March 1945 — Four anchor cases: a hunter's account of a craft landing near Belfast, Maine; the USAT Delarof's dark sphere off the Aleutians; USS New York's outrun intercept near the Admiralty Islands; and a field of roughly 100 orange fireballs over Bologna, Italy. thinkaboutitdocs.com.
1945: March UFO & Entity Sightings Archive
March 1945 opens with one of the strangest ground-level accounts in the whole wartime record — a Maine hunter watching an elongated craft crash-land, sit undamaged in a clearing, then lift off spinning and shedding a shower of fine silvery threads before vanishing straight up. It’s also, by our count, the third of at least three appearances this archive gives the USAT Delarof’s dark sphere — a genuinely well-documented Aleutian Islands case, investigated across three decades by NICAP and physicist James McDonald, that has been filed under three different months on this site. Between those two poles sits the usual late-war spread: Foo Fighters over the Friesian Islands and the Rhineland, a battleship’s gun crews watching their own shells fall short of a silvery object 20,000 feet over the Admiralty Islands, and a wave of Italian-front sightings running from Bologna to Florence.
Date: Mar. 1945
Location: Belfast, Maine
Time: Unknown
Summary: A man out hunting observed an elongated object flying very slowly, tilted toward the earth. It crashed into some trees at the end of a clearing. The enormous craft seemed undamaged as it rested briefly on the ground, then lifted again with a humming sound, started to spin, released a shower of fine silvery threads, and rose straight up, disappearing in seconds.
Source: Magonia #53, Flying Saucer Review, May 1959
Date: Mar. 1945
Location: New Mexico
Time: Unknown
Summary: Object aluminum colored, 12 to 14 feet off the ground, motionless, swept away like a dragonfly.
Source: Undocumented
Date: Mar. 1945 (see editorial note — likely the same event dated Summer 1945 elsewhere in this archive)
Location: Aleutian Islands, past Adak
Time: Near sunset
Case Status: Unexplained
Summary: Fourteen crewmen aboard the U.S. Army Transport Delarof, homeward bound for Seattle, watched a large dark spherical object emerge from the sea roughly a mile off the ship, climb almost straight up, arc into level flight, and circle the vessel several times before departing south with three flashes of light visible at the point where it vanished. Radioman Robert S. Crawford, interviewed decades later, estimated the object at 150 to 250 feet in diameter by comparison against a finger held at arm’s length. Gun crews held fire throughout, remaining on alert but never engaging. An official report on the incident was reportedly sent to Washington. [Full Report]
Source: Robert S. Crawford, interviewed by Prof. N.N. Kohanowski (University of North Dakota, NICAP adviser) and later by Dr. James E. McDonald (University of Arizona), 1967; UFO Investigator (NICAP), Vol. 4, No. 5, March 1968; Richard Hall, UFO Evidence, NICAP, 1964; Ivan T. Sanderson, Invisible Residents, 1970 Source Status: VERIFIED — named eyewitness, multiple independent research-organization investigations across decades.
Editorial note: This same case, with matching details (14 witnesses, dark sphere, Aleutian Islands, USAT Delarof), also appears elsewhere in this archive dated simply “1945” (January page) and “Summer, 1945” (June page). The most detailed primary research — Crawford’s own account as recorded by NICAP and Dr. James McDonald — places the sighting in summer 1945, on the ship’s return voyage to Seattle, which is likely the correct date. This March dating traces to a secondary compilation (Magonia #54) that may have miscarried the date forward from an earlier NICAP digest. Retained here with the discrepancy flagged rather than silently resolved; treat the June “Summer 1945” entry as the better-dated version of this case.
Date: Mar. 3, 1945
Location: Misburg, Germany
Time: Unknown
Summary: Two balloon-like silver balls.
Source: Undocumented
Date: Mar. 5, 1945
Location: Either Holland or Northern Germany
Time: Unknown
Summary: Two sightings: (1) a large orange ball hanging in the air; (2) a similar ball moving horizontally at the same altitude.
