Maplewood, OhioAugust 1948

Insufficient Data

Summary

On August 29, 1948, a farmer in Maplewood, Ohio reported seeing a large silver-colored sphere rise from behind some woods near his property. The object appeared to float across his farm, moving slowly through the air.

As the sphere traveled, the farmer noticed something unusual: it seemed to unravel a silvery substance that drifted downward. While he continued to watch, the object disintegrated in mid-air and disappeared. The witness appeared sincere and conscientious when describing the incident to Air Force investigators. Notably, the sighting ended when an airplane passed overhead nearby.

Air Force investigators from Project Sign (the official name for the UFO investigation program at that time) interviewed the farmer and documented his account. The case was then forwarded to the Air Weather Service for analysis. The Air Weather Service concluded that the sighting could have been a weather balloon released during a routine weather observation flight. This conclusion was based on wind patterns and the location of nearby weather stations on the date in question.

The Air Force ultimately classified this incident as unknown, meaning investigators could not definitively explain what the farmer had observed, though the weather balloon explanation remained a leading theory.

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

Reported location

Maplewood, Ohio

Date of incident

August 1948

State / country

OH / US

Page count

8 scanned pages

USAF evaluation

unknown

Microfilm

T1206, Roll 3

Original case file scans

Original case file · scanned by NARAPage 1 of 8

View transcribed text

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Source: National Archives Catalog · NAID 28931443