Wendover, Utah UFO Sighting (August 15) — FBI Files
An August 15 unidentified object sighting in Wendover, Utah, was recorded by the FBI during the height of the 1947 flying saucer phenomenon.
Background
On August 15, in Wendover, Utah, 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). This event occurred during a period of intense national preoccupation with aerial anomalies. The incident is one of the first wave of “flying saucer” reports that swept the United States following the Kenneth Arnold sighting of June 1947 and the Roswell incident of July 1947. During this era, the sudden influx of reports regarding unidentified aerial phenomena created a significant administrative burden on federal agencies, as the phenomenon appeared to correlate with the dawn of the jet age and the increasing visibility of high-altitude surveillance technology.
The geographic location of the sighting, Wendover, Utah, provided a significant context for federal interest. Situated on the edge of the Great Salt Lake Desert, the region is characterized by vast, desolate salt flats and serves as a critical corridor for military testing and high-speed transit. Because of its proximity to sensitive military installations and its role in aerospace development, any unexplained aerial activity in this sector was treated with heightened scrutiny. 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. This centralized reporting structure ensured that any potential threats to national security or intelligence-gathering capabilities were monitored by the central intelligence apparatus.
What the document records
The specific circumstances of the sighting involve Ab Jenkins, a well-known land speed record holder. At the time of the incident, Jenkins was preparing to begin test runs in a new vehicle designed by Bud Winfield. The objective of these maneuvers was to attempt to set a new record for distances of 50 miles or more. The presence of a high-profile figure like Jenkins, whose activities were often documented by the press and technical observers, provided a concrete point of reference for the event.
While the document provides details regarding the activities of Jenkins and Winfield, the number of witnesses is not specified in the released documentation. This lack of a definitive witness count is a common feature in many declassified files from this period, where the focus of the investigators was often on the physical trajectory and nature of the object rather than the census of observers on the ground.
Type of case
The case is categorized as a visual sighting reported by ground or air observers. This classification encompasses a wide range of possible perspectives, from individuals on the salt flats to pilots traversing the airspace above the Utah desert.
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. The ambiguity of the classification reflects the difficulty in verifying mid-century sightings where physical evidence was rarely recovered.
Conventional candidates for sightings of this period include experimental aircraft, weather balloons, particularly the Project Mogul series in the late 1940s, which utilized high-altitude balloons to detect Soviet nuclear tests. Other possibilities include atmospheric optical phenomena such as sundogs and lenticular clouds, or astronomical objects including Venus, the Moon, and meteors near the horizon. The Wendover incident remains part of the broader historical record of unidentified aerial phenomena that continue to be analyzed for their potential implications regarding aerospace security and atmospheric science.