September 1947 — three entries: the ATIC letter that founded Project Sign, the Yaroslavl, Russia "Dwarfin" encounter, and the Bariloche, Argentina lagoon sighting. thinkaboutitdocs.com.
1947: September UFO|UAP & Entity Sightings Archive
September 1947 closes the great wave’s founding season with the single most institutionally consequential entry this archive will ever document: on September 23, the Air Technical Intelligence Center told the Army Air Forces’ Commanding General, in writing, that “the reported phenomena were real” — and Project Sign, the direct ancestor of Project Grudge and Project Blue Book, was born within days. Everything the U.S. government has ever officially said about UFOs traces back to this one letter. The month also carries an Argentine entity account, a Russian “Dwarfin” encounter with hoofed footprints, and the third appearance on this archive of the same SECRET Far East radar memo already fully documented elsewhere.
Date: Autumn 1947
Location: Bariloche, Río Negro, Argentina
Time: Unknown
Summary: A local man named Chuima reported seeing several oval-shaped objects, along with a train-shaped object, hovering above and near a local lagoon, accompanied by an uncanny silence. He saw several short, child-like figures walking near the object, seemingly in the air, picking up round black “rocks” and passing them among each other.
Source: Proyecto CATENT, Argentina
Date: September 1947
Location: West Yaroslavl Province, Russia
Time: Evening
Summary: Three or four local women, returning to their village from a lake with sacks of cranberries, noticed a fire in the forest and several “men” seated near it. One woman approached; the figures were child-sized, with greenish faces, and did not react to her presence until she was close, at which point they jumped up and ran off. The next day, villagers found unusual footprints resembling horseshoes with three calks, suggesting the beings were hoofed.
Source: Valeriy A. Kukushkin, Yaroslavl UFO Group, “Chimeras of the X Location,” Moscow, 1997
Date: September 3, 1947
Location: Lake Oswego, Oregon
Time: 12:15 PDT
Summary: Housewife Mrs. Raymond Dupui saw 12-15 round, silver objects fly in an unstated pattern for an unknown length of time.
Source: Don Berliner; FOIA (BBU #85)
Date: September 8, 1947
Location: Logan, Utah (possibly Salt Lake City)
Time: 22:30 or 23:00
Summary: Anderson and Hall saw five groups totaling roughly 12 white or yellowish objects traveling at high speed north, at 2,000-3,000 feet, faster than birds, apparent size of pigeons.
Source: Battelle/BBSR14; Mary Castner/CUFOS (BBU)
Date: September 13 (possibly 11 or 12), 1947
Location: Between Midway Island and Oahu, Hawaii, past Necker Island
Time: 18:58
Summary: A Pan Am airline crew (possibly a military air flight) saw a bright light with no blue or red tinge split into two, move toward the plane, then disappear — first heading 350°, then 109°, at 9,500-10,000 feet, traveling at roughly 1,000 knots (about 1,200 mph).
Source: McDonald list; Project 1947; FOIA; FUFOR Index; Mary Castner/CUFOS Source Status: The compiled entry itself flags a possible meteor explanation, given the described splitting light and high closing speed.
Date: September 16, 1947
Location: Fukuoka, Japan
Time: Not given
Summary: The MEW radar station picked up a target at a range of 89 miles, bearing 040°, tracked inbound to a range of 19 miles and bearing 045°, where it faded. Speed 840-900 mph (730-780 knots); altitude 10,000-20,000 feet.
Source: Item “c” from SECRET Army Air Forces letter; Fran Ridge; Jan Aldrich
Editorial note: This is the third appearance on this archive of the same September 16 Fukuoka contact, drawn from the identical SECRET Air Intelligence Division memorandum signed by Col. James F. Olive — already given its own full report at Radar Pick-ups of High Speed Targets in the Far East, and previously cross-referenced on this archive’s August 1947 page (as item “b” of the same memo, referring to the August 28 contact). This September entry corresponds to item “c,” the memo’s supersonic third incident, which the issuing agency itself judged “unreasonable for piloted aircraft.”
Date: September 17, 1947
Location: Fort Richardson, Alaska
Time: Unknown
Summary: An Army officer saw a 2-3 foot silver sphere traveling south at tremendous speed below a 10,000-foot cloud cover.
Source: Undocumented (BBU)
Date: September 23, 1947
Location: Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio (Air Technical Intelligence Center) / Washington, D.C. (Army Air Forces Headquarters)
Time: Not applicable
Case Status: Historical/Institutional (not a sighting)
Summary: The chief of the Air Technical Intelligence Center sent a letter to the Commanding General of the Army Air Forces, answering an earlier verbal request for a preliminary study of UFO reports. The letter concluded that “the reported phenomena were real,” and strongly urged that a permanent project be established at ATIC to investigate and analyze future reports, requesting a priority, a registered code name, and full security classification. The request was granted, and Project Sign — the direct forerunner of Project Grudge and Project Blue Book — was launched with a 2A priority, one step below the highest an Air Force project could receive. [Full Report]
Source: Edward J. Ruppelt, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects (1956), Chapter 2; James McDonald list; Mary Castner/CUFOS Source Status: VERIFIED — the letter’s contents are preserved through Ruppelt’s own official account as the Air Force officer who later ran Blue Book; the general sequence of events is corroborated across the standard scholarly literature on the government’s UFO investigation history.
Date: September 20, 1947
Location: Off the coast of San Diego, California
Time: 11:00
Summary: The Coast Guard was told that a flaming object had fallen into the sea off the coast, but a check of airports revealed no missing aircraft, and the Griffith Park Observatory did not believe it was a meteor. Further inquiry established that the object had maneuvered, and had done so for some time.
Source: Carl Feindt
Date: September 1947
Location: Undocumented
Time: Unknown
Summary: Undocumented
Source: Undocumented
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
September 1947 — The Government Says “Real,” and Project Sign Is Born
Nothing else this archive documents matches the institutional weight of the September 23 ATIC letter. Three months after Kenneth Arnold’s sighting, the U.S. Air Force’s own specialized intelligence center told its Commanding General, in an official document, that the phenomenon was real — not that it was solved, not that it was explained, but that it was genuinely occurring and warranted a dedicated, high-priority, classified investigative project. That project, Project Sign, is the direct institutional ancestor of every official American UFO investigation that followed, through Grudge, Blue Book, and beyond. The month’s other entries — an Argentine entity encounter, a Russian “Dwarfin” case with physical footprint evidence, and the third and final appearance on this archive of Col. James Olive’s SECRET Far East radar memo — sit, understandably, in this letter’s shadow.
“The reported phenomena were real.”
Air Technical Intelligence Center letter to the Commanding General, Army Air Forces, September 23, 1947.
