August 1947 — four cases: the widely-witnessed St. Louis softball game sighting, R.L. Johannis's Villa Santina entity encounter, a shepherd's Tiana, Italy sighting, and Aubrey Brook's Rock Garden, California heart-shaped objects. thinkaboutitdocs.com.
1947: August UFO|UAP & Entity Sightings Archive
August 1947’s standout case unfolded in front of 25 witnesses at a St. Louis softball game — two full teams of aviation ground instructors and mechanic students watching nine discs flip in unison at 25,000 feet, arguably the best-witnessed daylight sighting of the entire postwar wave. The month also carries a genuine correction owed from this archive’s own recent work: the Villa Santina, Italy encounter — Italian artist R.L. Johannis’s landed disc and two small green-skinned beings — is correctly dated August 14, 1947, and was misdated July 23 on this archive’s July Part 3 page. That page has been flagged for correction; this is the case’s proper home. One entry, the “Star Elder” New Mexico crash claim, is sourced only to a popular conspiracy author and carries no independent corroboration.
Date: Sometime in August, 1947
Location: Danforth, Illinois
Time: Unknown
Summary: An object found on an Illinois farm was labeled a hoax by Col. McCoy of Air Materiel Command; the object was neither a crashed disc nor, per later research, a portion of a Project Mogul balloon train.
Source: Undocumented Source Status: INSUFFICIENT DATA — no primary citation preserved; the “not a Mogul balloon” framing appears to be a later editorial addition responding to the 1994 Air Force Mogul explanation for Roswell, since Mogul was not public knowledge in 1947.
Date: August, 1947
Location: Italy
Time: Unknown
Summary: Undocumented — entry preserved a photograph reference with no accompanying case detail.
Source: Undocumented
Date: 1947: Saranac Lake, New York
Date: 1947: Metal Found in ‘Disc’ Probe Reported On Plane — Article
Date: August 4, 1947
Location: Northwest of Bethel, Alaska
Time: Sunset
Summary: Pilot Capt. Jack Peck and copilot Vince Daly, flying a DC-3, saw a smooth-surfaced black object larger than their aircraft, with no visible means of propulsion, cross their flight path at 500-1,000 feet. They averted a collision, then turned in pursuit at 170 mph, but the object outran them, disappearing to the northwest at an estimated 500 mph.
Source: FOIA; Project 1947; FUFOR Index (BBU)
Date: August 4, 1947
Location: 10 miles northwest of Boston, Massachusetts
Time: 16:00
Summary: Pan Am airliner pilot Powell and navigator White saw a bright orange or deep-gold, cigarette-shaped (or elliptical) object, roughly 15 feet long and 2-3 feet wide, flying at 150-175 mph, 7,000 feet, heading east at approximately 110° magnetic.
Source: Project 1947; McDonald list; FOIA; FUFOR Index (BBU)
Date: August 8, 1947
Location: Modesto, California
Time: 22:00
Summary: A 9-year-old witness, awakened by his grandmother when they saw a bright bluish light behind their cottage, ran outside and saw a large, disc-shaped object hovering overhead, ringed with multi-colored lights. His next memory was waking up again; the vegetable garden behind the house had suddenly dried out entirely, ashen and dead, and he had sunburned skin and a small puncture wound on his head.
Source: National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC) Source Status: NUFORC entries are self-submitted, undated-at-collection recollections rather than field-investigated cases; retained with that caveat.
Date: August 9, 1947
Location: Rock Garden, California
Time: Unknown
Summary: Aubrey V. Brook repeatedly shot at a flight of roughly twenty white airborne objects, which he asserted were shaped like Valentine hearts. His attack was not effective, likely because the objects were several thousand feet above him.
