Four-panel dossier collage: the Jackson Mississippi cigar object, the Amarillo-Lamesa green fireball, the Roswell fireball, and the Cortez-Bradenton Florida sighting, all January 1949
1949: January UFO|UAP & Entity Sightings Archive
January 1949 opened with the Sandia/Los Alamos green fireball wave already underway, producing several of the month’s best-documented cases around Kirtland AFB and Los Alamos, New Mexico. The month closes with two related green fireball reports on January 30 — one triangulated by Dr. Lincoln La Paz along the Amarillo-to-Lamesa corridor in Texas, the other seen from Roswell, Alamogordo, and Fort Worth the same evening — alongside a scattering of reports from Hawaii, England, Maine, and the Bermuda Atlantic corridor.
Date: January 1949
Location: Cincinnati, Ohio
Time: 23:00
Summary: One white ball, of huge size, was observed by two witnesses at an airport for five minutes. A huge white ball of light circled the airport twice. Both air traffic controllers fled the tower in a panic.
Source: Hatch, Larry
Date: January 1, 1949, BBU
Location: Jackson, Mississippi
Time: 5 p.m.
Summary: Pilot Tom Rush and his wife were in a private plane and saw an object described as cigar-shaped, 60′ long and 10′ wide, cross their path at 1500-1600′ altitude. Another estimate placed the object at 500′, a close-encounter range. Speed was approximately 200 mph, accelerating to 400-500 mph. The object made a 50-degree turn and was visible for 10-12 seconds.
Source: Project 1947; McDonald list; FUFOR Index
Date: January 4, 1949, BBU #275
Location: Hickam Field, Hawaii
Time: 2 p.m.
Summary: USAF pilot Capt. Paul R. Stoney, on the ground at Pacific Command HQ, saw an object resembling a large round piece of flat cardboard the size of a T-6. It was white underneath and dark on top, approached from 25 miles at 3,000 ft, and circled the area at 85. The object appeared to “blink” a whitish reflection regularly and departed climbing at a 25-degree angle.
Source: Jan Aldrich
Date: January 4, 1949
Location: SE part, Georgia
Time: Around 2200
Summary: One object was observed by three witnesses for 48 seconds (Underwood).
Source: NICAP
Date: January 5, 1949
Location: Sea of Japan
Time: 10:07 p.m.
Summary: An unknown object was picked up on radar. The observation lasted 4 minutes.
Source: Dan Wilson, Far East Air Force
Date: January 5, 1949
Location: Albuquerque, New Mexico
Time:
Summary:
Source: Undocumented
Date: January 6, 1949, BBU & OSI Case 16
Location: Kirtland AFB, New Mexico
Time: 1730
Summary: Bright white diamond-shaped object in horizontal flight, much faster than a jet. Part of the Sandia/Los Alamos green-fireball wave under investigation by the 17th District AFOSI and Dr. Lincoln La Paz.
Source: OSI Case 16
Date: January 6, 1949, BBU & OSI Cases 16 & 17
Location: Los Alamos, New Mexico
Time:
Summary: Unusual sounds heard; report references a January 5 incident. An object was observed and metallic traces found. A crashed disc was reported by a male witness near the nuclear test site (Von Poppen).
Source: OSI Cases 16 & 17
Date: January 9, 1949
Location: Southport, England
Time: Noon
Summary: One object was observed.
Source: Doubt Magazine
Date: January 10, 1949
Location: South Gardiner, Maine
Time: 17:15
Summary: One object was observed by one witness briefly (Savage).
Source: Newspaper
Date: January 10, 1949
Location: Auburn & Oxford, Maine
Time: 17:30
Summary: More than one object was observed by several witnesses briefly (Wardell).
Source: Newspaper
Date: January 16, 1949
Location: Endicott, West Virginia
Time: 06:30
Summary: Hovering objects were observed. Two objects, the size of the moon, were observed by one 16-year-old male witness at a mountain (Riter).
Source: CUFOS
Date: January 16, 1949
Location: Paris, Kentucky
Time: 16:30
Summary: An object was observed and photographed. One walnut-shaped object was observed by two experienced female witnesses for ten minutes (Brannon; Miller).
Source: Project Bluebook
Date: January 23, 1949, BBU
Location: 4 miles S of Tillamook, Oregon
Time: 11:05 a.m.
