Documents / Official release
This U.S. Department of War file collects Project Sign era checklists and incident summary sheets for incidents 101 to 172. The largest item is the 18 February 1948 explosion over Norcatur, Kansas. For it the file gathers witness statements, speculative letters from Norman G. Markham, and Dr. Lincoln LaPaz's view that it was a genuine meteorite fall with curious aspects. Other entries cover B-29 crews, a two-decked wingless object over the Netherlands, a Turkish rocket report, a Moscow sighting, and George Gorman's 1 October 1948 Fargo encounter.
From the source: Release of 2026-05-08 Incident: N/A, N/A. NARA Record Group 38, catalogue id 143685. Each of these incident summaries 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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## . This may have been heading in the general direction of what may have been the goal of two later objects which roughly resemble it in description. ## . THE TICONDEROGA OBJECTS -- According to the tanker Ticonderoga's second officer, two "flying discs" were seen heading SOUTHWEST when the ship was in 43 degrees fifteen minutes north and 124 degrees 54 minutes west, at 0620 GCT, 12th November 1947. These may have been heading for the object seen in the Pacific off the Golden Gate, not long afterward - or possibly at the same time, if earlier reports on this are consulted. THE PHANTOM REEF - On November 24, 1947, the Navy denied that it had found a phantom reef or other obstruction to navigation at a point about 400 miles west of San Francisco. The Navay Survey ship MAURY, sent out there in response to reports of ships that some hugh object had been seen in the water in that neighborhood, reported that when in the approximate 1 titude and longitude of the supposed obstruction they picked up an echo from something in the water 1600 yards from the ship; but that when they had steamed to within 400 yards of this, the echo vanished. There seems a possible connectability between the various elements so far considered. Later on January 7, 1948, there were occurrences in the neighborhood of Wilmington, O., Ft. Knox, Ky., Franklin, Ky., and Nashville, Tenn., all of which must be now familiar to the archivists of the Signal Office. Something like a "flying disc" was pursued by one Lt. Mantell and two other pilots, mantel being killed while in the process of attempting to gain altitude to get close to whatever it was he was chasing. Also, in this connection, it may not be amiss to mention the deaths of two military officers who were said to have been bringing back material evidence from "flying discs" one of which was said to have met with some kind of accident over Maury Island, Puget Sound, around June, 1947. It will be seen on inspection that the geographical locales of these incidents fit inside the belt of latitudes hereinbefore mentioned. THE NORGATUR EXPLOSION was described in a previous letter of this writer, and it was shown in that letter that a line tangential to the meridian of Norcatur, Kans., at hour-angle 2:20 p.m., would if continued outward into space to the orbit of the moon, intersect the moon's orbit at a point where the moon would have been at about 100 hours after the time of the explosion. According to rocketry theory, it would take a reaction-propelled craft of the rocket type about 100 hours to reach the moon.
Official release, 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. 178 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.