Muroc, California UFO Sighting (July 8, 1947) — FBI Files (D3P72)
A first saucer wave case from Muroc, California. On July 8, 1947, Sergeant Nauman observed two disc-shaped objects flying northwest at an estimated altitude of 7,000-8,000 feet and speed of 300-400 mph.
Background
On July 8, 1947, in Muroc, California, 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
On July 8, 1947, Sergeant Nauman observed two disc-shaped objects flying northwest at an estimated altitude of 7,000-8,000 feet and speed of 300-400 mph. He stated the objects were not aircraft, balloons, or birds, and reflected sunlight due to their altitude. A few minutes later, he saw a third object performing tight circular maneuvers.
The number of witnesses is not specified in the released document.
Verbatim from the file
“I observed personally two (2) flying dise, flying in a north west direction”. “I saw two (2) objects with my own eyos, and I am now end was then in perfect physical conditions”. “they gave off a definite reflection from the rays of the sun.”
Type of case
The witnesses described the object as disc- or saucer-shaped.
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.