November 1947 — three cases: the London hypnosis experiment's underground branding account, the Vancouver Island serpent sighting, and the Persian Gulf Chipola tanker's eight-object sighting. thinkaboutitdocs.com.
1947: November UFO|UAP & Entity Sightings Archive
November 1947‘s most historically striking entry predates the genre it belongs to by more than a decade: during a London hypnosis experiment on November 22, a woman entered a trance state and described being seized underground by tall, silver-helmeted beings who burned a symbol onto her leg with a device resembling a gun — a mark her researchers say remained visible after she woke. Implant motifs, symbol branding, and non-verbal telepathic communication are all hallmarks of abduction literature that wouldn’t become widely recognized until Betty and Barney Hill’s case, fourteen years later. The month also carries two Spanish “hairy humanoid” encounters, a serpent sighting off Vancouver Island (corrected here from a location error), and a Persian Gulf tanker’s eight-object sighting.
Date: November 1947
Location: Ucluelet Harbour, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada
Time: Unknown
Summary: Angler George W. Saggers encountered a strange, serpent-like animal in Ucluelet Harbour, at a distance of 150 feet. Its head and neck were four feet above the water; it had two jet-black eyes, about three inches across, protruding from the head, and appeared to have some sort of mane, dark brown in color, along with whiskers or hair on its face.
Source: Jerome Clark, Unexplained!
Editorial note: This entry’s location was previously listed as “Vancouver Island, Washington.” Vancouver Island, including Ucluelet Harbour, is located in British Columbia, Canada, not Washington State (a separate city, Vancouver, Washington, exists on the U.S. mainland and appears to be the source of the confusion). Corrected here.
Date: November 1947
Location: La Tortiñosa, Cáceres, Spain
Time: Late afternoon
Summary: Farmer Teodosio Gómez reportedly encountered a giant humanoid, over two meters tall and possibly female, wearing dark clothing, in a field. The figure moved and stopped in apparent mimicry of Gómez’s own movements; terrified, he ran to town.
Source: Iker Jiménez, Encuentros: La Historia De Los Ovni en España
Date: November 1947
Location: Garganta la Olla, Cáceres, Spain
Time: Late afternoon
Summary: Days after the preceding encounter, goat herder José “Pancho” Campo encountered a similar dark-clad, enigmatic creature in a wooded field outside town, noticing it had goat-like feet. Terrified, he screamed, and the creature fled at great speed. Campo became severely ill after the encounter, losing his stamina, and died 15 years later after suffering chronic pain.
Source: Iker Jiménez, Encuentros: La Historia De Los Ovni en España
Date: November 2, 1947
Location: Anderson Road, Houston, Texas
Time: Daybreak
Summary: Immigration Service officer Brimberry saw an almost round, oval, or saucer-shaped object with a bright light, roughly 100 feet in diameter, spinning as it descended.
Source: Undocumented (BBU)
Date: November 3 or 4, 1947
Location: Near Vaughn, New Mexico
Time: Approximately 20:00
Summary: A basketball-sized object exploded near a colonel.
Source: Undocumented
Editorial note: An entry with an almost identical description (“near Vaughn, New Mexico,” a basketball-sized object exploding near a colonel) already appears on this archive’s August 1947 page, dated only “August (late), 1947.” These may represent the same case with a more precisely recalled date here, or two separate but similar incidents; this archive could not determine which given the available sourcing.
Date: November 5, 1947
Location: Persian Gulf
Time: Unknown
Summary: Crewmen aboard the oil tanker Chipola reportedly sighted eight saucer-shaped objects passing through the air roughly half a mile away while the vessel navigated the warm waters off Arabia. The objects climbed out of sight, gaining altitude in echelon formation.
Source: Loren E. Gross, UFOs: A History — 1947, p. 284.75
Date: November 12, 1947
Location: Approximately 40 miles north or south of Cape Blanco, Oregon, 20 miles off the coast
Time: Early morning
Summary: USS Ticonderoga 2nd Officer Williamson saw two balls of fire with a fiery trail, headed northwest at 700-900 mph.
Source: Undocumented (BBU)
Date: November 15, 1947
Location: Wichita, Kansas
Time: 07:02
Summary: USAF Maj. R.L. Wallander, Capt. Belleman, and A/3c Phipps saw an orange object (possibly a blue streak) that varied in shape, making jerky upward sweeps with 10-15 second pauses between movements. Duration 3-5 minutes.
Source: Undocumented (BBU #2224)
Date: November 15, 1947
Location: Wichita Falls, Texas (see editorial note)
Time: 20:25
Summary: A USAF B-47 crew and passengers saw an elliptical, blue-white object with an orange or red tail, moving erratically.
Source: Undocumented (BBU)
Editorial note: Previously listed simply as “Wichita, Texas” — no city by that name exists; Wichita Falls, Texas is the likely intended location, corrected here. This is a distinct location from the same-day Wichita, Kansas entry above, though the shared “Wichita” name and identical date suggest some risk of the two accounts being confused or conflated in secondary sources. Also worth noting: the B-47 Stratojet did not enter service until 1951, four years after this reported 1947 sighting — a discrepancy in the aircraft type that this archive cannot resolve from the available sourcing.
Date: November 22, 1947
Location: London, England (site of a hypnosis experiment)
Time: Afternoon
Case Status: Insufficient Data
Summary: During a hypnosis experiment, the witness entered a trance-like state during which she felt she traveled at great speed to a place with a cloudy atmosphere, then through a doorway into an underground place with machinery and the sounds of its operators. Two women seized and overpowered her, taking her before a tall, nearly bald man; the women wore silvery helmets and black shirts. She blacked out, waking to find her shoulder exposed as the beings searched for a mark; failing to find one, the man used a gun-like device to burn the symbols “H6AQ” onto her leg, laughing as he caused her pain, then threatened her. The beings did not speak English, yet she understood them. The burned symbols were reportedly still visible on her leg when she came out of the trance. [Full Report]
Source: N.S.W. Chibbett, Flying Saucer Review, Special Issue No. 3 Source Status: The account is preserved through a named investigator’s published case report in a recognized specialist journal; the underlying event, being hypnotically induced, carries the same evidentiary caveats this archive applies to all trance-derived testimony.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
November 1947 — A Mark That Predates Its Own Genre
The November 22 London hypnosis case is a genuine curiosity in this archive’s chronology: underground abduction, non-verbal telepathic communication, and a physical branding mark left on the witness’s body are all elements that would become recognizable hallmarks of alien-abduction literature only after Betty and Barney Hill’s case brought the genre into public awareness in 1961 and 1966. Finding this cluster of motifs fully formed in a 1947 hypnosis session, fourteen years earlier, is worth documenting carefully and honestly — as a genuine precedent, not proof of anything beyond its own existence in the record. This revision also corrects two location errors: the Vancouver Island serpent sighting was mislabeled as being in Washington State rather than British Columbia, and a “Wichita, Texas” entry — no such city exists — was corrected to the likely intended Wichita Falls, Texas.
“These were still visible when she came out of the trance!”
N.S.W. Chibbett, Flying Saucer Review, describing the November 22, 1947 London hypnosis case’s branding mark.
