April 1953's entity encounters and contactee accounts, archived by date.
1953: April UFO|UAP & Entity Sightings Archive
April 1953 is a month where the archive’s strangest entries came without a single military witness attached. In Bagley, Minnesota, a three-year-old recalled breaking free from entities who told him he’d never remember them — and a neighbor saw the light hovering over his house. In Angatuba, Brazil, Dino Kraspedon answered a knock at his door and met a visitor who claimed Ganymede as home and spoke to him in fluent Latin and Greek. And in Ano Ilioupolis, Greece, a strange woman with a shadow for a dog crossed paths with a witness one night — and reappeared the next afternoon beside a landed aluminum hut full of dwarfs. Set against those civilian accounts, the month’s military record runs from a Fukuoka F-94 intercept to an extreme-speed radar chase over Lake Superior and an obscure, thinly-documented “crashed disc” claim at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey — not to be confused with that base’s far better-known 1951 radar case.
Date: April 1953
Location: Bagley, Minnesota
Time: Night
Summary: The witness, three years old at the time, recalled being taken from his bedroom by several entities. His next impression was of the entities telling him that neither he nor his family would remember the encounter — a suggestion that made him angry enough to break free of their control. He then woke suddenly as a brilliant white light shone through both bedroom windows, and hid under the covers while still able to see the light, feeling a presence in his own mind. A neighbor independently reported seeing a bright light hovering over the witness’s house that same night. [Full Report]
Source: Craig R. Lang, MUFON
Date: April 1953
Location: Angatuba, Brazil
Time: Sunday morning
Summary: Dino Kraspedon answered loud knocking at his front door and was met by a tall (approximately 1.80m) humanoid man who addressed him in Latin, Greek, and Portuguese, with only limited, heavily-accented English. The visitor identified himself as being from Ganymede, one of the moons of Jupiter. Kraspedon reported numerous further contacts with the same entity afterward, sometimes in public places (the witness had also claimed an earlier UFO contact in November 1952). [Full Report]
Source: Kraspedon, “My Contacts with The Flying Saucers”
Date: April, 1953
Location: Fort Monmouth, New Jersey
Time: Unknown
Summary: An object was observed and videotaped. Animal reactions to the object were reported. A crashed disc was reported at a military facility. Note: this is a separate, far more thinly-sourced claim from the well-documented September 10, 1951 Fort Monmouth radar/T-33 case, which has its own standalone elsewhere on this archive — the two should not be conflated.
Source: Eberhart, George M., “A Geo-Bibliography of Anomalies,” Greenwood Press, Westport, 1980
Date: April, 1953
Location: Laredo, Texas
Time: Unknown
Summary: A jet pilot instructor watched a distinct, solid-brown, circling, cigar-shaped object leaving a contrail as it passed over his T-33, turned sharply, circled the base, and sped away at an estimated 1,200 mph.
Source: Report to NICAP; UFOE, III
Date: April 8, 1953 BBU 2535
Location: Fukuoka, Japan
Time: 7:55 p.m.
Summary: 1st Lt. D.J. Pichon, pilot of a USAF F-94B jet interceptor, saw a bright blue light descend, accelerate, fly parallel to his aircraft, increase speed further, and then blink out.
Source: Berliner; FUFOR Index
Date: April 8, 1953 BBU
Location: Between Goose Bay, Labrador, and Sondrestrom AFB, Greenland
Time: 7:00 p.m. (AST)
Summary: USAF MATS transport pilot Swenson and his copilot saw a white light at 15,000 ft holding a steady course in a shallow, descending turn.
Source: NARA-PBB85-860; Project 1947; FUFOR Index
Date: April 10, 1953
Location: Chariton, Iowa
Time: 1:00-2:00 p.m.
Summary: Two brothers, looking to the northwest, watched what they described as a “flying wing” being refueled in flight by a tanker aircraft, at an estimated distance of 3-5 miles and an altitude of roughly 4,000-5,000 ft. One of the two witnesses noted years later that no large flying-wing aircraft were believed to be in service at that time, and did not learn what he had seen until much later. Duration was estimated at 10 minutes.
Source: NUFOC
Date: April 12, 1953
Location: Torbay Airport, Newfoundland
Time: 10:31 a.m. local time
Summary: An unidentified target appeared on the GCA radar scope on a magnetic course of approximately 270°. One of the observers looked outside and initially thought he saw a B-29 aircraft. When the object disappeared from view, the observer returned to the radar set and watched it make a 180° turn 8 miles west of the airport. It faded from the scope 30 miles away, moving northeast. The sighting was logged as a vital intelligence sighting incident.
