DoW UAP - Release 1 38_143685_box_Incident_Summaries_101-172
38_143685_BOX_INCIDENT_SUMMARIES_101-172
- Source: https://www.war.gov/medialink/ufo/release_1/38_143685_box7_incident_summaries_101-172.pdf
- Release: PURSUE Release 01 (war.gov/UFO, 2026-05-08)
- Pages: 178
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DECLASSIFIED
Authority:
NND 917033
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SECRET
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SECRET
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SECRET
EXHIBIT #530 Op57 Secret Serial 00196P57 P/S
S-06200 dated 4-23-49
Subject: Flying Discs
REPORT FILED M-5 AIRCRAFT - UNIDENTIFIED
JONES
2-27-50
SECRET
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~~CONFIDENTIAL~~
~~SECRET~~ &
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CHECK-LIST - UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS
Incident # 101
- Date: 18 February 1948
- Time: 5:01 P.M.
- Location: Norcatur, Kansas
- Name of observer: M. R. Krehbiel account (taken from newspaper)
- Occupation of observer: Editor
- Address of observer: Norton, Kansas
- Place of observation: Norcatur, Kansas
- Number of objects: One
- Distance of object from observer: N/S
- Time in sight: N/S
- Altitude: 30 - 35 miles above earth [crossed out: SECRET]
- Speed: N/S
- Direction of flight: N/S
- Tactics: N/S
- Sound: One big explosion - "afterwards a lot of little explosions"
- Size: N/S
- Color: Bluish-white smoke smudge [crossed out: SECRET]
- Shape: Mushroom
- Odor detected: N/S
- Apparent construction: Meteor
- Exhaust trails: [crossed out: None] Bluish-white smoke smudge
- Weather conditions: N/S
- Effect on clouds: N/S
- Sketches or photographs: Photo of vapor trail left in sky by explosion
- Manner of disappearance: Disintegration
- Remarks: Oscar Monnig, of the Texas Observers, Amateur Astronomy, 1010 Morningside Drive, Ft. Worth, offers "tangible proof that the fireball
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of February 18 over northern Kansas was just that, inasmuch as meteorites have been recovered from it." There were found, beginning April 24, first several smaller fragments up to one of 4 1/2 pounds. Then a disturbed spot in a clover field led to the digging up of a piece of some 109 pounds embedded about two feet in the soil. The stone is what is termed as an "achondrite", a technical name for an unusual type of stony meteorite. It is reported to be of a type which will deteriorate rapidly.
A photograph of the trail of the meteor, made by amateur photographer Duane W. Wray of Norton, shows the vapor trail left in the sky by the explosion of a meteor which was seen in Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, and Nebraska. It was made at Wray's home, nine miles north of Norton, just four minutes after the meteor exploded. A smudge of blue-white smoke remained in the sky for an hour February 18th. This photograph is in file under Incident #101.
Further remarks are contained in supplement.
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101a
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101
EXHIBIT B
Statement taken from Leland Sammons
My name is Leland Sammons, and I live on a farm 14 miles west of Stockton and 1 mile north, off US 24.
On February 18 at about 5 P.M., I was standing near my hog-pen about 100' east of my house, when I heard the pheasants raising a disturbance and the chickens all rushed to the chicken-house. I looked around toward the house to see what was causing it and saw something hovering just above the house. I ran towardthe house, and it then lowered over the north end of the house and settled toward the ground. I was then very near it, approximately 6' when it stopped about level with my face, and just wobbled around for an instant, fire belching out of it and sucking back in. The thing was about 4' long, shaped something like a funnel. There was a pipe sticking out the back of it, and once as it wobbled around, the pipe was sticking right at my belly. Suddenly there was a lot of sparks showered from it, and the fire increased as if a fuse might have lighted, and it took off in a north-westerly direction very fast, gaining altitude as it went. My wife heard it leave and ran out where I stood, and we watched it go, leaving a trail of smoke all the way. Suddenly there was a great cloud of smoke in the sky, not more than 40 seconds after it left my yard, and in a few seconds or more, we heard an explosion. I then stepped off from my house to where it had been, and it was five steps. Yes, it was hot, I could feel the hear from it. Had I not been washing my car prior to the occurrence, wetting the ground, there would have been a bare spot in the yard where the thing started up because there was a great rush of fire from it when it left. It must have been quite high when it exploded.
Kenneth Hays, son of Floyd Hays, 14 miles east of Norton on US 36, at the Jct. of K-60, south side of highway. At about 5 to 5:30 P.M., not sure of time, was riding his horse in a pasture, when he heard something queer in the sky. Looking up to the south-west, he saw what appeared to him to be a rocket, just like he had seen during the war in Europe. It startled him, and he jumped off the horse. He then remounted, watched its course, almost on a level but losing altitude a little, and it then exploded with a big cloud of smoke, apparently over Norton, from where he was, south of Prairie View. He rode on toward home a ways, when suddenly the sound and jar of the explosion reached him. Mrs. Hays was home in the house, when she heard and felt something like a truck might have struck the house. She ran out of the house and then first saw the huge cloud of smoke. About 40 minutes later, a part of the smoke cloud drifted directly over their house, and went on east over Phillipsburg.
Ralph New, postmaster at Norcatur, stated that at about 4:50 P.M. he was standing just inside the front window of the postoffice in Norcatur, when he observed a blinding flash as if someone had taken a flashlight picture. He could locate no one with a camera, but noticed several men walking to the center of the street and looking up. He then walked out to where they were and looking up, saw a high cloud of smoke in the sky almost directly overhead
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(COPY) 101
323 W. Tenth St.,
Pueblo, Colorado
February 20, 1948
Office of the Chief of Staff
U. S. Army
Washington, D. C.
Subject: Explosion in the sky near Norcatur, Kans.
4:00 p.m. (MST) February 18, 1948
Purpose: To call attention to some peculiarities
in connection, whether coincidental or not
According to an AP bulletin appearing in the Pueblo CHIEFTAIN for February 18, 1948, some object was seen moving eastward across the sky on the late afternoon of February 18th, and when this thing reached a position approximate to Norcatur, Kansas, exploded, or disrupted, or disappeared. The explosion is said to have been terrific.
Directions given as to the progress of this appearance indicate that it moved from west to east.
Information contained in the dispatch under a Denver dateline indicate that while many would call this object a bolide - e.g., exploding meteor - the astronomers of Chamberlin Observatory (Denver) did not so assess it: it is said in the dispatch that these officials could offer no explanation of it.
If this is the case, the apparance is anomalous, and may lend itself to other meteoric explanation.
A sketch-diagram of the earth and moon's orbit reveals a peculiarity in connection with the appearance, which may be significant.
If a line is stricken at right-angles across the meridional position of the site of explosion of this meteor at hour angle four o'clock (local time) and this line be considered the west-to-east course of the object, then it will be seen that if this line is continued outward into space toward the orbit of the moon it will intersect the lunar orbit at a place near to where the moon would be at from 80 to one hundred hours after the explosion took place.
New moon occurred at 9 D 10 H 2 M February; First Quarter at 17D 8H M. February -- the moon moves approximately 12.5 degrees per day along its orbit.
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