October 1948 — three cases: Lt. Robert Kunzman's Pacific Beach, Washington formation sighting, the Goose Bay, Labrador radar trackings, and the disputed Dreamy Draw, Arizona crash claim. thinkaboutitdocs.com.
1948: October UFO|UAP & Entity Sightings Archive
October 1948 opens with the Gorman Dogfight, already given its own dedicated report on this archive, and then does something worth noting explicitly: the Estimate of the Situation, documented last month, reportedly predicted a wave of sightings around mid-October 1948 — and this page delivers exactly that. Between October 15 and October 31, this archive counts at least eight distinct radar and visual cases, including two separate multi-witness radar trackings at Goose Bay, Labrador and a detailed radar-visual formation encounter over Washington state involving a named Air Force radar observer. Whether or not the Estimate’s planetary-approach reasoning was sound, its forecast of increased activity checks out against this page’s own record. The month also carries another Paradise Valley, Arizona crash claim — a second entry under a name this archive has already traced directly into the Frank Scully hoax lineage.
Date: October 1948
Location: Qingdao, China
Time: 09:40
Summary: A hovering disc was observed on the shore for over three minutes before departing by flying rapidly straight up until lost to sight.
Source: Wendelle C. Stevens, UFOs over Modern China, UFO Photo Archives, Tucson, 1983, ISBN 0-9608558-3-1
Date: October 1948
Location: Hollis, Oklahoma
Time: Noon
Summary: One object was observed by one witness (Tyson) for a few seconds.
Source: NICAP
Date: October 1948
Location: Benton, Wisconsin
Time: 16:30
Summary: A silver disc, roughly 40 feet across, hovered at low altitude on a farm before shooting away extremely fast; observed by one experienced male witness for over one minute.
Source: Undocumented
Date: October 1948
Location: Langhorne, Pennsylvania
Time: Evening
Summary: One object was observed by four witnesses for a few seconds.
Source: Newspaper (name not preserved)
Date: October 1, 1948
Location: Ascension Parish, Louisiana
Time: 05:40
Summary: A silent, cone-shaped object flew at 300 mph over woods, wide end forward.
Source: Larry Hatch (Project Blue Book Case #00174)
Date: October 1, 1948: The Gorman Dogfight
Date: October 2, 1948
Location: Dreamy Draw, Paradise Valley, Arizona
Time: Unknown
Summary: A UFO reportedly crashed in the Dreamy Draw area; a competing version of the story holds that it settled in Dreamy Draw but actually crashed roughly 10 miles away near the Cave Creek landfill. The remains of two aliens, described as about 4.5 feet tall, were reportedly recovered, kept for a time in an unnamed individual’s freezer, and eventually taken by the military. Some proponents of the story believe the Army Corps of Engineers built the Dreamy Draw dam not for flood control but to bury the wreckage, and cite unconfirmed reports of a large underground vault in the area.
Source: Burlington UFO News Crash List
Source Status: DISPUTED / HOAX-ADJACENT — this is the second Paradise Valley, Arizona crash entry on this archive; the July 1947 Paradise Valley case, involving witness Selman Graves, was traced directly to Frank Scully’s Behind the Flying Saucers and the fabricated claims of con men Silas Newton and Leo Gebauer. This entry shares the same location name and several stock hoax-narrative elements common across this lineage: recovered bodies of a specific, repeated small stature, informal civilian custody (a “freezer”) before military confiscation, and an unfalsifiable secondary claim (a hidden underground vault) layered on top of the primary story. Retained as a documented claim within the same hoax-adjacent lineage as the earlier entry, not as an established event.
Date: October 7, 1948
Location: Stinson Beach, California
Time: Daytime
Summary: Two objects were observed by one witness (Huff).
Source: Newspaper (name not preserved)
Date: October 9, 1948
Location: Osage, Wyoming
Time: Daytime
Summary: More than one object was observed by two male witnesses (Griffin) for two minutes.
Source: Kenneth Arnold, The Coming of the Saucers, Amherst, 1952
Date: October 11, 1948
Location: Neubiberg AFB, Munich, West Germany
Time: Unknown
Summary: No further detail preserved in the surviving source material.
Source: McDonald list; FUFOR Index (BBU)
Date: October 13, 1948
Location: South Bend, Indiana
Time: Unknown
Summary: No further detail preserved in the surviving source material.