Source: Undocumented
Date: August 11, 1947
Location: St. Louis, Missouri
Time: Afternoon
Case Status: Unexplained
Summary: During a softball game on the outskirts of St. Louis, a veteran commercial pilot (later an A&E mechanic with aviation inspection authorization) noticed dark specks growing in the sky, moving in a vertical V formation, one leading with others stepped above and below in trail. The objects resolved into nine discs, dark on one side and light-colored on the other, approaching at an estimated 25,000 feet and roughly 1,000 mph across a cloudless, cobalt-blue sky, flipping in unison every two seconds. Both softball teams and roughly 25 spectators watched. One team consisted entirely of aircraft ground instructors; the other, pilot and aircraft mechanic students. [Full Report]
Source: Loren E. Gross, UFOs: A History — 1947 Source Status: VERIFIED — roughly 25 witnesses, a substantial share of them aviation-trained (ground instructors, pilot and mechanic students), making this one of the largest and most professionally qualified witness pools of the entire 1947 wave.
Date: August 13, 1947
Location: New Mexico desert (unspecified)
Time: Unknown
Summary: Six Native American men reportedly discovered a still-smoldering, metallic disc-shaped object that had crashed in the desert, containing an injured but living, undescribed alien being. Hearing approaching military troops, the men reportedly kept the being from capture, taking it home; they said it communicated with them through a crystal device that conveyed images, and they called the being the “Star Elder.”
Source: Jim Marrs, Alien Agenda Source Status: INSUFFICIENT DATA — Jim Marrs was a popular conspiracy-genre author rather than a field investigator; this archive could not locate any named witness, tribal source, or independent corroboration for this account beyond his book. Retained as a documented published claim, not as an established event.
Date: August 13, 1947
Location: 40 miles southwest of Twin Falls, at Salmon Dam, Idaho
Time: 09:30
Summary: County Commissioner L.W. Hawkins and Mr. Brown, while fishing, saw two disc-shaped objects, about 6 feet in diameter, reflecting light and making the echo of a motor, at 4,000-6,000 feet, flying at high speed.
Source: FOIA (BBU)
Date: August 13, 1947: Disc Zooms Down Snake River Canyon, Idaho
Date: August 14, 1947
Location: Harmon Field, Newfoundland, Canada
Time: 10:40
Summary: Three AAF airmen with the 147th AACS Squadron saw two small, crescent-shaped objects pass over them on a zigzag path at roughly twice jet speed (an estimated 1,200 mph), heading west at about 1,200 feet, disappearing into clouds; a few seconds later, the same or a similar object emerged from the clouds and continued west.
Source: FOIA (BBU)
Date: August 14, 1947
Location: 5 miles south of Placerville, California
Time: 16:00
Summary: Insurance adjuster Switzer saw a metallic, highly-polished, chromium-surfaced object, 4-6 feet wide and 10-14 inches thick, rounded slightly on top and larger toward the front, leaving a white trail, at 500-1,000 feet, traveling at high speed.
Source: FOIA (BBU)
Date: August 14, 1947
Location: Near the Chiarso creek, Villa Santina, Carnia (Friuli), Italy
Time: Approximately 09:00
Summary: Italian artist R.L. Johannis, out painting, noticed a 30-foot disc-shaped object that had landed nearby, with two child-sized beings, roughly 3 feet tall, standing alongside it. The beings wore dark blue coveralls with a red belt and collar and spherical helmets over oversized heads; their greenish faces showed large, plum-colored eyes and clawed, eight-fingered hands. Johannis hailed the beings, which may have read as a hostile gesture — one touched its belt and projected a vapor that knocked him dazed to the ground. The beings approached, picked up his easel (noted as taller than either of them), and returned to the craft, which rose, hovered, and disappeared. [Full Report]
Source: Clypeus (Centro Studi Clipeologici, Turin), May 1964; Antonio Ribera, El Gran Enigma de los Platillos Volantes; Flying Saucer Review Vol. 13, No. 1
Editorial note (date correction): This case was previously misdated as “July 23, 1947” on this archive’s July 1947 (Part 3) page, apparently conflated with the separate José Higgins Brazil case, which genuinely occurred July 23. Every source located for Villa Santina — the original 1964 Clypeus account, Ribera’s book, and Flying Saucer Review — confirms August 14, 1947 as the correct date. The July archive entry should be corrected; this is the case’s proper chronological placement. Separately worth noting for any future full-report revision: several independent sources identify “R.L. Johannis” as very likely a pen name of Luigi Rapuzzi, an Italian science-fiction novelist — relevant biographical context not currently reflected in this site’s full report.
