THINK ABOUTIT

UFO|UAP & ENTITY ENCOUNTER REPORT

1955: Plattsburgh Air Force Base, New York: A Towering Figure in FBI Files

A 19-year-old airman on night duty at Plattsburgh Air Force Base saw a blue-white flash and an elliptical object outside his post around 4 AM in September 1955 — and moments later found himself face to face with a figure so tall it had to stoop through a doorway taller than most houses. He fainted; when he came to, both the object and the visitor were gone. Preserved not in UFO-club literature but in FBI files, this is one of the more unusual on-base intrusion cases in the archive.

Date: About September 1955 (exact date not recorded)

Sighting Time: 4:00 AM

Day/Night: Night

Location: Plattsburgh Air Force Base, New York

Urban or Rural: Military installation

No. of Entity(‘s): 1

Entity Type: Humanoid (of extraordinary height)

Entity Description: A man-like figure taller than a 7 ft doorway, requiring him to stoop to look in; wore long black boots; no further physical description survives — the witness fainted shortly after the encounter began

Hynek Classification: CE-III (Close Encounter, Third Kind — occupant observed at close range)

Duration: Brief — likely under a minute of conscious observation before the witness fainted

No. of Object(s): 1

Description of the Object(s): An elliptical object seen on the ground outside, first announced by a blue-white flash

Shape/Size/Color of Object(s): Elliptical; size and color beyond the initial blue-white flash not further described

Distance to Object(s): Visible through a doorway/window from the witness’s duty post; the entity itself approached to directly outside a second door

Height & Speed: Object was on the ground when seen; no speed or departure data recorded, as both object and entity were gone by the time the witness recovered from fainting

Number of Witnesses: 1, unnamed, age 19, on night duty

Special Features/Characteristics: A second door was “flung violently open” by the approaching figure, suggesting considerable force or size; the entity’s extraordinary height (taller than a 7 ft doorway) is the case’s most distinctive detail; the witness’s fainting cut the direct observation short, limiting what could be recorded

Case Status: Preserved in FBI files rather than through UFO-organization channels — an unusual sourcing path suggesting the incident was reported and handled through military/federal channels rather than civilian UFO investigation networks

Source: Edward McShane for the FBI

Summary/Description: A 19-year-old airman on night duty at Plattsburgh Air Force Base, New York, around September 1955, saw a blue-white flash and an elliptical object on the ground outside his post at about 4:00 AM. Frightened, he closed the door he had been watching through. A second door was then violently flung open, and a man-like figure taller than the 7 ft doorway was seen stooping to look inside, wearing long black boots. The witness fainted; when he recovered, both the figure and the object were gone.

Related Cases: None identified

Detailed Report

Around September 1955, at approximately 4:00 AM, a 19-year-old airman on night duty at Plattsburgh Air Force Base in upstate New York saw a blue-white flash outside, followed by an elliptical object resting on the ground nearby. Alarmed, he closed the door through which he had been observing the scene — a natural, defensive response to an unexplained intrusion on a military installation.

Moments later, a second door on the premises was flung open with considerable force. Standing in the doorway, stooping to look inside, was a man-like figure whose height exceeded the doorway’s own 7 ft clearance — meaning the entity stood at minimum somewhat over 7 ft tall, and possibly considerably more, given how far it needed to bend to see through the opening. The only clothing detail the witness retained was a pair of long black boots. Overwhelmed, the airman fainted. By the time he regained consciousness, both the towering figure and the elliptical object outside had vanished without further trace.

Unlike most entries in this archive, the case survives through documentation credited to the FBI (via Edward McShane) rather than a civilian UFO research organization — suggesting the incident was reported and processed through official military or federal channels given its occurrence on an active Air Force installation, rather than surfacing first through UFO enthusiast networks.

RESEARCHER’S NOTES

The Plattsburgh Intrusion — 1955 New York and an Unusual Sourcing Path

• Federal Rather Than Civilian Sourcing. This case’s documentation trail runs through the FBI rather than a UFO club or magazine — a genuinely different provenance from most 1955 archive entries, and one that raises interesting (unresolved) questions about how military and federal agencies handled base-security incidents with UFO characteristics during this period.
• An On-Base Security Incident. An unidentified object and an entity of extraordinary size breaching what should have been a secured Air Force facility, however briefly, is a different category of event than a civilian roadside sighting — the incident’s proximity to sensitive military infrastructure likely explains why it was documented federally rather than through civilian channels.
• The Fainting Cuts the Account Short. The witness’s fainting, while an understandable human response, means the most information-rich moment of the encounter — direct observation of the entity — produced almost no descriptive detail beyond height and boots. This is a genuine limitation on what the case can tell us, not a sourcing failure.
• Extraordinary but Underspecified Height. “Taller than a 7 ft doorway” is a vivid, concrete detail, but it’s also the case’s only real entity description — no face, build, or other clothing is recorded, leaving the entity’s overall appearance almost entirely to the reader’s imagination beyond its scale.

Plattsburgh stands out less for the richness of its entity description — which is minimal — than for its unusual sourcing through federal rather than civilian channels and its setting on an active military installation. It is a brief but distinctive case, worth reading alongside the archive’s other military-base entity encounters.

“A man taller than the 7-foot doorway was seen stooping and looking in.”
— Edward McShane, FBI file, Plattsburgh Air Force Base, New York, September 1955