August 1948 — three cases: the Hamel, Minnesota landing between two boys, the Army CIC's ground trace investigation that followed, and the Phoenix, Arizona four-disc sighting. thinkaboutitdocs.com.
1948: August UFO|UAP & Entity Sightings Archive
August 1948‘s standout case is also one of the most rigorously investigated of the entire postwar era: on August 11 or 17, two young boys in Hamel, Minnesota watched a small, silvery, plate-shaped object drop out of the sky and land eight feet away from them — and a U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps special agent, dispatched to investigate, personally found and measured a two-foot circle of ground showing signs of extreme pressure. This month also carries a duplicated case: an Air France airliner crew’s sighting of a massive cigar-shaped object over the South China Sea appears twice on this page under two different date labels, both describing the same 90-degree turn into cloud cover.
Date: August 1948
Location: Burlington, Wisconsin
Time: Unknown
Summary: One object was observed by one witness (M. Amoreaux).
Source: George M. Eberhart, A Geo-Bibliography of Anomalies, Greenwood Press, Westport, 1980, ISBN 0-313-21337-2
Date: August 1948
Location: Longview, Texas
Time: Unknown
Summary: An object was observed at close range by a female witness (D. Gregg).
Source: George M. Eberhart, A Geo-Bibliography of Anomalies, Greenwood Press, Westport, 1980, ISBN 0-313-21337-2
Date: August 1948
Location: Chicago, Illinois
Time: 06:00
Summary: A 12-meter-long ovoid object with roughly 1-meter windows, glowing and sparkling, landed near a highway before taking off toward the southeast, observed by two experienced male truck-driver witnesses for over three minutes.
Source: Larry Hatch
Date: August 1948
Location: Martigues, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, France
Time: Unknown
Summary: A luminous, cigar-shaped object with flashing lights along its sides stopped in flight, then shot rapidly to the southeast; observed by numerous witnesses for five minutes, and investigated by police.
Source: Larry Hatch
Date: August 1, 1948
Location: South China Sea, between Hong Kong and Saigon, Vietnam; also Clark Field, Philippines
Time: Morning
Summary: Everyone aboard an Air France airliner flying over the South China Sea saw a huge, metallic, cigar-shaped object heading south, which then made a 90-degree turn into the clouds. Later the same day at Clark Field in the Philippines, American military observers independently sighted a wingless, cigar-shaped object with a row of lights, visible for five minutes.
Source: Jacques Vallée, Anatomy of a Phenomenon, p. 54; Donald E. Keyhoe, Flying Saucers Are Real, p. 72; Aimé Michel, The Truth About Flying Saucers, Pyramid T1647, New York, 1967
Editorial note: This entry was previously listed twice on this page — once dated “Aug. 1, 1948” and once as “Early August, 1948” — both describing the identical airliner sighting of a huge metallic cigar-shaped object over the same general route, making the same 90-degree turn into clouds. Merged here into a single entry.
Date: August 2, 1948
Location: Liberty, Indiana
Time: Unknown
Summary: A reported encounter with monstrous beings, alongside a reported cattle mutilation.
Source: George M. Eberhart, A Geo-Bibliography of Anomalies, Greenwood Press, Westport, 1980, ISBN 0-313-21337-2
Source Status: INSUFFICIENT DATA — a single bibliographic citation with no further detail located; no witness name, investigator, or independent account found.
Date: August 2, 1948
Location: Columbus, Ohio
Time: Unknown
Summary: No further detail preserved in the surviving source material.
Source: McDonald list; FUFOR Index (BBU)
Date: August 3, 1948
Location: Portland, Oregon
Time: Unknown
Summary: One object was observed by a male witness (Jensen).
Source: Doubt Magazine
Date: August 3, 1948
Location: 25 km northwest of Moscow, USSR
Time: 08:00
Summary: A long, wingless, metallic cylinder flew at very high altitude, moving silently and very fast toward the northeast.
Source: Project Blue Book, August 1948; Larry Hatch, U computer database, case 1338, citing Loren E. Gross, UFOs: A History, 1948, p. 48
Date: August 4, 1948
Location: North Powder, Oregon
Time: Unknown
Summary: No further detail preserved in the surviving source material.
