Early July 1947 — four anchor cases opening the month everything accelerated: the Wilmot family's Roswell fireball, Portland's extraordinary mass sighting, Frank Ryman's historic photograph, and Mac Brazel's Foster Ranch discovery. thinkaboutitdocs.com.
1947: July UFO|UAP & Entity Sightings Archive
Part 1 (Early July through July 4)
July 1947 opens with the wave already accelerating from June’s momentum, and this first stretch of the month carries genuine weight: Roswell’s earliest data points (Dan Wilmot’s fireball, Mac Brazel hearing a crash in the night, Barney Barnett’s contested wreckage account), the Pacific Northwest’s extraordinary July 4 mass sighting across Portland, Milwaukie, and Vancouver involving dozens of named police officers and pilots, and Frank Ryman’s Coast Guard photograph — the first known photograph of a UFO. One recurring case required a cross-reference flag: the Malta “little men on a submarine” account appears here for a third time across this archive, in a slightly different telling. One entry, sourced to Anton Anfalov, required a strong caution flag consistent with this archive’s established standard for his work, and bears a suspicious resemblance to the later-debunked Aztec, New Mexico crashed-saucer hoax.
Date: July 1947
Location: Zacatecas State, Mexico
Time: Daylight
Summary: A rancher discovered a landed, metallic, rocket-shaped object, with two short, man-like figures wearing silvery coveralls seen inside the craft.
Source: Loren E. Gross, The Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse: UFOs 1947
Date: Early July 1947
Location: Near Nashville, Tennessee
Time: Unknown
Summary: A man wrote to the Nashville Tennessean that while driving along a highway, a flying saucer landed on a flying field, and two strange little men — “all heads and arms and legs, and glowing like fireflies” — emerged and exchanged greetings with him by sign language before the saucer took off in a cloud of dust.
Source: Loren E. Gross
Date: 1947: Encounter near Amfreville la mi-Voie, France
Date: July 1947
Location: Edinburgh, Scotland
Time: 05:30
Summary: 22-year-old Andrew Cherry, waiting at his usual bus stop near St. Johns School on Baileyfield Road, saw a disc-shaped object with a large, glass-dome-like observation window, hovering about 300 feet up. Close enough to see a humanoid occupant in dark clothing seated or standing beside a control panel, he noted the craft’s rough, “like rough diamonds” metallic texture, an orange-yellow color he thought was sunlight reflection, and a haze around the object he attributed to its energy source. He heard a low, smooth hum, associated with flames escaping from the disc. The object suddenly tilted, spun away, and disappeared over the Fife coast within seconds.
Source: Ron Halliday, UFO Scotland
Date: Early July 1947 (see editorial note — recurring case)
Location: Near Malta, Mediterranean Sea
Time: 14:30 EDT
Summary: Fishermen on a boat 20 miles south of Malta, raising nets full of fish, saw an object floating on the water resembling a black submarine, and, frightened, started the boat’s engine. A bright light from the object then lit the area as “little men” ran across its deck, with some sort of apparatus visible around their waists whenever illuminated.
Source: David Pace, “UFOs fuq il-Gżejjer Maltin”
Editorial note: This is the third appearance of this same case across this archive, previously listed twice on the June 1947 page under “Summer (June) 1947” and “June 8[?], 1947,” with a named witness (Pawlu Zammit) in the fuller June 8 version. All three tellings describe the same event; this July entry gives it a different time of day (afternoon rather than evening). See the June 1947 archive for the most complete, named-witness version.
Date: July 1, 1947
Location: Pima Indian Reservation, just south of Chandler, Arizona
Time: 09:30 MST
Summary: Robert E. Johnson, juvenile probation officer of Chandler County, saw a lone, silver-colored, discus-shaped object traveling at great speed, heading north on a fairly direct path, visible for two to three minutes, estimated at 5,000-10,000 feet altitude.
Source: Tucson Daily Citizen, July 7, 1947
Date: July 1, 1947
Location: Albuquerque, New Mexico
Time: Night
Summary: Max Hood, an Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce executive, saw a disc-like, bluish object following a zig-zag path in the northwestern sky for about half a minute before it disappeared near Volcano Peak.