Date: August 14, 1947
Location: Tiana, Italy
Time: Night
Summary: An elderly shepherd saw a large, fiery orange-colored object with multicolored lights land about 400 meters away in a field. An opening appeared in the object, and a small humanoid emerged, walked around the craft, and picked up some stones from the ground before re-entering; the object then shot up into the sky at incredible speed. Burnt vegetation and rocks were found at the site.
Source: Itacat Editorial note: Distinct from the Villa Santina case above despite sharing the same date and country — different location, witness, time of day, and specific details (a shepherd at night versus an artist in daylight; stone-collection versus a vapor-weapon incident). Retained as a separate entry.
Date: August 15-20 (approximate), 1947
Location: Rapid City Air Base, South Dakota
Time: Shortly after dark
Summary: Major Hammer, sitting in the parking lot near the flight line, saw to the northwest about 12 elliptical objects, roughly the span of a B-29 (140 feet), with a yellow-white luminous glow, in a tight diamond formation, approaching in a shallow descent, leveling off at about 5,000 feet at 300-400 mph, then making a gentle 110° turn to the right about 4 miles away and climbing to the southwest, accelerating rapidly. No sound or trail; duration roughly one minute.
Source: FOIA (BBU)
Date: August 18, 1947
Location: Near Mountain Home, Idaho
Time: Noon
Summary: The pilot and copilot of United Airlines Flight 147 saw two “skeet target”-shaped objects flying beneath the plane.
Source: Project 1947 (BBU)
Date: August 19, 1947
Location: Twin Falls, Idaho
Time: 21:30
Summary: Housing Authority Executive Director Hedstrom saw a large number (approximately 55) of luminous objects in horizontal flight, resembling electric lights, headed northeast at tremendous speed.
Source: FOIA (BBU)
Date: August 28, 1947
Location: Fukuoka, Japan
Time: Unknown
Summary: The MEW radar station at Fukuoka picked up a target in orbit at a range of 26-30 nautical miles, on a bearing of 20 to 30 degrees. The target then took a heading of 023 degrees and was tracked to a range of 54 nautical miles, where it faded. The target was in a climb on this outbound course, in weather conditions that would have required the climb to be flown on instruments. Speed: 390-415 knots; altitude: 1,500 feet.
Source: Item “b” from SECRET letter; Fran Ridge; Jan Aldrich Editorial note: This is the identical incident already fully documented in this archive’s Far East Radar Pick-ups full report (item “b” of Col. James F. Olive’s SECRET Air Intelligence Division memorandum). Retained here as a cross-reference rather than retold.
Date: Late August, 1947
Location: Alamogordo (Holloman) Army Air Field, New Mexico
Time: Unknown
Summary: AMC Watson Labs Project Mogul communications officer Lt. H.G. Markley, watching two balloons with radar reflectors to the southeast through 10x binoculars, saw a round, white object traveling at an “unprecedented rate of speed” in horizontal flight, south to north, several thousand feet over the tops of the Sacramento Mountains. This case was, per this archive’s source, falsely explained by the Air Force as false radar targets, despite no radar observation having actually been involved in the sighting.
Source: FOIA; Mary Castner/CUFOS; Loren Gross, UFOs: A History, Aug-Dec 1947 Supplement, p. 28 (BBU #83)
Date: August (late), 1947
Location: Near Vaughn, New Mexico
Time: 20:00
Summary: A basketball-sized object exploded near a colonel.
Source: Undocumented
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
August 1947 — A Softball Game, Villa Santina, and a Correction Owed
The St. Louis softball game sighting deserves recognition as one of the best-witnessed cases of the entire wave: roughly 25 people, a significant share of them aviation professionals in training, watching nine discs flip in unison across a clear afternoon sky. This revision also corrects a mistake made in this archive’s own recent work: the Villa Santina, Italy case was misdated to July 23 on the July 1947 (Part 3) page — likely conflated with the separate José Higgins Brazil case, which did occur that date. Every primary source for Villa Santina confirms August 14, 1947, and it belongs here.
“At arm’s length the discs appeared to be the size of a grape.”
Loren E. Gross, describing the August 11, 1947 St. Louis softball game sighting, witnessed by roughly 25 people.
