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.
“Headquarters”8 pages
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
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the West - then turning slightly South and turning in a big swing and then heading West again - flying out of sight into the dark black cloud bank out of sight - then reappearing, and it did this several times. (e) Question: - Is it possible that its disappearance into a "heavy cloud bank" might have been caused by clouds obscuring reflected moonlight from a big ly polished surface. Answer: - No - I have seen aircraft many times on moonlight nights - but this was not anything like that - this thing glowed brightly white light such as any real white brilliant light might. The moon was not bright enough to reflect polished light unless the craft might have been South of me in the direct light of the moon - which showed (the moon) from time to time through the clouds. This object was in the black section of the sky over to the North of me and slightly west, and was a steady oncoming light growing brighter as it came, and had the appearance of something carrying this light in the air- but without sound, and it certainly was close enough to me to have heard motors.
I thought it might have been some kind of a jet aircraft that I perhaps had never seen - because we as civilians know very little as to what might be going on in defense or experimental mechanics however I felt it my duty to report the thing regardless as to what it might have been. This was somewhat difficult for me to do because of the crackpot stories making the rounds in some sections about flying saucers etc., but for the life of me this had all the ear marks of just that kind of a deal.
I have traveled this road about which I have releated this sighting many many times and at night Winter and Summer - and have never before in my life seen anything like this - so naturally I was somewhat alarmed about it, and have steadfastly kept the whole thing to myself. I will certainly be on the lookout for the damned thing the next trip I make through this same area which is generally after dark - because most of the time I work from Lemmon South Dakota or Hettinger North Dakota along this highway to Miles City which is about one days work ith my Dealers. In times like these I feel as before stated anything of this nature which we are not familiar with we are duty bound to report to our Defense Forces who may be better equipped to understand the unfamiliar than we are.
Yours very truly,
W.A. BONNEVILLE - Territory Mgr for the B. $ ^{P} $ . Goodrich Company 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.