Source: McDonald list; FUFOR Index (BBU)
Date: October 14, 1948
Location: Between Dayton, Ohio, and Indianapolis, Indiana
Time: Unknown
Summary: An Air Force major saw a UFO flying in an oscillatory, up-and-down path; the associated intelligence report is missing.
Source: Project Grudge Report Case No. 181; Project 1947, Report C-13
Date: October 14, 1948
Location: Dayton, Ohio
Time: Unknown
Summary: A group of objects was observed by military witnesses.
Source: Donald E. Keyhoe, Flying Saucers: Top Secret, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 1960
Date: October 14, 1948
Location: Bear Creek Harbor, New York
Time: 01:15
Summary: One sphere was observed by two witnesses at a lake, entering a remote body of water.
Source: Ivan T. Sanderson, Invisible Residents, World Publishing, New York, 1970
Date: October 15, 1948
Location: Fukuoka, Japan
Time: 23:05
Case Status: Unexplained
Summary: An early radar-visual case: an F-61 “Black Widow” night fighter crew on patrol over Japan picked up a target on radar moving at roughly 200 mph. The crew made six attempts to close on the object, and each time it rapidly accelerated to about 1,200 mph, outrunning the interceptor. On one pass, the crew visually saw the object’s silhouette, shaped like a “rifle bullet,” apparently 20-30 feet long. Project Blue Book case #218, listed as “Unknown.”
Source: Sparks Database of Bluebook Unknowns, Version 1.7, December 31, 2003
Date: October 15, 1948
Location: Le Havre, Seine-Maritime, France
Time: Approximately 16:00
Summary: A domed disc hovered over the city, moving away slowly at first before speeding up and shooting away very fast; three witnesses reported the sighting, which lasted about a minute.
Source: Lumières dans la Nuit, issue #123
Date: October 15, 1948
Location: About 50 miles east of the Virginia coast, in the Atlantic
Time: 17:20-18:10 EST
Summary: A ship’s observer aboard the SS Gulfport Keme saw a bright, nearly moon-shaped object with a distinct bright center, roughly a quarter the moon’s angular size, tracked across the sky from due north toward the northeast as it darkened with nightfall.
Source: FOIA (BBU)
Date: October 15, 1948
Location: Kyushu, Japan
Time: 23:05
Summary: USAF pilot Halter and radar operator Hemphill, flying a propeller-driven P-61 “Black Widow” night fighter, tracked up to six objects on radar over Fukuoka. Only one bogey was seen visually — a dull or dark object shaped like a dirigible with a flat bottom and clipped tail end. The pilot attempted to close on the visual object, but it dove away quickly.
Source: Project Blue Book
Editorial note: This entry and the Fukuoka entry immediately above it, both dated October 15, 1948 at 23:05, appear to describe the same underlying incident — an F-61 “Black Widow” crew’s radar-visual encounter over Fukuoka — with differing levels of detail and slightly different witness-name spellings (Halter/Hemphill versus the unnamed crew in the earlier entry). Retained as two separate entries per current editorial direction rather than merged, given minor factual differences between the two accounts.
Date: October 16, 1948
Location: 1 mile south, 8 (or 5) miles east of Sterling, Utah
Time: 11:45
Summary: Airplane mechanic and used car dealer Mr. Nash, on a hunting trip on a mountain at 9,000 feet MSL, heard a fluttering or purring noise and saw a flattened, football or lozenge-shaped black object with a wide silver longitudinal stripe, roughly 9 by 6 by 3 inches in apparent size, with a blunted rear opening but no visible exhaust, pass 500 feet overhead heading north-northwest at 300 mph.
Source: FOIA (BBU)
Date: October 17, 1948
Location: Crescent City, California
Time: 16:10
Summary: Witnesses Siler, Haley, and two others saw a bright, silvery, oval object heading southeast at 6,000+ feet, moving faster and more maneuverably than any blimp or conventional aircraft.
Source: FOIA; FUFOR Index (BBU)
Date: October 18, 1948
Location: Pacific Heights, Oahu, Hawaii
Time: 17:05 AHST
Summary: USAF-rated pilot Major Robert C. Drum, with his wife and daughter, saw a round or elliptical, bright silver object, roughly 10-15 feet in size, at 10,000-14,000 feet, heading northeast on a steady horizontal course at about 200 mph, with no trail, sound, or markings, observed intermittently over about 10 seconds at a time due to intervening clouds.
Source: Dan Wilson; FOIA
Date: October 19, 1948
Location: Japan
Time: Unknown
Summary: One object, roughly 10 feet across, was observed.
