Oak Ridge, Tennessee UFO Sighting (July 1947) — FBI Files (D4P88)
A first saucer wave case from Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Colonel GASSER described reports of unidentified missiles, potentially the same as flying saucers, and a Czechoslovakian transport colliding with one over the ocean.
Background
In July 1947, in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, 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
Colonel GASSER described reports of unidentified missiles, potentially the same as flying saucers, and a Czechoslovakian transport colliding with one over the ocean. He noted the missiles appeared capable of maintaining altitude via radio control and traveling at tremendous speeds, sometimes at high altitudes leaving long, straight vapor trails. He observed a unique vapor trail himself, unlike any he’d seen before.
The number of witnesses is not specified in the released document.
Verbatim from the file
“He observed the vapor trail while it was in the process of formation and states that it was completely unlike any vapor trail he had ever observed before in all of his experience with the air force.”. “It was his judgment that whatever created the vapor trail was traveling 4t an unbelievably tremendous speed.”. “This, together with reports that when close to the ground, the missile travels at speeds which make possible visual observation of its actions, would reflect that there is some ability to control the speed of these missiles as well as the altitude.”
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.