Tacoma, Washington UFO Sighting (August 14, 1947) — FBI Files
A first saucer wave case from Tacoma, Washington. Fred Chrisman and Harold Dahl reported seeing flying discs.
Background
On August 14, 1947, in Tacoma, Washington, 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
Fred Chrisman and Harold Dahl reported seeing flying discs. Dahl indicated he would claim the story was a hoax if questioned by authorities, wanting to avoid further trouble. The FBI believes they may have fabricated the story to sell it to a fantasy magazine.
The number of witnesses is not specified in the released document.
Verbatim from the file
“DID NOT ADMIT TO SMITH THAT HIS STORY WAS A HOAX”. “STATED THAT IF QUESTIONED BY AUTHORITIES HE WAS GOING TO SAY IT WAS A HOAX”. “BUILDING UP THEIR STORY THROUGH PUBLICITY TO A POINT WHERE THEY COULD MAKE A PROFITABLE DEAL WITH RANTASY MAGAZINE”
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.