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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At 1050E, 19 Aug 1948, the Wright-Patterson Flight Service Center was notified by Lt Col John Waugh, Executive Officer, Godman AF Base, Ky, that an unidentified flying object was visible from the ground at Godman AFB. The object was ascertained to be at approximately 30,000 to 40,000 feet altitude, spherical in shape, bright silver color and giving off a bright reflection from the sun. An F-51 was dispatched from Standiford AFB, Ky, to observe the object. At 1132E a message received from Godman stated no change in elevation of the object and reported that it seemed to be moving southwest from Godman AFB at approximately 235° at an elevation of 60° from Godman AFB. The F-51 was flying at 30,000 to 35,000 ft at the time and could not locate the object. However, the object was visible from the ground with the naked eye and asimuth and elevation readings were being taken by theodolite every minute and the progress of the object was being charted. At 1219 E 19 Aug 1948 Maj Mitchel, Operations Officer at Godman AFB, notified Wright-Patterson Flight Service Center that the unidentified object was ascertained to be the planet Venus. This information was given the Commanding Officer Godman AFB by Mr Moore, Head Astrologer, University of Louisville, Ky. This assumption was verified by MCI later the same day.
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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.