December 30, 1947 — Pilot Hill, California. A McClellan Field aircrew watched a flame-trailing object descend, and a second crew found a triangular ground fire with blue-green flames at the coordinates below. thinkaboutitdocs.com.
1947: December UFO|UAP & Entity Sightings Archive
The founding year of the modern UFO era closes with a short but unusually strong final entry: on December 30, within a minute of each other by clock time, two separate military aircrews over California and Idaho watched high-speed, flame-trailing objects descend toward the ground — and in California, a second crew was specifically dispatched to investigate, finding a triangular fire area with two points still emitting blue-green flames at a documented set of coordinates. Rare among this archive’s 1947 cases, this one leaves an actual physical trace behind for searchers to find, rather than only witness testimony.
Date: December 8, 1947
Location: Las Vegas, Nevada
Time: Unknown
Summary: A moving reddish object emitted a flash of light and shot upward out of sight.
Source: Undocumented
Date: December 30, 1947
Location: 1 mile west of Pilot Hill, California
Time: 19:25 PST
Case Status: Unexplained
Summary: The crew of a McClellan Field C-47 saw a high-speed, low-altitude object trailing red, green, and other colored flames, heading east over the hills. At 19:58, the crew found a growing ground fire roughly 7 miles east of Pilot Hill, at 38°50′N, 120°53′W. A second C-47 crew, dispatched to investigate, found a triangular fire area with two points emitting bright blue-green flames, which went out at 21:55. [Full Report]
Source: FOIA Source Status: VERIFIED — declassified military documentation, named specific coordinates, and a documented second-crew investigation producing physical trace evidence (the triangular fire area) rather than testimony alone.
Date: December 30, 1947
Location: Sawtooth National Forest, Idaho
Time: 19:26 PST
Summary: AAF Lt. Col. W.W. Jones (Hq EPW) and copilot Major A.A. Andrae, flying a C-54 from Great Falls to Fairfield-Suisun Field at 13,000 feet, saw a high-speed object trailing green and blue flames descending vertically at their 2:30 o’clock position, slowing just above the ground. Duration approximately 2 seconds.
Source: FOIA
Editorial note: This sighting occurred one minute after the Pilot Hill, California sighting above, both involving high-speed objects trailing colored flames observed by military aircrews. Whether these represent two separate objects, the same object observed from different locations, or two unrelated phenomena occurring in close temporal proximity cannot be determined from the available sourcing.
Date: 1947 or 1948: Jacksonville, Florida — One Big Bright Light
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
December 1947 — The Year Ends With a Fire That Was Actually Found
This short final month of the founding UFO year carries a genuinely notable case in the Pilot Hill, California sighting: unlike the great majority of this archive’s 1947 entries, which rest entirely on witness testimony, this one produced a physical trace — a documented triangular fire area with specific coordinates, investigated on the ground by a second aircrew dispatched specifically to check it, and observed burning with an unusual blue-green coloration for over two hours. A near-simultaneous sighting one minute later and roughly 400 miles away in Idaho’s Sawtooth National Forest raises the honest, unresolved question of whether the two crews saw the same object, two objects, or an unrelated coincidence.
“A triangular fire area with 2 points emitting bright blue-green flames, going out at 9:55 p.m.”
Declassified FOIA record, describing the ground fire found near Pilot Hill, California, December 30, 1947.
