1951: May UFO|UAP & Entity Sightings Archive

May 1951’s best-documented cases were all explained at the time: four airmen at Sheppard AFB watching a glowing formation that Blue Book called birds, four Geiger Field fliers watching a flat tan object wallow over their ramp that the card calls a balloon, a Chicago man’s mile-long rocket flame, thirty blue lights over Downey and a silver globe over Great Falls. Two retold stories round out this May 1951 UFO sightings archive: an American soldier’s Salzburg encounter, first told in 1957, and a three-year-old’s Tennessee memory recalled 65 years later. Two cases that circulate under May dates belong elsewhere, the Manila jail attacks to May 1953 and the Niagara Falls saucer to June 1, 1951.

Date: May 4, 1951
Location: Sheppard Air Force Base, Wichita Falls, Texas
Time: About 9:30 p.m. (2130; 0230Z on May 5)
Summary: Four airmen of the 3770th Instructor Squadron, walking back to their squadron area from the base theater, saw a formation of ten to fifteen round objects, a second pair counting “more than nine,” moving from the southeast to the northwest in a rough V. The objects gave off a soft, steady white or fluorescent glow, weaved independently within the group, made no sound and left no trail, and were in view for about 30 seconds. They seemed to repel one another “in much the same fashion as electrons,” and two witnesses said they appeared to be controlled by an unknown force.
Source: Project Blue Book record card; Air Intelligence Information Report (Sheppard AFB Wing Intelligence Officer)

Source Status: Blue Book evaluation: Other (Birds), “evaluated as a flock of birds.” The witnesses were interviewed on May 10 and 11; their names are redacted in the released file.

Date: May 15, 1951
Location: Millington, Tennessee (sighting occurred while driving from Ripley, Mississippi)
Time: 16:30
Summary: A boy of three, riding with seven family members in a 1948 Ford home from a funeral, saw at eye level outside the car a dirty-silver object with visible seams and what looked like nuts or bolts. Everything seemed to slow down. After a few seconds the object rose straight up without a sound, and he briefly saw its underside, which seemed to rest on a stand or “stool.” His oldest brother, on whose knee he sat, said he had seen nothing. He remembered it clearly for 65 years before relating it in full.
Source: MUFON

Source Status: A single report recalled about 65 years later by a witness who was three at the time; no one else in the car recalled the object.

Date: May 15-16, 1951
Location: Near Salzburg, Austria
Time: 11:20 p.m.
Summary: An unnamed American soldier walking home through a field outside Salzburg was suddenly paralyzed by a cylindrical-headed, bald, insect-eyed entity that pointed a pencil-like device at him. Floated aboard a roughly 150-foot disc, he was placed in a transparent chamber and reported traveling past the moon to Mars, observing canal-crossed fields of red flowers and other craft holding what appeared to be human captives, before being returned to the exact spot of his abduction within about an hour. He told the story to no one until 1957, when he related it anonymously to a Canadian newspaper. See the Full Report.
Source: Prince George Citizen, British Columbia, Canada, December 11, 1957; Albert Rosales, URECAT catalogue

Source Status: A single anonymous account, first told six years after the event; no corroboration.

Date: May 22, 1951
Location: Near Dodge City, Kansas
Time: Unknown
Summary: An American Airlines pilot observed a maneuvering, star-like object.
Source: Unknown

Source Status: No document or catalogue entry has been located for this report.

Date: May 22, 1951
Location: Great Falls, Montana
Time: 2:30 to 3:00 p.m. MDT
Summary: A woman telephoned the Great Falls AFB intelligence officer the next day to report a silver or bluish-white object over the city that looked like a ball or a three-pointed star and glowed like an electric light bulb. It kept disappearing and reappearing against the blue sky, appeared to be at very high altitude, and moved slowly from west to east. A Great Falls radio station said a Northwest Airlines pilot had reported the same object.
Source: Project Blue Book record card; Air Intelligence Information Report (Headquarters MATS, Great Falls AFB source officer)

Source Status: Blue Book evaluation: balloon. The card ties it to a balloon released at 1400; the report says Great Falls AFB had no balloons aloft but the Gore Field weather station released a white balloon at 1400 that drifted west to east.

Date: May 24, 1951
Location: Chicago, Illinois
Time: 7:50 p.m. CST (1950)
Summary: A man and his uncle saw what looked like a cigar-shaped rocket at about 50,000 feet, by the witness’s estimate, trailing an exhaust flame about a mile long. A light on its front blinked on and off “like a flashlight sending Morse code.” It flew east for 12 to 15 minutes, turned north, then west and out of sight, with a neighbor and several others watching for about 30 minutes in a clear sky. The witness called the Herald-American on May 23 to ask for an explanation and was told to call Fifth Army Intelligence.
Source: Project Blue Book record card; Headquarters Fifth Army G-2 summary of information

Source Status: Blue Book evaluation: probable aircraft with a contrail. The card says the duration rules out a rocket and that the blinking light and duration fit the aircraft analysis. Witness names are redacted in the released file.

