Japan · 15 October 1948

Over the Fukuoka / Kyushu area, 1948

Reported

Six radar interception attempts in ten minutes; each time the crew closed to about 400 yards the target accelerated from roughly 200 to an estimated 1,200 mph, and once silhouetted itself against moonlit cloud looking like a rifle bullet.

Where

Over the Fukuoka / Kyushu area

When

15 October 1948

Who reported it

2 - USAF F-61 night-fighter pilot and radar observer

Entities described

None reported

Handled as

INVESTIGATED / UNRESOLVED

Evidence class

GOV-1

The record

An official file preserves that a report was made and examined. It does not, by itself, establish what was seen.

UNKNOWN for scanned pages - summary at https://ufologie.patrickgross.org/htm/fukuoka48.htm

Part of the chain is attached. The rest is still being retrieved.

What is not settled

Object-only, and the ground radar stations got nothing - a serious corroboration gap. Speed and size figures are aircrew estimates from 1948-vintage airborne radar, an instrument prone to exactly these artefacts. Its standing rests largely on later summaries; the file pages need pulling from NARA RG 341.

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