trail formation on a North-South line, and moved so rapidly they were out of sight within a few seconds. From original sighting in the stationary position to their disappearance, a period of approximately two (2) minutes elapsed, on which the objects were in a stationary position for approximately one (1) minute.
NOTE: Wind at 20,000 ft from $ 3 4 0^{\circ} $ at 10 knots per hour (1230 EST Rpt) Wind at 20,000 ft $ 3 2^{\circ} $ at 13 knots per hour (1830 EST Rpt)
NOTE: Nearest weather station releasing balloons is Spartanburg, S. C. One black balloon was released at 1230 EST. 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.