Incident #72 Sighting Report — Ft. Richardson, Alaska, 17 September 1947

This document consists of a series of communications from the Headquarters of the Air Materiel Command at Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio, dated November 1947. The primary content concerns a flying disc incident reported in Alaska in September 1947. The report, identified as Incident #72, describes a sighting by an Army officer at Ft. Richardson. The witness observed a single, spherical, metallic silver object, approximately 2 to 3 feet in diameter, traveling against the wind at a 'tremendous' speed. The observation lasted between 15 and 20 seconds under conditions of scattered clouds at an altitude below 10,000 feet. The document includes a checklist of the sighting details and a narrative summary of the officer's report. In addition to the specific sighting, the correspondence addresses broader concerns regarding the collection of information on flying discs. Colonel H. M. McCoy, Chief of Intelligence, references a story by journalist Lionel Shapiro regarding alleged war weapons developed in Spain, noting that the Air Materiel Command has no knowledge of German scientists working in Spain on such projects. The correspondence also mentions a request for information regarding the progress of plotting flying disc incidents across North America, noting that a Dr. Carroll had been expected to handle this task, though no further word had been received. The final page of the document is a formal request to mark the correspondence with the classification 'secret' and assigns it the classification number U-43983. The document reflects the early, highly administrative phase of the United States military's investigation into unidentified aerial phenomena, characterized by a mix of specific field reports and broader intelligence gathering efforts to determine if these sightings were related to foreign technological developments.