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selected ufo cases

Cases by Decade: 1940s

Aztec, New Mexico UFO Crash Recovery of 1948 Featured Case

1948 - Aztec, New Mexico, United States

It was the columnist Frank Scully who first alerted the world to sensational stories of recovered flying saucers and little men in his best-selling book Behind the Flying Saucers published in 1950. Scully claimed that up to that time there had been four such recoveries, one of which was alleged to have taken place around Aztec, New Mexico, when sixteen humanoid bodies were recovered together with their undamaged craft.  View full report

Source: (Credit: aztecufo.com)   ID: 879
Case Type: StandardCase    Features:  Crash/Retrieval, Humanoid/Occupant

The Villa Santina Case (two humanoids encountered by Italian artist) Featured Case

August, 14, 1947 - Villa Santina, Italy

Italian artist R. L. Johannis was out painting when he noticed a 30 ft. disc-shaped object landing nearby. Next, Signor Johannis saw two child-sized beings standing alongside the object. The artist hailed the creatures. It is possible that this was interpreted as a hostile gesture, for one of the beings touched the centre of its belt and projected a thin vapour which caused the artist to fall dazed onto his back. The creatures approached, picked up the artist's easel, then returned to the craft. The object then rose, hovered, and disappeared.  View full report

Source: Charles Bowen (ed.), The Humanoids, Flying Saucer Review Special Issue (1966)   ID: 751
Case Type: StandardCase    Features:  Humanoid/Occupant, Landing, Witness Sketch

Disc Zooms Down Snake River Canyon, Idaho

August, 13, 1947 - Snake River Canyon, Idaho, United States

A farmer and his two sons, were at his fishing camp on August 13, 1947. He noticed an object some 300 feet away, 75 feet above the ground. It was edge hopping, following the contour of the ground, was sky blue, about 20 feet in diameter and 10 feet thick, and had pods on the side from which flames were shooting out. It made a swishing sound.  View full report

Source: Twin Falls Times News, (Twin Falls, Idaho) August 15th, 1947   ID: 415
Case Type: PressReport

Flying Disc 'Bigger Than Car' Photographed By Youth

July, 9, 1947 - Norfolk , Virginia, United States

The flying disc "was lots bigger then an automobile" and 13-year-old Bill Turrentine of 410 West fourteenth Street doesn't understand why almost everybody in Norfolk didn't see. He saw the large object, "rocking and spinning like a football" and coming from the southwest.  View full report

Source: Norfolk Ledger-Dispatch (Norfolk, Virginia), July 9th, 1947   ID: 414
Case Type: PressReport    Features:  Photo, Children

United Airlines Flight 105 pilots witness formation of disc-shaped objects

July, 4, 1947 - Emmet, Idaho, United States

On the evening of July 4th at Boise, Idaho, Captain Smith was walking up the ramp to board his plane, flight 105, for a trip to Seattle when someone mentioned the massive wave of saucers taking place all day over the northwest. Captain Smith joked: "I'll believe in those discs when I see them." Shortly after takeoff five disc-like objects, one larger than the rest, approached Captain Smith's DC-3 head on.  View full report

Source: James McDonald, Statement to US Congressional Hearings/UFO Symposium, 1968   ID: 723
Case Type: StandardCase    Features:  Interaction/Reaction, Pilot/Aircrew, Witness Photo, Multiple UFOs

Roswell UFO Incident (Crash and Recovery) Featured Case

July, 3, 1947 - Roswell, New Mexico, United States

In early July 1947 an incident occurred in the desert just outside of Roswell, NM. Many people have heard of the Roswell UFO crash, but very few people know the details of the incident. The following account of the 1947 UFO incident was taken from public records, from information provided by the International UFO Museum and from the press release for UFO Encounter 1997.  View full report

Source: Roswell Online   ID: 1134
Case Type: MajorCase    Features:  Crash/Retrieval, Humanoid/Occupant, Military, Witness Sketch, Witness Photo

