2 1/2 MI. N of North Powder, Ore., August 1948 - Incident Number: 230August 1948

On the evening of August 4, 1948, a man traveling south on U.S. Highway 30 near North Powder, Oregon, observed an unusual bright object in the sky. He was about two and a half miles north of town when he saw what he described as a fireball appearing directly south of him. The object seemed to emerge from nowhere and was moving horizontally along a northwest to southeast angle at an elevation of around 1,500 feet above sea level.

The observer noted that the object resembled a fireball with what looked like a handle extending from it on a horizontal plane. As it traveled across the sky, it arced gradually downward in a natural trajectory. The observer estimated the arc covered approximately fifty degrees before the object suddenly extinguished itself. What struck him most was the object's bright green glow. He described it as having a definite fluorescent quality around it, which he compared to a high intensity neon sign with perhaps a tint toward the light green side. There was no visible meteor-type tail, though the object itself glowed distinctly.

The Air Force investigated the case by checking it against routine weather balloon ascents conducted by the Air Force, Navy, and Weather Bureau. A comment in the file states that case 230 was "definitely no weather balloon." However, the analysis section of a larger Project Grudge report (the Air Force's UFO investigative program) categorized incident 230 under "fair or low probability" for astronomical causes. The case file itself notes uncertainty about the sighting's nature, observing that while the object's intense green color distinguished it from a typical fireball, insufficient evidence existed to determine whether it belonged with similar objects reported in New Mexico or should be classified separately as a fireball. The full 8-page case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives.