Documents / Official release

box Incident Summaries 173-233

U.S. Department of War · 144 pages · text by GLM-OCR

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.

  • p. 69 …and Address of Observer PFG Robert R: Anderson; AF-1107513 of AATS; APO 406, N. Y…
  • p. 70 …out an object to PFC Robert R. Anderson who described it as being round, orange in…

Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.

The object sighted by the two fighter pilots had the appearance of a flak burst sitting still in the atmosphere and was connected to a curved trail of corkscrew appearance (See drawing attached) The trail was from 1 to 10 miles in length, and did not have the appearance of a vapor trail but rather that of a rocket or jet exhaust. Altitude was judged to be 30,000 ft. The mass and trail disappeared within approximately three minutes. The mass appeared white in color like an exhaust trail which had a sudden burst origin and then tapered off to nothing. Both parties remarked that it appeared as if an aircraft had exploded and left a white smoke column. The vapor substance dissipated in approximately in 3 minutes scattering thinly like smoke through the atmosphere. It is firmly believed by both witnesses that the object was not a cloud because of its shape and because the sky in the vicinity was cloudless.

Evaluation: C=3

Not linked to a story yet.

About this file

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.