The 1947 Kenneth Arnold UFO Sighting Featured Case

June, 24, 1947 - Near Mt. Rainier, Washington, United States

The modern phenomena of UFOs and “flying saucers” began in Washington state on June 24, 1947, when Kenneth Arnold spotted nine mysterious, high-speed objects “flying like a saucer would” along the crest of the Cascade Range near Mount Rainier. His report made international headlines and triggered hundreds of similar accounts of “flying saucers” locally and across the nation.  View full report

Source: Loy Lawhon, About.com   ID: 511
Case Type: MajorCase    Features:  Pilot/Aircrew, Witness Sketch, Witness Photo, Multiple UFOs

New Mexico UFO Crash Encounter In 1945 Featured Case

August, 16, 1945 - San Antonio, New Mexico, United States

Reme Baca and Jose Padilla were young boys living in San Antonio, New Mexico in August 1945 when, they say, they literally stumbled across the remains of what they believe to have been an alien spacecraft. Their personal account of the case displays many of the key ingredients of crashed UFO lore.  View full report

Source: Ben Moffett, The Mountain Mail, Socorro NM, Nov. 2, 2003   ID: 852
Case Type: StandardCase    Features:  Crash/Retrieval, Humanoid/Occupant, Children, Witness Photo

The 1942 'Battle of Los Angeles'

February, 25, 1942 - Los Angeles, California, United States

Imagine a visiting spacecraft from another world, or dimension, hovering over a panicked and blacked-out LA in the middle of the night just weeks after Pearl Harbor at the height of WWII fear and paranoia. Imagine how this huge ship, assumed to be some unknown Japanese aircraft, was then attacked as it hung, nearly stationary, over Culver City and Santa Monica by dozens of Army anti-aircraft batteries in full view of hundreds of thousands of residents. Imagine all of that and you have an idea of what was the Battle of Los Angeles.  View full report

Source: Jeff Rense, Rense.com   ID: 509
Case Type: MajorCase    Features:  Photo, Mass Sighting

Photo of UFO over busy street in China, 1942

1942 - Tiensten, China

Young Japanese student Masujiro Kiryu, going through his fathers scrapbook of photographs fron the China Campaign, just before World War II, discovered a strange cone-shaped object in the sky above a Tsientsien Street. A number of people in the street are looking up and two are pointing up at the object.  View full report

Source: Wendelle Stevens, reposted on UFOArtwork.com   ID: 259
Case Type: StandardCase    Features:  Photo

UFO Crash and Retrieval in Missouri, 1941 Featured Case

April, 1941 - Cape Girardeau, Missouri, United States

One of the most mysterious stories of a crashed UFO with alien bodies preceded the well know Roswell events by some six years. Reverend William Huffman was summoned to pray over alien crash victims outside of Cape Girardeau, Missouri in the spring of 1941. He was shown three victims, not human as expected, but small alien bodies with large eyes, hardly a mouth or ears, and hairless.  View full report

Source: Excerpt from UFO Casebook (BJ Booth)   ID: 858
Case Type: MajorCase    Features:  Crash/Retrieval, Humanoid/Occupant, Clergy, Witness Photo, Witness Sketch

Udo Wartena Contact Case in 1940

May, 1940 - Boulder Mountain, Montana, United States

At an isolated location miner Udo Wartena saw a large disc shaped object about 35 foot high and over 100 feet across hovering above a meadow. The object resembled two soup plates, one inverted over the other and stainless steel in appearance. Wartena then saw a staircase unfold from the bottom of the craft. Out of it came a man who asked him if the ship could take some water. The man then invited Wartena inside the object. Wartena accepted and met another man inside that told him they had come from a distant planet and were 609 years old.  View full report

Source: Warren Aston, UFO Magazine March/April 1998   ID: 1032
Case Type: StandardCase    Features:  Contact, Humming, Water-Related, Physical Trace
Cases per page:  8   16   24