Montgomery, Ala, April 1948 - Incident Number: 113April 1948

On April 9, 1948, Colonel Covert S. Hughes was flying a P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft near Montgomery, Alabama when he spotted an unusual object in the sky. Hughes was a pilot with the Tactics Division at the Air Tactical School at Tyndall Air Force Base. He had taken off from Tyndall that morning and was cruising at about 20,000 feet when he descended to 13,000 feet and began a left turn over Montgomery. Just before completing the turn, he caught sight of something off his left wing.

What Hughes saw resembled a parachute, but with strange construction. The top part, roughly eight feet in diameter, appeared silver and disc-like. Below it hung what looked like a dark cable or shroud about five feet long. Suspended from this cable was a large silver canister or ball. The overall assembly, Hughes said, looked similar to a camera pod dropped from a reconnaissance aircraft. Hughes managed to watch the object for about five seconds before losing sight of it at 1510 hours (3:10 p.m.). At that moment, his aircraft was cruising at 310 miles per hour. The object seemed to fly away on a level path rather than climb or descend. The weather was clear with unlimited visibility, and Hughes heard no sound or saw any exhaust trail.

After landing back at Tyndall, Hughes reported the incident to the base intelligence officer. In formal interviews that followed, he gave consistent accounts of what he had witnessed. An Air Force analysis noted that the object's description matched that of an instrument-carrying weather balloon. The file also mentions a similarity to another sighting from the same period. The Air Force ultimately evaluated this incident as unknown, though the written analysis suggested a probable balloon explanation.

The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives, comprising 14 pages.