Source: Dan Wilson
Date: April 12, 1953 BBU
Location: Sweetwater, Nevada
Time: 4:10 p.m. (MST)
Summary: Ten round, flat, metallic-colored objects, changing formation, traveled at an estimated high rate of speed on a heading of 110°, at roughly 7,500 ft altitude. No trail, sound, or exhaust was noted. The objects passed under the right nacelle of the observers’ C-47 aircraft and were spotted by the co-pilot, who took control and turned the aircraft in a tight 300° turn for a better view. Two more crew members then independently picked up the objects, which were observed turning at a wider radius and lower altitude than the C-47 for approximately 120° of their turn before disappearing on a heading of 300°. Observers were unable to estimate the objects’ speed given the distance and the wide radius of their turn.
Source: BBU, Sparks; McDonald list
Date: April 14, 19, 21, and 23, 1953 BBU
Location: An Tung, Manchuria, China
Time: Unknown
Summary: Unknown — no narrative summary survives in the available record for this set of dates. A genuine Project Blue Book case file exists for an April 1953 Manchuria sighting (file reference 1953-04-6384221-Manchuria), confirming the underlying case is real and documented, though the specific details across these four dates are not preserved here.
Source: McDonald list; FUFOR Index
Date: April 15, 1953 BBU 2542
Location: Tucson, Arizona
Time: 5:45 p.m. (MST)
Summary: S/Sgt. V.A. Locey saw three orange lights.
Source: Berliner
Date: April 16, 1953
Location: East Prairie, Missouri
Time: 3:10 p.m. (CST)
Summary: Several people observed UFOs for 25 minutes at an estimated 40,000 ft, appearing to be in trail behind a B-36 bomber. The objects were circular, about 230 ft in diameter, and silver in color, with speed estimated at 400-600 mph.
Source: Unknown
Date: April 19, 1953 BBU
Location: Calumet, Michigan (Lake Superior area)
Time: 7:18 p.m. (CST), with the main series of targets between 8:18 and 9:15 p.m. (EST)
Summary: A series of targets was sighted by the 665th AC&W Squadron at Calumet, Michigan. The plots originated at approximately 50 miles from the station, sweeping from 50° to 251° clockwise. Target speed was calculated at between 1,800 mph and 8,400 mph. The sighting was radar-only, using an AN/FPS-3 search radar; several individual targets were noted and appeared as normal returns except for their extreme speed.
Source: McDonald list
Date: April 21-22, 1953
Location: Ano Ilioupolis, East Athens, Greece
Time: Night (Apr 21); Afternoon (Apr 22)
Summary: On the night of April 21, witness Vassiliki F. encountered a strange woman on the streets — large protruding eyes, a high forehead, an unusually thin waist, dressed in old-fashioned gray clothing over transparent trousers, leading what appeared to be a small dog that was actually a piece of shadow hovering near the ground on a transparent cord. The woman glared and vanished when questioned. The next afternoon, word spread that an aluminum, hut-shaped craft had landed nearby; a shepherd saw incredibly ugly dwarfs through its windows, including one with an animal’s head. A dwarf emerged holding a golden plate; the same strange woman reappeared, the dwarf bowed to her, and she filled the plate with dirt before both returned inside. The craft then departed with a loud bang. [Full Report]
Source: Panayotis Skayannis
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
A Month Where the Strangest Cases Never Touched Military Radar
April 1953’s military record is solid but comparatively ordinary for this archive by now — an F-94 intercept over Fukuoka, an extreme-speed radar chase over Lake Superior, a formation of metallic discs outmaneuvering a C-47 over Nevada. What sets the month apart is how much of its most memorable material sits entirely outside that record: a childhood abduction account from rural Minnesota, a contactee’s doorstep meeting with a self-described visitor from Ganymede in Brazil, and a two-day Greek account of a recurring strange woman and a landed craft full of dwarfs, closer in tone to folklore than to a Blue Book file.
One entry deserves a specific caution rather than excitement: the thin “crashed disc” claim attached to Fort Monmouth, New Jersey this month is a separate, far less substantiated story from that base’s well-known 1951 radar case, and the two shouldn’t be read as the same event.
“He tells Kraspedon that he hails from Ganymede, one of the moons of Jupiter.”
— Dino Kraspedon, “My Contacts with The Flying Saucers,” April 1953
