Topic
Civilian, police and airline reports, from single witnesses to mass sightings seen by thousands. 305 events, newest first.
Sightings4 Jul 1947
During the July 1947 wave, Portland police officers, a harbor patrol crew and residents reported groups of fast, wobbling disks over the city, with sheriff's deputies across the river in Vancouver, Washington, reporting more. Ruppelt summarized the reports from Air Force files.
Sightings4 Jul 1947
Off-duty Coast Guard yeoman Frank Ryman photographed what he called a white saucer from his Lake City home in Seattle. Newspapers ran it the next day as one of the first photos of the 1947 wave; analysts later dismissed it as a weather balloon.
Sightings24 Jun 1947
Private pilot Kenneth Arnold reported nine fast objects flying in formation near Mount Rainier. Press coverage of his account set off the first U.S. wave of flying saucer reports, and the Air Force later carried the case as unexplained.
Photo: Kenneth Arnold, Public domain
SightingsJun 1947
Two Tacoma men claimed six doughnut-shaped objects appeared over Puget Sound and one dropped slag-like debris. Two Army Air Forces intelligence officers who looked into it died when their B-25 crashed on the way back. Ruppelt said the official report concluded the men admitted it was a hoax.
Photo: Mark Yasuda, CC BY-SA 4.0
Sightings12 Feb 1947
A brilliant daytime bolide broke apart over the Sikhote-Alin mountains north of Vladivostok, leaving over 100 pits. Soviet scientist E. L. Krinov investigated; a historian later suggested his mistaken flight path may have led U.S. meteor expert Lincoln LaPaz to suspect a missile.
Photo: H. Raab ( User:Vesta ), CC BY-SA 3.0