Summary: Burt Leckington and his wife, driving south on Hwy 101 near Pleasant Valley, saw a shiny, silvery, round stationary object about 10-15 ft across glinting in the sun to the SE at roughly 35° elevation, 500-2,000 ft up, about 1/2 to 3/4 mile away. It vanished when he went for binoculars, with no sound or trail. A second witness (Smith) in Tillamook saw a polished silver saucer-shaped object at 45° elevation, then moving NE at 30-50 mph, for about a minute.
Source: FOIA; FUFOR Index
Date: January 24, 1949, BBU
Location: About 250 miles SW of Bermuda, Atlantic
Time: 12:00-2:10 a.m. (Z/GMT/UT)
Summary: A USAF RB-29 crew of the 373rd Recon Squadron, based at Kindley AFB, Bermuda on classified Atomic Detection System service, was searching for a lost BOAC aircraft when they sighted a red glow on the ocean 1-1.5 miles across, extending up to 2,500-6,000 ft, with 2-4 white searchlight-like beams inside it. The crew circled the glow for 44 minutes from all directions, closing to an estimated 100-150 ft at one point and banking sharply to avoid collision, before departing; the glow was still visible on landing in Bermuda.
Source: BB Maxwell Microfilm Roll 5, pp. 167-233; Project 1947; Saunders/FUFOR Index
Date: January 27, 1949
Location: Seattle, Washington
Time: 17:35
Summary: One object was observed by a male witness briefly (Victor).
Source: Newspaper
Date: January 27, 1949, BBU 284
Location: Cortez-Bradenton, Florida
Time: 10:20 p.m.
Summary: Capt. Sames (or Sannes), Acting Chief of the Aircraft Branch at Eglin AFB, and his wife watched for 25 minutes as a cigar-shaped object as long as two Pullman cars, with seven lighted square windows and throwing sparks, descended then climbed with a bouncing motion at an estimated 400-500 mph. [Full Report]
Source: Project Blue Book Unknown 284
Date: January 30, 1949, BBU
Location: Near Amarillo to near Lamesa, Texas
Time: 5:54 p.m. (MST)
Summary: Thousands of witnesses across several states saw a spectacular green fireball. Dr. Lincoln La Paz triangulated a N-S trajectory beginning at 12-mile altitude over the Amarillo area, descending slightly on a nearly horizontal 143-mile path to near Lamesa, disappearing at about 8 miles altitude. No noise except a slight hissing. Over 100 witnesses were interviewed. Duration 10-20 seconds.
Source: Sparks; FOIA
Date: January 30, 1949, AFOSI 19
Location: Roswell, New Mexico — also seen at Alamogordo (AFOSI 20) and Fort Worth, Texas (AFOSI 21)
Time: 5:55 p.m.
Summary: Approximately 200 observers saw a blue-green object moving slowly W-E at 2,000 ft in horizontal flight, disappearing in a shower of lighted fragments. Part of the same Sandia/Los Alamos green-fireball wave; also witnessed at Holloman AFB by PFC Ira W. Vail, Weather Detachment, who described “a green ball of flame with a trail of some kind.”
Source: Department of War PURSUE Release 02, DOW-UAP-D017 (General Correspondence of Sandia), declassified May 22, 2026
Date: January 31, 1949
Location: Orlando, Florida
Time: Dawn
Summary: One object was observed by a male witness.
Source: Doubt Magazine
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Roswell Fireball, Properly Sourced
This revision removes two unsourced, SEO-style framing paragraphs that had previously opened this page, replacing them with an accurate hook describing what the month’s record actually contains. The January 30 Roswell/Alamogordo/Fort Worth green fireball — part of the same Sandia/Los Alamos wave as the better-known Amarillo-to-Lamesa sighting logged the same evening — previously carried no source at all; it is now tied to the Department of War’s May 2026 declassification (DOW-UAP-D017) and a named corroborating witness, PFC Ira W. Vail, at Holloman AFB. Two records that were blank in the original source (January 5, Albuquerque; an undated trailing entry) are preserved here rather than deleted, since both clearly represent intended case records with lost detail.
“A green ball of flame with a trail of some kind…”
PFC Ira W. Vail, Weather Detachment, Holloman AFB, describing the January 30, 1949 fireball.