Source: Jacques Vallée
Date: October 1948
Location: Garrett, Indiana
Time: 14:30
Summary: More than six objects were observed by two witnesses (Bradin).
Source: Ted Bloecher
Date: October 24, 1948
Location: 10 miles southwest of Junction City, Kansas
Time: Unknown
Summary: No further detail preserved in the surviving source material.
Source: McDonald list; FUFOR Index (BBU)
Date: October 24, 1948
Location: Phoenix, Arizona
Time: 22:00
Summary: Witness Peterson observed a star-sized, green object moving very slowly from east to west for approximately 75 minutes.
Source: McDonald list; FUFOR Index (BBU)
Date: October 24, 1948
Location: 4 miles southeast of Moorhead, Minnesota
Time: 17:45
Summary: Mr. Sanders and his wife, driving northwest toward Moorhead and Fargo, saw a brilliant golden-white, round object suddenly appear as if switched on, about 3 miles away to the northeast at 1,000 feet, in a gradual climb, traveling at an estimated 600-1,000 mph, heading west, no trail or sound, roughly half the moon’s angular size. As they neared north Moorhead, the object made a sudden right turn to the north, then vanished by switching off a second later.
Source: FOIA; McDonald list; FUFOR Index (BBU)
Date: October 29, 1948
Location: Goose Bay AFB, Labrador, Canada
Time: 04:12
Summary: A target was picked up on radar scope #2, subsequently confirmed on search scope #1; the tower reported no aircraft in the area. A GCA sergeant, summoned to observe, watched the target for about five minutes before it disappeared. At 4:19, a second target appeared, tracked until it faded at 4:25; a third target was sighted at 5:16, fading into ground clutter after about four minutes. Targets were small but very clear; a subsequent operator observed as many as three blips simultaneously, recording speeds of roughly 30 mph moving into the wind or crosswind, with one blip described as a very strong target.
Source: Fran Ridge; Dan Wilson (BBU)
Date: October 30, 1948
Location: About 15-25 miles WNW of Grays Harbor/Pacific Beach, Washington
Time: 16:20-16:30 PST
Case Status: Unexplained
Summary: AF 2nd Lt. Robert L. Kunzman, a radar observer flying an F-82 fighter on a GCI intercept mission, saw a compact group of yellow objects to the WNW that burst into a formation of 10-20 white, egg-shaped objects crossing in front of the aircraft, maintaining consistent altitude and horizontal flight before doubling back, accelerating, turning translucent, and disappearing. He alerted pilot Maj. Homer William Morris, who did not see the objects; ground radar independently lost contact with the target at the same moment. [Full Report]
Source: McDonald list; Blue Book Maxwell Microfilm Roll 4, pp. 630-657; NARA Roll 88, pp. 144-149 Source Status: VERIFIED — named radar observer, independent radar and visual components, and official AFOSI follow-up investigation.
Date: October 31, 1948
Location: Goose Bay, Labrador, Canada
Time: Unknown
Summary: Incident #195: an object with no astronomical explanation was tracked on a GCI radarscope (PPI); its indicated speed was too slow and its time in sight too long for a conventional aircraft, if the tracked value reflected true or radial velocity. One document notes the target was as large as an aircraft, observed for a total of 8.5 minutes; there was no visual sighting, but eight witnesses participated in the radar tracking.
Source: Blue Book documents; McDonald list
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
October 1948 — The Predicted Wave Arrives
The Estimate of the Situation, documented in full on this archive’s September 1948 page, reportedly predicted a wave of sightings around mid-October 1948 based on its authors’ planetary-approach reasoning. Whatever the merit of that specific reasoning, the forecast itself checks out against this page’s own record: eight or more distinct radar and visual cases cluster between October 15 and October 31, including two separate multi-witness radar trackings at Goose Bay, Labrador and a detailed radar-visual formation encounter over Washington state involving a named Air Force radar observer, Lt. Robert Kunzman, corroborated by ground radar independently losing contact at the same moment his visual sighting ended. This month also carries a second Paradise Valley, Arizona crash claim, sharing enough narrative DNA with the July 1947 entry already traced to the Frank Scully hoax lineage that this archive flags it under the same caution.
“A compact group of yellow objects…burst into an in-line formation of about 10-20 or 25 white egg-shaped objects.”
Blue Book records, describing radar observer Lt. Robert Kunzman’s October 30, 1948 sighting near Pacific Beach, Washington.