Source: Undocumented (BBU)
Date: August 11 or 17, 1948
Location: Hamel, Minnesota
Time: 12:00-12:15
Case Status: Unexplained
Summary: Two Leuer boys, playing outside, saw a round, dull gray or silver object, roughly 2 feet in diameter and 1 foot thick, resembling inverted plates, approach from the northwest and drop down between them from a height of about 12 feet, landing about 8 feet from one of the boys with a metallic clinking sound and a train-whistle noise. It spun once, shot up 20 feet, made the whistle noise again, hovered, then shot up to 30 feet, maneuvering to avoid phone lines and trees, before flying away to the northeast. CIC Special Agent Capt. Charles L. Victor, 113th CIC Detachment, investigating afterward, found a 2-foot-diameter area of ground showing signs of extreme pressure. [Full Report]
Source: Magonia 66 Source Status: VERIFIED — named military investigator, official Counter Intelligence Corps involvement, and independently documented physical ground trace evidence.
Date: August 12, 1948
Location: Barkarby Airfield, Sweden
Time: Around 10:00
Summary: One object, roughly 40 feet across, was observed at an airfield by one witness (Wrangel).
Source: Karl Gösta Rehn
Date: August 15, 1948
Location: Deer Lodge, Montana
Time: Daytime
Summary: One object was observed by three male witnesses (Thompson).
Source: Kenneth Arnold, The Coming of the Saucers, Amherst, 1952
Date: August 15, 1948
Location: Phoenix, Arizona
Time: Early afternoon, approximately 13:00
Summary: Many people witnessed four silver, disc-shaped objects flying fast from east to west, which then flipped in sequence; three of the objects were seen again later. Observed in the city by a male witness (W. Andrus) for 11 minutes.
Source: George Eberhart, A Geo-Bibliography of Anomalies, p. 208, citing MUFON; Larry Hatch, U computer database, case #1341, citing Ronald D. Story, Encyclopedia of UFOs, p. 17
Date: August 15, 1948
Location: Mühlviertel, Austria
Time: Night
Summary: Several discs were observed at a mountain by numerous witnesses for over one minute, moving rapidly south at very high speed before turning back rapidly to the north.
Source: Larry Hatch
Date: August 18, 1948
Location: Racine, Wisconsin
Time: 03:15
Summary: One yellow-green, round object was observed in a residential area by one male witness (Tiede) for six seconds, moving rapidly southwest, then south, before disappearing into a group of cumulus clouds after about five seconds.
Source: Edward Sullivan, CSI/LA investigation files
Date: August 18, 1948: Near Lazarevskoye, Sochi, Russia
Date: August 22, 1948
Location: Deer Lodge, Montana
Time: 13:00
Summary: One object was observed by three male witnesses (Mohan) for two minutes.
Source: Kenneth Arnold, The Coming of the Saucers, Amherst, 1952
Date: August 25, 1948
Location: Hayden Lake, Idaho
Time: 16:00
Summary: Two objects were observed by one witness (Roberts) for 42 seconds.
Source: NICAP
Date: August 29, 1948
Location: Maplewood, Ohio
Time: 05:03
Summary: Farmer Niswenger saw a large, silvery sphere rise from a wooded area and hover above his farm, dropping a silvery substance that disintegrated before touching the ground.
Source: Jacques Vallée, Magonia 67; FUFOR Index (BBU)
Date: August 31, 1948
Location: Mint Canyon, California
Time: 00:20
Summary: A large, unidentified object was sighted flying at 50,000 feet, trailing a column of flames; also reportedly seen the same night at Muroc Field (now Edwards AFB).
Source: Larry Hatch
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
August 1948 — Two Boys, a Ground Trace, and an Army Investigator
The Hamel, Minnesota case stands apart from nearly everything else on this month’s page: a small object descending directly between two children, an official U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps investigation, and a physical ground disturbance personally measured by the investigating agent. That combination of witness testimony, official military follow-up, and independently verifiable physical trace evidence is rare across this entire archive’s chronological record. This revision also merges a duplicate entry — the South China Sea Air France sighting appeared twice on this page under two different date labels, describing the identical event.
“An area 2 feet in diameter where the ground showed signs of extreme pressure.”
CIC Special Agent Capt. Charles L. Victor, 113th CIC Detachment, describing the physical trace found at the Hamel, Minnesota landing site, August 1948.
