December 1949 — four cases closing out the year: the Tetford disappearance; the Volta Redonda, Brazil abduction; the Louisiana C-47 sighting; and the final Norwood, Ohio searchlight incident.
1949: December UFO|UAP & Entity Sightings Archive
December 1949 closes the year with three cases substantial enough for their own full reports: the unexplained Tetford disappearance from a moving Vermont bus, a dramatic and extreme missing-time abduction claim from Volta Redonda, Brazil, and a thinly sourced but tantalizing Tel Aviv entry that shares a surname with a much later-famous figure. The month also carries a sixth and final known Berger searchlight incident back in Norwood, Ohio, and a highly detailed aerial encounter over Louisiana involving a named Air Force major.
Date: December 1949
Location: Auburndale, Texas
Time: ?
Summary: Fifteen objects were observed by two witnesses (Maddox).
Source: Bloecher, Ted R.
Date: December 1, 1949: The Tetford Disappearance — Bennington, Vermont
Date: December 3, 1949
Location: Alamogordo, New Mexico
Time: 18:05
Summary: One observer, rated reliable, saw a circular object with a green fringe of orange light, somewhat larger than Venus, moving east to west in a downward arc, before it disappeared behind a building. Duration two seconds.
Source: AFOSI
Date: December 4, 1949, BBU
Location: Between Covington and Hammond, Louisiana
Time: 4:35-4:38 p.m. (CST)
Summary: USAF C-47 pilot Maj. F. E. Whitker (Base Legal Officer, Walker AFB, Roswell, NM), copilot 1st Lt. P. H. McDavid, and crew chief S/Sgt C. Thomas, flying from Carswell AFB, Dallas to Keesler AFB, Mississippi at 180 mph and 5,500 ft, saw a bright silver sphere about the size of a jet fighter approach nearly head-on at the same altitude at over 600 mph. After about 30 seconds it turned abruptly south, stopped, and bobbed up and down, making repeated sharp accelerations, decelerations, and direction changes — Whitker described it as appearing to “bounce all over the sky” — before vanishing in a sudden burst of speed across the field of vision in about one second. No vapor trail, exhaust, or sound above the aircraft’s own noise was noted.
Source: Jan Aldrich
Date: December 4, 1949: The Volta Redonda, Brazil Abduction
Date: December 4, 1949
Location: Los Alamos, New Mexico
Time: 19:35
Summary: Two observers of unknown reliability saw a round, green object moving east to northeast in a sloping descent, with a sound heard, before it disappeared behind a mountain. Duration about 1/5 second.
Source: AFOSI
Date: December 5, 1949
Location: Carrizozo, New Mexico
Time: 19:30-19:45
Summary: Three observers of unknown reliability saw a teardrop-shaped, blue-green object at 40° above the horizon, diving very slowly, before it disappeared.
Source: AFOSI
Date: December 5, 1949
Location: Tularosa, New Mexico
Time: 22:40
Summary: One observer of unknown reliability saw a blue streak of light with a yellowish-red tail, moving east to west in a smooth downward arc, appearing about as long as a pencil held at arm’s length, before it appeared to strike the ground near Tularosa. Duration one second.
Source: AFOSI
Date: December 13, 1949
Location: Holloman AFB / Alamogordo, New Mexico
Time: 20:05
Summary: Three observers, rated reliable, saw a circular object at 5,000 ft, appearing white, amber, red, and green in turn, roughly 1-1.5 times the apparent size of a street light seen from eight miles away. It hovered, then began moving downward and to the right; it took on a brilliant green color, picked up speed, and faded from view. Duration nine minutes.
Source: Project Bluebook
Date: December 15, 1949
Location: Strait of Juan de Fuca, Washington
Time: Dawn
Summary: Known as the SS Chinook incident. One object was observed by several witnesses.
Source: Newspaper
Date: December 17, 1949
Location: Centerville, Iowa
Time: ?
Summary: One object was observed.
Source: Bloecher, Ted R.
