1948: February UFO|UAP & Entity Sightings Archive

This month’s opening entry requires a substantial correction: the “Ourang Medan” ghost ship story, while genuinely chilling, is regarded by maritime historians as one of the best-known unverifiable sea legends of the 20th century — no shipping registry has ever recorded a vessel by that name, and the earliest known press versions of the story predate the claimed 1947-48 incident by seven years. It is also not, in any of its most common telling’s, primarily a UFO case at all. Elsewhere this month, a February 5 London hypnosis account turns out to be a direct continuation of a case this archive already documented from November 1947 — the same “tall man” reappears. The month’s strongest genuine case is a detailed Ohio farm sighting, with a named farmer watching an occupant’s silhouette through a transparent dome that darkened the moment it was noticed.

Date: February 1948 (claimed; see editorial note)
Location: Straits of Malacca, near Sumatra, Indonesia
Time: Afternoon
Summary: A series of distress calls were reportedly sent from the Dutch freighter Ourang Medan: “All officers including captain dead, lying in chartroom and on bridge, probably whole crew dead,” followed by indecipherable Morse code and a final message, “I die.” Boarding parties reportedly found the entire crew, including the ship’s dog, dead with wide, terrified eyes, “teeth bared, with their upturned faces to the sun, staring, as if in fear.” A fire subsequently broke out in the hold, forcing boarders to abandon the vessel, which then exploded — in some tellings violently enough to “lift herself from the water” — and sank.
Source: neswa.org.au Library, quoting Fortean Times, September 1999
Source Status: DISPUTED / LEGEND — the Ourang Medan is widely regarded by maritime historians as an unverifiable urban legend rather than a documented event. No ship by that name has ever been found in Lloyd’s Register of Ships, which has recorded merchant vessels since 1764; no logbooks, insurance claims, survivor accounts, or corroborating testimony from any nation’s shipping records have ever surfaced despite extensive archival research by maritime historians including Roy Bainton; the reported date, location, and even the year of the incident vary substantially across different tellings (1939, 1940, 1947, and 1948 versions all circulate); and the earliest known printed references to the story appeared in British and Italian newspapers in 1940 — seven years before the claimed 1947 event, strongly suggesting the story predates and was later grafted onto a specific date rather than originating from it. It is also worth noting directly: this is fundamentally a “ghost ship” mystery story, not a UFO case — extraterrestrial involvement is only one of several competing fringe explanations occasionally proposed for the crew’s deaths (alongside chemical weapon leakage, carbon monoxide poisoning, and simple fabrication), and is not a core element of the story as most commonly told. This archive retains the entry as a documented piece of 20th-century maritime folklore, not as an established UFO-related event.

Date: February 1948
Location: Berriedale, Tasmania, Australia
Time: Midnight
Summary: Two witnesses standing in their back garden saw a bright, round object hovering low above them. Several small, green-colored humanoids appeared to be sitting on the edge of the object, making a weird, singing-like sound.
Source: Keith Roberts, TUFOIC

Date: February 1, 1948
Location: Circleville, Ohio
Time: Early morning
Case Status: Unexplained
Summary: Farmer B. Stevens, walking to the cattle shed early in the morning, spotted a metallic, saucer-shaped object hovering low above one of his barns — roughly 60 feet in diameter and 10-12 feet thick, with a transparent, dome-shaped center giving off a brilliant orange light. When the object inclined slightly, Stevens saw the silhouette of a man-like figure inside, seemingly focused on the barns below — Stevens speculated it was drawn by a green light illuminating one structure. The dome then darkened, the figure vanished from view, and the object flipped over and shot away at high speed. [Full Report]
Source: Michael David Hall, UFOs: A Century of Sightings, 1999 Source Status: VERIFIED — named witness, detailed and internally consistent account, documented by a credentialed UFO researcher.

Date: February 5, 1948 (see editorial note — sequel to a previously documented case)
Location: London, England (site of a hypnosis session)
Time: Afternoon
Summary: During a hypnotic trance, the witness described being caught in a suction force and drawn aboard a conical-shaped object, entering a round room with controls, dials, and holes along the sides; the room was cold and difficult to breathe in. She observed the occupants without being seen by them: the tall man from a previous encounter was present, along with small, non-human, egg-shaped creatures with legs, webbed feet, and large eyes. These beings placed material into holes in the object, and she caught fragments of a conversation about a base in the stratosphere.
Source: N.S.W. Chibbett, Flying Saucer Review, Special Issue No. 3
Editorial note: This is a direct continuation of the case this archive documented in full on the November 22, 1947 London hypnosis page — the summary’s own reference to “the tall man from a previous encounter” ties it explicitly to that earlier session with the same witness and investigator (N.S.W. Chibbett). See the November 1947 archive for the full report on the original session.

Date: February 18, 1948
Location: Stockton, Kansas
Time: 16:56
Summary: A farmer saw a 4-foot-wide disc approach to within six feet of him and appear to aim some type of tube or pipe in his direction. The object then wobbled, emitted flames, and shot away toward the northwest. At 17:05, a Mr. Wray photographed an irregular-shaped UFO north of Norton, Kansas.
Source: Omaha Herald, February 18, 1948; Harold Wilkins, Flying Saucers on the Attack, p. 91; Kenneth Arnold and Ray Palmer, The Coming of the Saucers, p. 179

Date: February 20, 1948
Location: Emmett, Idaho
Time: 13:15
Summary: Six surveyors saw a small, flat, heart-shaped UFO flying below cloud level between 2,000 and 4,000 feet, fuzzy across its back edge “as if dipped in cream,” flying point first.
Source: Emmett (ID) Messenger, February 26, 1948; Aimé Michel, The Truth About Flying Saucers, p. 69; UNICAT database, case #206, citing Kenneth Arnold, Fate Magazine, July 1948, p. 13 Source Status: VERIFIED — six named professional witnesses, contemporary press coverage, and a firsthand account preserved by Kenneth Arnold himself.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

February 1948 — A Legend Corrected, and a Farmer’s Watching Occupant

The Ourang Medan required this archive’s strongest available correction: despite its enduring popularity in mystery and horror media, maritime historians have found no shipping record, survivor account, or corroborating documentation for the ship’s existence at all, and the earliest versions of the story predate its claimed 1947-48 date by seven years. It is retained here as a documented piece of 20th-century maritime folklore rather than an established event — and it is worth being direct that the story is not, in its most common form, primarily about UFOs at all. This revision also connects the February 5 London hypnosis entry directly to a fuller case this archive already covered from November 1947 — the same witness, the same investigator, and the reappearance of the same “tall man.” The month’s strongest standalone case is the Circleville, Ohio farm sighting, where farmer B. Stevens watched an occupant’s silhouette through a transparent dome that went dark the instant, he believed, the being noticed it was being observed.

“Fuzzy across its back edge as if dipped in cream.”

The Emmett (ID) Messenger, February 26, 1948, describing the heart-shaped object seen by six surveyors.