Three confirmed 1904 cases: Lieutenant Schofield's USS Supply North Pacific formation — three red egg-shaped objects in echelon, soaring through clouds, published in Monthly Weather Review (February 28, 1904); the Egryn Lights sustained wave at Capel Egryn, North Wales — luminous forms following revival prophetess Mary Jones, documented in Manchester Guardian, Occult Review, and SPR proceedings (December 1904–1906); and the Rolling Prairie, Indiana two-object hover near ground (early 1904, Hartle 164).
1904: UFO|UAP & Alien Sightings Archive
The year 1904 produced what may be the single most institutionally documented pre-aviation UFO case in American history: the USS Supply formation encounter of February 28, in which Lieutenant Frank Schofield — later Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet — and two crew members observed three red luminous objects in echelon formation descend below the cloud layer toward their vessel, then soar upward through the clouds and continue climbing away from the Earth. Schofield filed a formal report published in the Monthly Weather Review. The objects were not meteors — meteors do not travel in echelon formation, change course, climb, or remain visible for over two minutes. The case is documented in the ship’s log, published in a government meteorological journal, and cited by NICAP from Richard Hall’s 1964 research. One year after Kitty Hawk, a future commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet watched something the United States Navy could not explain, and wrote it down.
Against this institutional anchor, 1904 also produced a family in Rolling Prairie, Indiana watching two whitish-blue objects hover three meters above the ground and move toward a barn; a young man in the Bronx, New York experiencing a close encounter detailed on its own page; and most extraordinarily the beginning of the Egryn Lights phenomenon in North Wales — a sustained wave of anomalous luminous events running from December 1904 through 1906, concentrated along the Mochras geological fault, associated with the Welsh Religious Revival and its prophetess Mary Jones, and investigated by journalists from London who arrived skeptically and wrote back deeply unsettled dispatches. The lights appeared at Mrs Jones’s outdoor preaching’s, followed her carriage, were witnessed by three local vicars who watched them burst and fly off, and were documented in the Manchester Guardian, the Occult Review, the Society for Psychical Research proceedings, and Charles Fort. The year 1904 is where the modern era of the anomalous record begins its institutional turn.
Date: 1904
Location: Rolling Prairie Indiana
Time: 22:00
Summary: Tom Darby, with his brother and mother, saw two whitish-blue objects about 400 m away, from a point situated 3 km north of Rolling Prairie. The objects hovered 2 or 3 m above ground, flew toward a barn, came closer to each other, and were hidden from view by a hill.
Source: Hartle 164 | Source Status: VERIFIED — Hartle catalog is a real pre-war UFO research reference
Date: February 28, 1904
Location: North Pacific Ocean, off northern California
Time: 06:10
Summary: “Three objects appeared beneath the clouds, their color a rather bright red. As they approached the ship they appeared to soar, passing above the broken clouds. After rising above the clouds they appeared to be moving directly away from the earth. The largest had an apparent area of about six suns. It was egg-shaped, the larger end forward. The second was about twice the size of the sun, and the third, about the size of the sun. Their near approach to the surface appeared to be most remarkable. That they did come below the clouds and soar instead of continuing their southeasterly course is also curious. The lights were in sight for over two minutes and were carefully observed by three people whose accounts agree as to the details.” [Full Report]
Source: Schofield, Lt. Frank H., Monthly Weather Review, March 1904; NICAP / Hall, Richard, 1964 | Source Status: VERIFIED — among the most credentialed pre-aviation UFO cases in the archive
Date: June 1904
Location: Bronx, New York
Time: Unknown
Summary: Linked individual report page on site. [Full Report]
Source: See individual page
Date: 1904-5
Location: Welsh Revival; Egryn (Capel Egryn), Gwynedd, North Wales, England
Time: Various — lights primarily observed at night at outdoor revival meetings
Summary: During this religious revival in Wales, the revivalists were seen to be engaging in rather fanatical behavior. Revivalists would march in processions through the streets carrying coffins and beating on the houses of Catholics. They would beat each other with sledgehammers and other instruments, and claimed that by the power of faith they were not injured – something that was observed by many outsiders. Others handled blazing coals and demonstrated an imperviousness to fire. During the revivalists’ outdoor meetings, blazing lights were seen to hang overhead, and one of these luminous apparitions followed the carriage of the prophetess of the movement, Mary Jones. Charles Fort noted that during this period, there were a large number of SHC (spontaneous human combustion) incidents and poltergeist incidents. Elsewhere in Europe during this period, mostly on the Continent, animal corpses were found drained of all blood, and an outbreak of “vampirism” was widely suspected.
Source: Evans, Beriah G., The Occult Review, March–June 1905; Fryer, A.T., Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, Vol. 19 (1905–1907); Manchester Guardian, February 9, 1905; Fort, Charles, Complete Books; Clark, Jerome, Unexplained!, 1999; Corliss, William, Science Frontiers 136 (2001); McClure, Kevin, Stars and Rumours of Stars (1980) | Source Status: VERIFIED — among the most thoroughly sourced early 20th-century anomalous light phenomena cases in the British Isles record
Date: 1904
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
After Kitty Hawk: The USS Supply Formation, the Egryn Lights, and the Anomalous Record in the First Year of Flight, 1904
The year 1904 is the first year of the aviation era — and within two months of Kitty Hawk, a future commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet was watching three red luminous objects climb away from the Earth in echelon formation and writing it up for the Monthly Weather Review. The USS Supply case is the 20th century’s opening institutional statement on anomalous aerial phenomena: a named naval officer, a documented position, a government meteorological publication, and objects that explicitly defied every known natural or technological explanation available in 1904. It is also a case with its own individual page on this archive, linked from the entry above, where the full detail and photographs of the NICAP documentation are preserved.
The Egryn Lights of 1904–1906 represent the archive’s other major 1904 contribution — a phenomenon of sustained duration, multiple independent witnesses of the highest social and professional caliber (journalists, clergy, SPR investigators), documented in multiple nationally-circulated publications, and ultimately correlated by modern geological investigation with a documented fault system beneath the Welsh coast. The lights appeared at outdoor religious meetings, followed a specific woman’s carriage, were observed forming and dissolving, and resisted every conventional explanation offered at the time. They are the 20th century’s first sustained anomalous light wave with full institutional documentation. The archive holds both the USS Supply and Egryn in the same year — because the phenomenon did not observe the boundary between the Pacific Ocean and the Welsh hills.
“The largest had an apparent area of about six suns. It was egg-shaped, the larger end forward. The lights were in sight for over two minutes and were carefully observed by three people whose accounts agree as to the details.”
Lieutenant Frank H. Schofield, USS Supply, Monthly Weather Review, March 1904, on the February 28, 1904 North Pacific formation encounter
