1948 UAP Sighting — FBI Files
A soil sample was sent to the FBI Laboratory for analysis, originating from a depression reportedly caused by a 'flying saucer'. The object was described as approximately two feet in diameter and one foot thick, and it allegedly settled gently to the ground before rebounding and
Background
A UFO/UAP incident extracted from page 56 of 65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Section_4, a declassified FBI vault file released by the Department of War on May 8, 2026 as part of the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE). The incident is dated September 9, 1948 and located in Unknown location.
What the file records
A soil sample was sent to the FBI Laboratory for analysis, originating from a depression reportedly caused by a ‘flying saucer’. The object was described as approximately two feet in diameter and one foot thick, and it allegedly settled gently to the ground before rebounding and continuing its flight. Investigators hoped to determine if the soil contained unusual elements, alloys, or evidence of intense heat or radiation.
Witnesses on file: Air Materiel Command personnel.
Verbatim from the file
“described as being approximately two feet in diameter and one foot thick which supposedly settled gently to the ground, rebounded to a height of about twenty feet and then continued on its journey.”
Status of the case
The page-level assessment recorded in the file is: no agency assessment. All records released under the PURSUE program are designated unresolved by the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office unless otherwise stated, meaning the federal government has not concluded the events were anomalous, has not concluded 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), atmospheric optical phenomena, and astronomical objects.