January 1948 — three cases: Bernice Zaikowski's Chehalis, Washington birdman sighting, the Kentucky disc reports that preceded the Mantell incident, and a Vaasa, Finland disc sighting. thinkaboutitdocs.com.
1948: January UFO|UAP & Entity Sightings Archive
January 1948 carries the single most consequential case in this archive’s entire chronology so far: the death of Captain Thomas Mantell, chasing an unidentified object over Kentucky in a P-51 with no oxygen equipment, already fully documented in two dedicated reports on this site. Days earlier, on January 6, this same corner of the country produced a stranger and lesser-known case: 61-year-old Bernice Zaikowski of Chehalis, Washington — the very town Kenneth Arnold had taken off from eighteen months before his own famous sighting — watched a man in an upright position, silver wings strapped to his shoulders, hover, bank, and fly on above her barn, corroborated by five adult witnesses and a group of schoolchildren. The case predates the 1966 Mothman sightings by nearly two decades and predates the invention of the foot-launched hang glider, the most common skeptical explanation offered, by over a decade.
Date: January 3, 1948
Location: Vaasa, Finland
Time: Night
Summary: A disc-shaped object shot across the sky from west to east in 30 seconds over the coast of Vaasa, Finland.
Source: Project Blue Book files, case 99; Larry Hatch, U computer database, case 1289; Loren E. Gross, UFOs: A History, 1948, p. 1 (BBU #99)
Date: January 6, 1948
Location: Chehalis, Washington
Time: 15:00
Case Status: Unexplained
Summary: Mrs. Bernice Zaikowski, 61, hearing a “sizzing and whizzing” sound, looked up to see a “birdman” about 200 feet above her barn: a man equipped with long silver wings fastened over the shoulders with a strap, who ascended rapidly, hovered, banked, then flew on to the south. He flew in an upright position and appeared to be manipulating controls strapped to his chest; the wings did not flap or rotate, retracting close to his body during ascent and extending again to hover and proceed in level flight. Mrs. Zaikowski said five other adult witnesses and a number of schoolchildren, who ran to her yard for a better view, also saw the birdman. [Full Report]
Source: HUMCAT quoting newspaper sources (Chehalis Advocate, Bremerton Sun, and INS wire syndication), and John Keel Source Status: VERIFIED — named, contemporaneous, multi-witness account with period press coverage across multiple outlets.
Date: January 7, 1948
Location: Louisville, Kentucky
Time: 13:15
Summary: The control tower at Godman AFB was contacted by the Kentucky State Highway Patrol regarding a curious aircraft reported by residents of Maysville, roughly 18 miles east. Godman contacted Wright-Patterson AFB, which had nothing to contribute. Within 30 minutes, further reports came in from Owensboro and Irvington to the west, describing a craft “circular, about 250-300 feet in diameter,” traveling “at a pretty good clip” in the general direction of Louisville. Godman’s Flight Service found no record of any such aerial operation and began scanning the area the object had passed north of, in case it returned.
Source: Undocumented (BBU)
Date: January 7, 1948: Mantell Documents
Date: 1948: The Thomas Mantell Incident (aircraft crashes after chasing UFO)
Date: January 9, 1948
Location: Near Cartersville, Georgia
Time: 23:30
Summary: An Eastern Airlines DC-3 pilot, DuBose, saw a blue, circular flame pass the plane, turn, then blink out.
Source: Project 1947; FUFOR Index (BBU)
Date: January 10, 1948
Location: Wildwood, New Jersey
Time: 20:00 or 22:00
Summary: A knitting designer saw a “saucer” or “queer light” approach from the ocean, then rise and fall slowly before departing at high speed. Previous sightings of the same or a similar phenomenon were reported on December 27, 1947, and January 3, 1948, all around 8 PM.
Source: McDonald list; FOIA (BBU)
Date: January 11, 1948
Location: Hartford, Connecticut
Time: 16:30
Summary: USAF Capt. Helton, pilot, and copilot Pargoe, flying a transport plane, saw a fast-moving disc with a bluish center and red edges dive at a 45-degree angle to the east.
Source: Project 1947; FOIA; FUFOR Index (BBU)
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
January 1948 — A Fatal Chase, and a Birdman Over Kenneth Arnold’s Hometown
The Mantell incident, already covered in full elsewhere on this archive, needs no introduction: the first fatality directly connected to a UFO chase, and one of the handful of cases that shaped decades of subsequent government and public UFO discourse. Less famous, but genuinely remarkable in its own right, is the Chehalis, Washington “birdman” sighting one day earlier — a case whose location carries its own irony, since Chehalis is the very town Kenneth Arnold departed from on his historic June 1947 flight. Six witnesses, named period newspaper coverage, and a detail that rules out the most common skeptical explanation (hang gliders, which would not be invented for another thirteen years) make this one of the more evidentially interesting “flying humanoid” cases in the pre-Mothman record.
“I know most people don’t believe me, but I have talked to some people in Chehalis…”
Bernice Zaikowski, describing the reaction to her January 6, 1948 birdman sighting.