Date: May 29, 1951
Location: Spokane, Washington (Geiger Field)
Time: 9:18 a.m. PST (0918; 1718Z)
Summary: Two pilots and two airmen of the 116th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron at Geiger Field saw a flat, elliptical, light tan object, like a large sheet of paper or a thin aircraft wing, move slowly over the field from the west-northwest at an estimated 2,500 to 3,000 feet in a wallowing manner. It hovered, then rose rapidly out of sight at about a 60-degree angle in about 20 seconds, after roughly four minutes in view. It made no noise and showed no exhaust. No aircraft were in the air and radar was not used. The station weather officer said neither convective activity nor the weather pattern could have lifted a large piece of paper. About 25 minutes later, a passenger in a T-6 aircraft 40 miles southwest of the field saw a circular, glistening object to the southeast for about 20 seconds.
Source: Project Blue Book record card; 116th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron report of May 31, 1951

Source Status: Blue Book evaluation: Was Balloon. The card comment says the object was moving with the wind and rising.

Date: May 29, 1951
Location: Downey, California
Time: Late afternoon
Summary: Three North American Aviation technical writers standing outdoors saw about thirty glowing, meteor-like objects in the east, about 45 degrees above the horizon, moving silently without trails. The objects gave off an intense electric-blue light, made right-angled turns, and swept across about 90 degrees of sky in about 25 seconds in an undulating vertical formation. The witnesses estimated their diameters at 30 feet and their speed at 1,700 mph.
Source: Donald H. Menzel, The World of Flying Saucers, as filed in the Project Blue Book “no case” information sheet of May 29, 1951

Source Status: Menzel concluded the objects were probably birds, noting that no true size, altitude or speed could be fixed; Blue Book filed it as information only.

Date: June 1, 1951
Location: Niagara Falls, New York (Niagara Falls Municipal Airport)
Time: 0420Z on June 1 per the card (11:20 p.m. EST on May 31); 0420E on June 1 per the field report
Summary: A master sergeant leaving the 12th Weather Squadron station at Niagara Falls Airport saw a saucer-type object about 20 degrees above the horizon at a bearing of 080 degrees and tapped on the window to bring the two airmen on duty outside. The center was larger and brighter than the arc-shaped wings protruding from it, and both were a glowing yellow-orange. It moved vertically and eastward with an oscillating, counterclockwise gyro-like rotation, without sound, propulsion or trail, and vanished into the overcast after 30 to 40 seconds. See the Detailed Report.
Source: BBU; Project Blue Book record card; 136th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron report of June 4, 1951

Source Status: Blue Book evaluation: Other (Unidentified). The three witnesses are redacted in the released file. The card gives the date as May 31 and the time as 0420Z; the field report gives 0420E on June 1.

Date: May 1953 (cross-reference)
Location: Old Bilibid Prison, Manila, Philippines
Time: Evening
Summary: The Clarita Villanueva case, in which a young woman held at Old Bilibid Prison in Manila was bitten by unseen attackers, took place in May 1953 and is catalogued on the May 1953 page of this archive. See the May 1953 page.
Source: Frank Edwards; see the May 1953 page

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Five Explained, Three Told Later, and Two Cases That Moved

May 1951 holds eight entries and two cross-references, and none of the eight carries a Blue Book Unidentified evaluation. Five are explained: the Sheppard formation as birds, the Great Falls object and the Spokane ellipse as balloons, the Chicago rocket as an aircraft with a contrail, and the Downey lights as probably birds per Donald Menzel. The Spokane case is the closest call, since the Geiger Field weather officer said the weather could not have lifted a large sheet of paper, yet the card still reads Was Balloon. Three entries rest on a single, late or undocumented account: the Salzburg abduction told anonymously in 1957, a Tennessee memory recalled 65 years later by a witness who was three, and a Dodge City pilot report with no document behind it. Two entries are cross-references: the Manila case, which occurred in May 1953, and the Niagara Falls saucer, which the squadron report places at 4:20 a.m. on June 1, 1951. The month’s best-documented cases involve trained observers: the Geiger Field pilots, the Sheppard instructors and the Great Falls intelligence officer who took the call.

“…in much the same fashion as electrons.”

— Sheppard AFB Air Intelligence Information Report, on how the objects seemed to repel one another in the May 4, 1951 sighting