Danforth, Illinois UFO Sighting (September 23, 1947) — FBI Files
A first saucer wave case from Danforth, Illinois. An instrument was found on a farm near Danforth, Illinois, and investigated by the FBI.
Background
On September 23, 1947, in Danforth, Illinois, U.S. government investigators recorded an unidentified-object incident later released to the public on May 8, 2026 as part of the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE). The incident is one of the first wave of “flying saucer” reports that swept the United States after the Kenneth Arnold sighting of June 1947 and the Roswell incident of July 1947. The case was filed with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, whose Knoxville, Albuquerque, Los Angeles, and other field offices routed UFO reports to headquarters under the Bureau’s standing protocols for the protection of vital installations.
What the document records
An instrument was found on a farm near Danforth, Illinois, and investigated by the FBI. Initial inquiries suggested the instrument may have been used by the Air Force in classified tests, potentially ‘Operation Mogul’. However, subsequent investigation by Air Force personnel determined the instrument had no connection to the operation and was likely part of an old radio loudspeaker, possibly a hoax.
The number of witnesses is not specified in the released document.
Verbatim from the file
“The instrument has been examined by the Laboratory and the Laboratory had contacted a Mrs. Whedon of the Army Engineers and she indicated that the instrument had been used by the Air Forces on tests which were classified as “Top Secret.””. “It was classified as a hoax in view of the apparent discrepancy between information developed from Mrs. Whedon and information received from Intelligence Division of the Air Forces”. “he felt that there was sufficient evidence that this instrument was not used in any classified project and that in all probability it was just a hoax.”
Type of case
The case is a visual sighting reported by ground or air observers.
Status
All records released under the PURSUE program are designated unresolved by the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) by default. The federal government has not concluded that the events were anomalous, has not concluded that they were conventional, and has not ruled out either possibility. Conventional candidates for sightings of this period include experimental aircraft, weather balloons (especially the Project Mogul series in the late 1940s), atmospheric optical phenomena such as sundogs and lenticular clouds, and astronomical objects including Venus, the Moon, and meteors near the horizon.