Source: Albuquerque Journal, July 2, 1947; Roswell Daily Record, July 2; Portales Daily News, July 2; Gallup Independent, July 2; Santa Fe New Mexican, July 2
Date: July 1, 1947: Radar Pick-ups of High-Speed Targets in the Far East
Date: July 2, 1947
Location: Roswell, New Mexico
Time: 21:50 MST
Case Status: Unexplained
Summary: Pharmacist Dan Wilmot, his wife, and son Paul, at home in downtown Roswell, saw a fireball come from the southeast, passing directly or almost directly overhead, heading toward and disappearing over Six Mile Mountain at approximately azimuth 306°. The Wilmots separately described the object as oval, “like two inverted saucers faced mouth to mouth,” moving at high speed and heading northwest.
Source: Brad Sparks; Roswell Daily Record, July 8, 1947
Editorial note: This entry consolidates two separate listings of the same Wilmot family sighting that appeared as consecutive entries in the original source material; retained here as one combined entry rather than told twice.
Date: July 2, 1947
Location: Corona, New Mexico
Time: Night
Summary: Rancher Mac Brazel heard a loud crash during the night near Corona, New Mexico.
Source: HowStuffWorks
Date: July 3, 1947
Location: Corona, New Mexico
Time: Morning
Summary: Mac Brazel found a large area of wreckage made of rubber, tinfoil, and sticks on the Foster Ranch.
Source: NSA; Wikipedia
Date: 1947: Roswell UFO Incident (Crash and Recovery)
Date: July 3, 1947
Location: Magdalena, New Mexico
Time: Morning
Summary: Barney Barnett reportedly found a crashed disc in an arroyo.
Source: David Webb, HUMCAT: Catalogue of Humanoid Reports
Source Status: DISPUTED — Barnett’s account is secondhand by the time it entered the ufological record: Barnett died in 1969, and his story was relayed years later by acquaintances rather than documented in his own words at the time. It became a central pillar of the broader, and separately contested, “Plains of San Agustin” second-crash narrative, a claim UFO researchers Kevin Randle and Don Schmitt themselves concluded, after investigation, lacked sufficient evidence to stand.
Date: July 3, 1947
Location: South Brooksville-Harborside, Maine
Time: 14:30 EDT
Summary: Astronomer John F. Cole, alerted by a roaring noise overhead, saw about 10 very light-colored objects, 50-100 feet wide, to the north at roughly 50° elevation, in a formation initially about 1.5° wide, with two darker forms nearby or two objects with darker wing-like projections, moving like a swarm of bees to the northwest at an estimated 600-1,200 mph through about a 30° arc. Duration: 10-15 seconds.
Source: Don Berliner; James McDonald, 1968; FOIA; Bloecher 1967 (BBU #27)
Date: July 3, 1947
Location: Northern Idaho, near St. Maries, Idaho
Time: Evening
Summary: A family of ten reported the landing of eight huge objects. The case was reported to intelligence officers at Spokane Army Air Base, prompting an intensive air search by two missions of the National Guard’s 116th Fighter Group, plus a ground search by local sheriff’s deputies; no trace was found, and the report likely never reached Wright Field’s official files as a result. Ted Bloecher’s own research notes that within 24 hours of Air Materiel Command’s official statements about continuing investigation, sighting reports began arriving almost simultaneously from hundreds of citizens nationwide — from Southern California to New Brunswick, Louisiana to North Dakota — marking the true onset of the national “flap.”
Source: The Denver Post; Bloecher 1967
Date: July 3, 1947
Location: Near Santa Rosa NAS, California
Time: 16:50
Summary: A trained observer from the Naval Auxiliary (name withheld by the newspaper, confirmed by civilian dentist Dr. R.W. Nelson) observed an object shaped like a giant pocket watch, colored like aluminum, about 15-20 feet in diameter, roughly 1,000 feet above the main runway. It moved north to the end of the runway, then turned east, banking and heading toward Santa Rosa.
Source: Jan Aldrich; Loren Gross; Santa Rosa Press-Democrat
Date: July 4, 1947
Location: Redmond, Oregon
Time: 11:00
Summary: C.J. Bogne of Tigard, Oregon, and other witnesses in a car near Redmond saw four discs flying past Mt. Jefferson on a straight course at high speed.
