Fargo, North DakotaApril 1952

On April 25, 1952, between 9 and 9:45 p.m., eight people in Moorhead, Minnesota and Fargo, North Dakota reported seeing unidentified flying disks moving in the sky. According to the initial reports, the objects appeared in a wide "V" formation flying from south to north. There were five disks per flight, and five flights came through about eight minutes apart. Witnesses described the disks as round, glowing red and orange, and traveling very high and fast. They said the formation was irregular or "sloppy," as if the disk pilots were having trouble maintaining constant speed and altitude. Each sighting lasted about four seconds before the objects suddenly disappeared. No vapor trails, exhaust, or sound were reported, and the objects were observed with the naked eye, not through binoculars or other equipment.

The officer commanding the local Ground Observer Squadron decided to investigate the sightings himself. On April 28, 1952, he went to the top of the Black Building in Fargo equipped with binoculars, a high-speed camera, and a telescope. He waited with several local citizens to spot the mysterious flights. On April 29, the officer filed his follow-up report: the airborne objects had turned out to be mallard and teal ducks. When ducks passed overhead on the night of April 28, the officer could positively identify them by their flapping wings. He concluded that phosphorescence from the neon lights in the city was being picked up by the feathers of the ducks, causing the strange orange illumination. The officer noted that previous ground-level observations had suffered from lighting glare, but viewing the ducks from the tenth-floor vantage point made the identification clear.

The case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives, comprising 8 pages.