Project Grudge Incident Report #341 — Union and Cincinnati, Ohio, 5 June 1949

This document is a formal Report of Investigation under Project Grudge, dated 24 June 1949, concerning unidentified aerial objects observed on 5 June 1949 in Union and Cincinnati, Ohio. The investigation was initiated following a request from Lt. Colonel A. J. Hemstreet, Jr. of the Air Materiel Command. Two primary sightings were investigated. The first occurred near Union, Ohio, where a housewife observed an object while watching for Naval Reserve aircraft. She described the object as dull white, shaped like an artist's palette, approximately two feet in diameter, and traveling at half the speed of a jet plane. Her husband, an employee of the National Cash Register, corroborated her account, noting the object had no trail or projections. The second sighting occurred in Cincinnati, where a project engineer from Crosley Engineering Division observed an object from his backyard. He described it as baseball-sized, dark grayish-brown, and noted it performed a steep climb, halted, and reversed course toward the northwest at a higher altitude. The report includes various incident forms and summaries, noting that while witnesses were considered reliable, the official conclusions categorized the phenomena as either aircraft or meteors. The document also contains supplementary information regarding a separate, widely reported 'ball of fire' phenomenon observed over the Gulf of Mexico and Florida on the same date, which generated significant public interest and media coverage. The investigation was closed on 24 June 1949, with all logical leads considered developed.