Case File · USAAF · First Saucer Wave (1947-1952) Declassified May 8, 2026 · PURSUE Release 01

Portland, Oregon UAP Encounter, 1947 — USAAF Box 7 #14

UFO Visual Sighting

Incident #14 of the U.S. Army Air Forces "Check-List - Unidentified Flying Objects" series, archived in Box 7 of file 38_143685 and released by the Department of War on May 8, 2026 as part of the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP En

1947
Portland, Oregon
Source document: 38_143685_box7_Incident_Summaries_1-100
Source document: 38_143685_box7_Incident_Summaries_1-100 · Source: declassified document

Background

In 1947, near Portland, Oregon, the U.S. Army Air Forces recorded an unidentified-object incident that became Incident #14 in the “Check-List - Unidentified Flying Objects” series archived in Box 7 of file 38_143685. The records were released by the Department of War on May 8, 2026 as part of the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE). The case 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.

What the form records

Incident #14 of the U.S. Army Air Forces “Check-List - Unidentified Flying Objects” series, archived in Box 7 of file 38_143685 and released by the Department of War on May 8, 2026 as part of the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE). The summary records that an unspecified observer reported a sighting near Location Portland, Oregon.

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. The federal government has not concluded these 1947-era incidents were anomalous, has not concluded they were conventional, and has not ruled out either possibility. Conventional candidates for the 1947 saucer wave include the Project Mogul balloon flights then active over the U.S. Southwest, experimental jet and rocket aircraft, atmospheric optical effects, and astronomical objects misidentified at unusual angles.

Sources