Source: McDonald list; FOIA; Ruppelt, p. 20; Bloecher 1967 (BBU)
Date: July 4, 1947
Location: Portland and Milwaukie, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington
Time: 13:05 (further sightings at 14:00, 16:30, 17:00)
Case Status: Unexplained
Summary: An extraordinary multi-witness event: radio newsman Frank Cooley of station KOIN; INS wire service employees at the Portland Oregon Journal Building; Clark County Sheriff’s Deputies Fred Krives and Clarence McKay; Sgt. John Sullivan; Portland Police Officer Kenneth A. McDowell; Harbor Patrol Capt. K.A. Prahn; Harbor Patrolmen A.T. Austad and K.C. Hoff; Portland Police Officers Earl J. Patterson, Walter A. Lissy, and Robert Ellis; Oregon Highway Patrol Sgt. Claude Cross; and many others over a wide area saw five large discs moving at high speed east (two south, three east), with oscillating or wobbling motion and sudden 90° turns, radio reports alerting other officers who then also saw the objects — aluminum or chromium-colored, disc, hubcap, pie-pan, or half-moon-shaped, flashing in the sun, no vapor trail, little to no noise, altitudes ranging from 10,000-40,000 feet to as low as 1,000 feet. Officer McDowell noticed pigeons reacting to the objects; Sullivan, McKay, and Krives reported a low humming sound and 20-30 objects; Cooley reported 12 discs at about 20,000 feet. Patterson, Lissy, and Ellis were themselves pilots. Duration: 30-90 seconds per sighting.
Source: J. Allen Hynek, The UFO Report, pp. 100-102; James McDonald, 1968; FOIA; Bloecher 1967 (BBU)
Date: July 4, 1947
Location: Seattle, Washington
Time: Unknown
Case Status: Unexplained
Summary: Coast Guard yeoman Frank Ryman took the first known photograph of a UFO — a circular object that moved across the wind, appearing in the photo as a round dot of light. Part of the same multi-sighting day as the Portland-area events (with further sightings at 13:05, 16:30, and 17:00).
Source: The UFO Evidence, Sections VII, XII; J. Allen Hynek, The UFO Report, pp. 100-102; James McDonald, 1968; FOIA; Bloecher 1967
Date: July 4, 1947
Location: Portland, Oregon
Time: 14:00
Summary: E.A. Evans saw three metallic discs glinting in the sun, one moving west to east, followed by two others heading north.
Source: Undocumented (BBU)
Date: July 4, 1947
Location: Portland, Oregon
Time: 16:30 (further sightings at 13:05, 14:00, 17:00)
Summary: Mrs. L.J. Hayward saw a silvery, disc-shaped object resembling a flipping new dime, moving slowly along an erratic path.
Source: J. Allen Hynek, The UFO Report, pp. 100-102; James McDonald, 1968; FOIA; Bloecher 1967 (BBU)
Date: July 4, 1947
Location: Portland and Milwaukie, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington
Time: 17:00 (further sightings at 13:05, 14:00, 16:30)
Summary: Multiple witnesses, including police and pilots, reported groups of silver discs in formation.
Source: J. Allen Hynek, The UFO Report, pp. 100-102; James McDonald, 1968; FOIA; Bloecher 1967; Oregon Journal (BBU)
Date: 1947: United Airlines Flight 105 Pilots Witness a Disc-Shaped Object
Date: July 4, 1947
Location: Near Tularosa, New Mexico
Time: Unknown
Summary: A large, lenticular, disc-shaped craft, reportedly 99 feet in diameter with a dome and small rim, allegedly crashed near the eastern border of the White Sands missile test range after being tracked slowly by radar; five short, gray-skinned, lizard-skinned occupants with three webbed fingers were said to have been found dead, and the craft was reportedly moved through Muroc AFB to Wright-Patterson, ultimately to the popularly named “Hangar 18,” with the beings’ origin later claimed to have been traced to a specific star 60 light-years away.
Source: Anton Anfalov
Source Status: DISPUTED / HOAX-ADJACENT — Anfalov has been repeatedly flagged elsewhere in this archive as an unreliable source, primarily on Soviet/CIS-region cases, and this entry shows the same pattern of unverifiable specificity common to his work. More significantly, the claimed 99-foot craft diameter is identical to the size given in the Aztec, New Mexico crashed-saucer story — a claim publicly exposed in the 1950s as a fabricated con perpetrated by Silas Newton and Leo Gebauer to sell fake “alien technology” materials, and widely documented as a hoax ever since. This Tularosa entry may represent an independent claim, a conflation with the Aztec hoax narrative, or a direct derivative of it; this archive was unable to locate any source for it beyond Anfalov. The specific “Hangar 18” and light-year-distance details are also hallmarks of unverifiable, invented UFO lore rather than documented fact.
1947: July UFO|UAP & Entity Sightings Archive — Part 2 | 1947: July UFO|UAP & Entity Sightings Archive — Part 3
