June 24, 1947 — Charles Kastl watched nine discs near Joliet, Illinois flip in perfect unison with no visible link between them. thinkaboutitdocs.com.
THINK ABOUTIT UFO|UAP SIGHTINGS REPORT
1947: Charles Kastl’s Joliet, Illinois Sighting: Nine Discs Flipping in Unison
On the same afternoon Kenneth Arnold’s sighting was unfolding over Washington State, more than 1,500 miles away in rural Illinois, a 60-year-old railroad veteran named Charles Kastl was walking to work when he looked up and saw about nine discs speeding across the sky. What struck him wasn’t just their speed — “faster than anything I’ve ever seen,” he’d later say — but their coordination: no visible connection linked the objects, yet when the lead disc flipped, every other disc in the group flipped with it, in perfect unison, as though mechanically bound together. It’s one of several independent accounts from June 24, 1947 that add up to a single extraordinary day in the record.
Date: June 24, 1947
Sighting Time: 13:50
Day/Night: Day
Location: 10-12 miles east of Joliet, Illinois
Urban or Rural: Rural
No. of Entity(‘s): Not Applicable
Entity Type: Not Applicable
Entity Description: Not Applicable
Hynek Classification: DD (Daylight Disc)
Duration: Not specified in available sourcing
No. of Object(s): Approximately nine
Description of the Object(s): Speeding discs at high altitude, moving in apparent unison with no visible connecting link between them
Shape/Size/Color of Object(s): Disc-shaped; specific size and color not given in available sourcing
Distance to Object(s): High altitude; exact distance not specified
Height & Speed: High altitude; speed described by the witness as faster than anything he had ever seen, heading roughly north-south
Number of Witnesses: One (Charles Kastl)
Special Features/Characteristics: Synchronized formation movement — when the lead disc flipped, every other disc flipped in the same instant, despite no visible mechanical or physical link between them
Case Status: Unexplained
Source: The Cedar Rapids Gazette, June 28, 1947; The UFO Evidence, Section XII
Source Status: VERIFIED — a named, credentialed witness (a 38-year railroad veteran, a profession requiring close attention to timing and mechanical behavior) with a contemporaneous newspaper report published four days after the sighting.
Summary/Description: Charles Kastl, a 60-year-old, 38-year veteran of the Elgin, Joliet and Eastern Railroad, walking to work near Joliet, Illinois, saw about nine discs at high altitude and speed, moving with no visible connecting link yet flipping in perfect unison when the lead disc changed orientation.
Related Cases: Occurred the same day as Kenneth Arnold’s Mount Rainier sighting (documented in its own full report on this archive), Fred Johnson’s Mount Adams sighting, and other June 24, 1947 cases near Pendleton, Oregon and Diamond Gap, Washington — see this archive’s June 1947 monthly index for the full cluster of same-day sightings.
Detailed Report
At 13:50 on June 24, 1947, Charles Kastl, a 60-year-old, 38-year veteran of the Elgin, Joliet and Eastern Railroad, was walking to work along a route roughly ten to twelve miles east of Joliet, Illinois. Looking up, he saw approximately nine disc-shaped objects moving across the sky at high altitude and, in his own words, “going faster than anything I’ve ever seen.”
What distinguished Kastl’s account from a simple fast-moving-lights report was the objects’ coordinated behavior. He observed no visible link, tether, or mechanical connection between the nine discs — yet when the lead object in the group flipped its orientation, every other disc flipped in the same instant, as if the entire formation were mechanically joined. The objects continued on a roughly north-south heading at high altitude before passing out of view. No further detail on their ultimate destination survives in the sourcing located for this report.
Kastl’s sighting occurred on the same afternoon as Kenneth Arnold’s now-famous Mount Rainier encounter, more than 1,500 miles to the west, and the same day as Fred Johnson’s Mount Adams sighting and several other cases this archive documents on its June 1947 page. The account was published in the Cedar Rapids Gazette on June 28, 1947, four days after the sighting, and is preserved in The UFO Evidence compilation.
RESEARCHER’S NOTES
Why This Case Is Taken Seriously
- A named, credentialed witness: Kastl’s 38 years with the railroad indicate a profession built around precise observation of timing, mechanical behavior, and coordinated movement — relevant context for a report centered on synchronized motion.
- A prompt contemporaneous report: Published in the Cedar Rapids Gazette just four days after the sighting, rather than surfacing decades later through secondary literature.
- A specific, unusual behavioral detail: The synchronized-flip description is precise and mechanically odd enough that it reads as an observation rather than an embellishment — the kind of detail that’s harder to invent convincingly than a generic “fast lights in the sky” account.
- Part of a documented same-day cluster: Kastl’s sighting sits alongside several other independently sourced accounts from June 24, 1947, widely separated geographically, each adding weight to the pattern without directly corroborating any single account’s specific details.
- What the record does not include: A second witness, a photograph, or a precise duration or altitude estimate. Kastl’s account rests on a single, credible witness and a prompt press report, not corroborating physical evidence.
Kastl’s account is a secondary case in this archive’s June 24 cluster, not an anchor case on the scale of Arnold’s or Johnson’s — but the specificity of the synchronized-flip detail, paired with a named witness and a prompt press report, earns it a place as a documented, Unexplained sighting rather than a footnote.
“Going faster than anything I’ve ever seen.”
Charles Kastl, quoted in the Cedar Rapids Gazette, June 28, 1947, describing the June 24 sighting near Joliet, Illinois.
