March 1949 — four cases: the start of the Fort Hood, Texas UFO Wave; the Tucumcari/Montoya, New Mexico sighting; a Los Alamos green fireball; and the Pucusana, Peru entity encounter.
1949: March UFO|UAP & Entity Sightings Archive
March 1949 carries the opening cases of the Fort Hood, Texas UFO wave alongside continuing Los Alamos green fireball reports, a well-documented multi-witness sighting at Tucumcari and Montoya, New Mexico, and a probable duplicate of February’s Pucusana, Peru entity encounter, here dated to March 28 by a different source catalog.
Date: March 1, 1949
Location: Stuttgart, Arkansas
Time: 21:29
Summary: Nocturnal lights were observed by two witnesses (Adams).
Source: FOIA; Condon Committee
Date: March 2, 1949, AFOSI Case 26
Location: Los Alamos, New Mexico
Time: 12:10 a.m.
Summary: AESS Inspector Sewald saw a high-speed light in horizontal flight, low in the sky, moving N to S. Duration about 2 seconds.
Source: FOIA; FUFOR Index
Date: March 3, 1949, AFOSI Case 27
Location: Los Alamos, New Mexico
Time: 1:59 a.m.
Summary: This report is not an original Blue Book unknown, nor is it included in Brad Sparks’s Comprehensive Catalog of Project Blue Book Unknowns, though it is mentioned in the Blue Book microfilm files and listed in the La Paz/AFOSI Catalog. The fireball’s behavior is suspect, as in most AFOSI Catalog cases — here in particular the object is in an almost vertical descent, something no meteor can do.
Source: AFOSI Case 27
Date: March 1949, Fort Hood, Texas UFO Wave begins
Location: Killeen Base, Camp Hood (now Fort Hood), Texas
Time: 8:20 p.m., March 6, 1949 (first incident)
Summary: Beginning March 6, 1949, and continuing through June, a series of UFO sightings occurred over the AFSWP nuclear weapons storage site at Camp Hood. Army Sgt. Hubert Vickery and PFC John Ransom, on patrol, first saw a blue-white oblong object about 2 ft by 1 ft travel south; further sightings by Army patrols continued that night and into the following months. [Full Report]
Source: FOIA; AFOSI Cases 29, 30, and following
Date: March 8, 1949, AFOSI Cases 36–37
Location: Los Alamos, New Mexico
Time: 6:35 p.m.
Summary: Two observers reported an intense white/aluminum-colored object moving horizontally then descending, slowing from 800 mph to slower than a twin-engine airplane. A silent greenish-white object was seen near the Los Alamos Atomic Energy research facility, flying toward the southeast at cloud-layer altitude, and was seen by guards Patterson and Lang from guard stations 103 and 106.
Source: NICAP
Date: March 9, 1949
Location: San Bernardino, California
Time: 22:15
Summary: One object was observed by one witness briefly (Farley; Parker).
Source: Doubt Magazine
Date: March 13, 1949, AFOSI Case 40
Location: Albuquerque, New Mexico
Time: 9:55 p.m.
Summary: Not a Blue Book case but a Sandia Base OSI case. A ball-shaped object with a tail of fire flew at a speed slower than a meteor on a slightly descending path. The object appeared to be half the size of the full moon.
Source: AFOSI Case 40 (17th District OSI / La Paz Catalog)
Date: March 14, 1949, AFOSI Case 41
Location: Pacific Ocean, en route from Honolulu to Canton Island
Time: 00:00 (00-00-16Z)
Summary: A bullet-shaped object, nose-first, was seen by one observer (reliability rated good) 6°-12° above the airplane at 8,000 ft, moving horizontally with no sound. Duration about ten seconds; the object crossed 65° of sky in nine seconds.
Source: AFOSI
Date: March 17, 1949, BBU 319
Location: Killeen Base, Camp Hood, Texas
Time: 7:52 p.m.
Summary: Capt. Horace McCulloch, Assistant G-2 of the 2nd Armored Division at the nuclear weapons storage site, was preparing a test firing of flares to prove earlier sightings were mistaken flares — when he and his men themselves saw the real phenomenon. Seven separate sightings by trained artillery observers in different locations allowed rapid triangulation of large, green, red, and white flare-like objects flying in generally straight lines, watched for about an hour. Part of the Fort Hood, Texas UFO Wave. [Full Report]
Source: FOIA
Date: March 21, 1949
Location: Shreveport, Louisiana
Time: 21:29
Summary: An unidentified object was sighted, though its appearance and behavior most likely have a conventional explanation. One object, about 150 feet across, was observed by two witnesses for over three minutes (Adams).
Source: Poher, Claude. Etudes Statistiques Portant sur 1000 Témoignages, undated
Date: March 24, 1949
Location: Bend, Oregon
Time: 11:00
Summary: Two objects were observed by a male witness for 20 minutes (Leverett). Explanation: debris.
Source: Project Bluebook
Date: March 27, 1949, AFOSI Cases 42–45
Location: Tucumcari & Montoya, New Mexico
Time: 6:00-6:30 p.m.
Summary: Various witnesses, including a police officer, the Montoya postmaster, and a Tucumcari Daily News editor, saw a contrail-like yellow-amber-orange object with a 5:1 length/width ratio and about 1/6 the moon’s diameter, moving slowly from south to west, wiggling slightly, diving and leveling and climbing 2-3 times, reversing course once at the top of a climb, with a bright glitter of white light as it leveled off. No sound or trail. Duration 15-30 minutes.
Source: FOIA
Date: March 28, 1949
Location: Pucusana, Peru
Time: 16:30
Summary: An oil company employee (C.A.V., 30) driving to Lima saw a shiny disc at ground level and walked toward it for ten minutes. Three figures emerged, resembling mummies with joined legs and one large foot, “sliding” along the ground and covered with a strange “towely” skin. This appears to be the same case documented on this site’s February 1949 page (dated there to early February per Magonia); no source consulted confirms the witness’s later fate or physical traces at the site, so those claims are left out here.
Source: Magonia 68
Date: March 29, 1949
Location: Shemya AFB, Aleutian Islands, Alaska
Time: 10:05 p.m.
Summary: A USAF B-29 bomber crew saw a dull yellowish light flying at 2,400 ft.
Source: Project 1947
Date: March 31, 1949, AFOSI Case 46
Location: East of Killeen Base, Camp Hood, Texas
Time: 11:50 p.m.
Summary: Army Lt. Frederick Davis, on patrol, saw a reddish-white ball of fire pass horizontally over the base airstrip, and noted interference on the field telephone afterward when he reported it. Duration 10-15 seconds. Part of the Fort Hood, Texas UFO Wave. [Full Report]
Source: FOIA
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Fort Hood Wave Begins, and a Likely Duplicate Kept Honest
March 1949 marks the start of the Fort Hood, Texas UFO Wave, with entries here now filled out inline and linked to the full report rather than left as bare links. “Shreveport, Arkansas” is corrected to Shreveport, Louisiana, and the Albuquerque AFOSI Case 40 entry’s time and missing source have been filled in from the catalog record. The March 28 Pucusana, Peru account is very likely the same case as the one already documented on this site’s February 1949 page — same witness, same details, different date given by a different source catalog — and is kept here rather than deleted, with unsourced additions removed and the cross-reference noted on the entry itself.
“Seven separate sightings by trained artillery observers… enabled rapid triangulation.”
FOIA record of the March 17, 1949 Camp Hood, Texas sighting.