Source: Undocumented
Date: Mar. 9, 1945
Location: North Friesian Islands
Time: Unknown
Summary: Three lights, having the appearance of white flares dropped in the air; called Foo Fighters.
Source: Undocumented
Date: Mar. 13, 1945
Location: Bologna, Italy
Time: Unknown
Summary: Two sightings: (1) 100 balls of orange fire; (2) two balls of foo fire.
Source: Undocumented
Date: March (mid), 1945
Location: South Pacific, near the Admiralty Islands
Time: 1:00 p.m.
Summary: Sailors and Marines aboard the battleship USS New York saw an object hovering at approximately 20,000 feet, confirmed both visually through binoculars and on radar. It appeared silvery and highly reflective. After roughly 30 minutes of observation, the captain ordered gunners to open fire, but the shells could not reach the object. Within a few seconds afterward, the object climbed out of sight at extreme speed and vanished from radar.
Source: Ref. 3; MUFON UFO Journal, No. 203, March 1985
Date: Mar. 18, 1945
Location: Florence, Italy
Time: Unknown
Summary: Chased light, no radar contact, then the light disappeared.
Source: Undocumented
Date: Mar. 19/20, 1945
Location: Speyer, Germany
Time: Unknown
Summary: Saw 2 Foo Fighters; one orange and one green ball.
Source: Undocumented
Date: Mar. 23, 1945
Location: Bergamo/Ghedi, Italy
Time: Unknown
Summary: 2 balls of foo fire.
Source: Undocumented
Date: Mar. 23, 1945
Location: Germersheim, Germany
Time: Unknown
Summary: Stationary airborne object.
Source: Undocumented
Date: Mid-Mar. 1945
Location: New Guinea
Time: Unknown
Summary: Object silver in color, very shiny, much larger than the brightest star; unaffected by gunfire; departed upward at a fantastic rate of speed.
Source: Undocumented
Date: Mar. 24, 1945
Location: Nagoya, Japan
Time: Unknown
Summary: Multiple sightings: a yellow ball of fire about 6 inches in diameter; orange and red flashes; six white balls of fire; a grayish ball of fire about the size of a soccer ball; a red ball of fire.
Source: Undocumented
Date: Mar. 25, 1945
Location: Between Mannheim and Darmstadt, Germany
Time: Unknown
Summary: Six or seven circular, yellowish-orange objects, solid in color and brightness, apparently individually controlled.
Source: Undocumented
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
March 1945 — A Maine Woods Landing, an Outrun Battleship, and a Sphere That Won’t Stay Put
The Belfast, Maine entry stands alone in this month’s record — a hunter’s account of an elongated craft crash-landing undamaged in a woodland clearing, resting briefly, then lifting off spinning while shedding fine silvery threads before vanishing straight up. It has no military corroboration and no named witness, but it is one of the more physically detailed civilian encounters in the entire 1945 archive. Alongside it, the USS New York’s mid-March encounter near the Admiralty Islands offers a rare instance of a U.S. Navy battleship’s gun crews firing on a target their own radar and binoculars had confirmed, and missing — the shells simply couldn’t reach an object holding at 20,000 feet.
The month’s most complicated entry, though, is the one that isn’t really new: the USAT Delarof’s dark sphere, which this archive has now filed under January, March, and (as will be seen) June, each time with slightly different sourcing. The underlying case is genuinely strong — a named witness, Robert S. Crawford, independently investigated across three decades by NICAP and physicist James McDonald — but the recurring date confusion across secondary UFO compilations means this site has been treating one well-documented sighting as though it were three. This revision flags the discrepancy plainly rather than resolving it by fiat, and directs readers to the full report for the complete, cross-referenced picture.
“As it circled the Delarof, the flying object was in easy range of the ship’s guns. But the gun crews held their fire, though on tight alert for any sign of hostility.”
NICAP investigation of Robert S. Crawford’s account, as recorded in UFO Investigator, Vol. 4, No. 5, March 1968.
