Documents / Official release
This Air Materiel Command file, released by the U.S. Department of War, holds Incident Summary Sheets 173 through 233, sent under a 1949 transmittal. Most of the sheets record sightings of unidentified aerial objects in 1948 and early 1949. They cover Santa Fe, New Mexico, San Pablo, California, Honolulu, Kentwood, Louisiana, and Jackson, Mississippi. Each sheet gives the observer's details and the object's size, speed and shape, and often an investigator's note on how reliable the witness seemed. The file ends with a blank guide for investigating reports, including radar sightings.
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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On the afternoon of 18 October 1948 at approximately 1705 hours Maj Robert O. Drum stated that he had observed a strangely shaped glistening object in the north sector of the sky which was moving in a northeasterly direction at an estimated altitude of 10,000 ft. A stratus layer of clouds was situated above the object at an approximate altitude of 14,000 feet. The disc or discs were moving below this layer of clouds in that it was noted that on two occasions that the highest formation of clouds was at a greater altitude than the object observed and that the lower cloud formation blocked the vision of the observer thus placing the object between the two cloud formations or levels. Because of this lower broken cumulus clouds at a very low altitude which was moving in a southwesterly direction, the Major could not ascertain whether he saw the same disc four different times or four different discs. Over a period of 10 minutes the disc or discs were sighted four times. The longest period of observation was estimated as 10 seconds. The object or object(s) appeared bright silver in color and circular or elliptical in shape. No vapor or exhaust was present and no flame or lights were observed. No sound was heard. Speed was estimated as 200 MPH by using an estimated 40 MPH factor in the swirling build-up of cumulus clouds. Maj Drum compared the discs with a silver dollar slightly turned from a flat position, giving the object a disc-shape when held at arms length at a 45° angle above eye level. Maj Drum thought that the elliptical effect could have resulted from the angle at which the observer and object were located. Maj Drum stated that he was certain the object was not a conventional craft. One B-26 and one B-17 and one PB45 were flying in the vicinity during the period 0230/2 to 0330/2. The above sighting was also observed by Mrs. Drua (Maj Drum's wife) and by his 8-yr old daughter. Both repeated precisely the same observations stated by the Major.
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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. 144 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.