Date: December 17, 1949
Location: Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Time: Night
Summary: Two witnesses aboard a ferry on Puget Sound saw a nocturnal light zig-zagging to the northwest and spiraling upward; witnesses were confident it was not a plane. Observed for two minutes.
Source: Hatch, Larry
Date: December 20, 1949
Location: Norwood, Ohio
Time: 20:15, lasting 90 minutes
Summary: One object was observed by a male witness for 90 minutes (Berger). The sixth and final known incident in a recurring pattern of Ohio sightings tied to the same searchlight operator across the second half of 1949. [Full Report]
Source: Stringfield, Leonard H. CRIFO Newsletter & CRIFO Orbit
Date: December 24, 1949
Location: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Time: ?
Summary: One object was observed by one witness for 20 minutes (Henderson).
Source: Hervey, Michael. UFOs Over the Southern Hemisphere, Robert Hale, London, 1975, ISBN:0-7091-4724-4
Date: December 24, 1949
Location: Andrews AFB, Maryland
Time: 18:00
Summary: An F-51 fighter plane chased a domed disc, and reportedly crash-landed as the object flew off (the original record’s second reference to an “F-81” appears to be the same F-51 aircraft misprinted). Observed by military witnesses at an airfield for over one minute.
Source: Hatch, Larry
Date: December 25, 1949: The Tel Aviv Encounter — Geller
Date: December 28, 1949
Location: Langley Field, Virginia
Time: 13:20
Summary: A white, curved, cone-shaped object about 10 ft high was observed, its tip slowly oscillating. Observed by military witnesses at an airfield for over one minute.
Source: Hatch, Larry
Date: December 28, 1949
Location: Fayetteville, North Carolina
Time: 16:30
Summary: A huge silver disc dove from very high altitude; private pilots attempting to close in could not catch up with it. Observed by a male witness for ten minutes (Owen).
Source: Scully, Frank. Behind the Flying Saucers, Holt, 1950
Date: December 28, 1949
Location: Newberry, South Carolina
Time: 17:00
Summary: A slender, shiny cigar-shaped object moved slowly in level flight, then veered off and rose gently. Observed by ten witnesses in a town for over 15 minutes (Poole).
Source: Scully, Frank. Behind the Flying Saucers, Holt, 1950
Date: December 29, 1949
Location: Hamlet, North Carolina
Time: 17:00
Summary: James and three other pilots of military light training planes saw a green, blimp-shaped object between Hamlet and Greenwood, North Carolina; it outdistanced the planes at high speed.
Source: Sparks Database of Bluebook Unknowns, Version 1.7, Dec. 31, 2003
Date: December 30, 1949
Location: Stockton, New Jersey
Time: 23:30
Summary: One object was observed by one witness for over 15 minutes (Cartwright).
Source: Bloecher, Ted R.
Date: December 31, 1949
Location: Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona
Time: 22:00
Summary: A hovering silver disc was observed by military witnesses at an airfield for 16 minutes; it shot off rapidly to the northeast at about 500 mph when three approaching B-29 bombers neared.
Source: Project Bluebook
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Closing the Year: A Disappearance, an Extreme Missing-Time Claim, and a Tantalizing Coincidence
December 1949 closes the year with three new standalone reports: the Tetford disappearance from a Bennington, Vermont bus — a documented high-strangeness case with no UFO claimed, included for its unresolved nature; the Volta Redonda, Brazil abduction, whose claimed four-month absence is treated honestly as unverified rather than either dismissed or endorsed; and the sparsely sourced Tel Aviv “Geller” entry, whose tempting resemblance to Uri Geller is named directly as a coincidence this archive cannot confirm. The Berger Ohio searchlight pattern reaches its sixth and final known incident this month. A geography error (“Victoria, Washington”) is corrected to Victoria, British Columbia, matching the Puget Sound ferry route described in the same entry.
“Whitker describing as appearing to bounce all over the sky.”
From Jan Aldrich’s account of the December 4, 1949 sighting near Covington and Hammond, Louisiana.
