When a U.S. Fighter Pilot Got Into a Dogfight With a UFO
by Colin Bertram July 19, 2018 (history.com)
• On October 1, 1948, a 25-year old former World War II fighter pilot named George F. Gorman (standing at left in above photo) had a 27-minute encounter with a white orb UFO at high altitude above Fargo, North Dakota. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Gorman told a local newspaper following the event. “If anyone else had reported such a thing I would have thought they were crazy.” The incident was recorded both on the ground and in the sky by numerous reputable sources, and investigated by the U.S. Air Force under Project Sign, a precursor to Project Blue Book.
• Gorman was serving as a second lieutenant in the North Dakota Air National Guard, and was taking part in a cross-country flight in a P-51 Mustang alongside other National Guard airmen. When the other pilots landed at Fargo’s Hector Airport, Gorman stayed in the air in order to get in some night-flying time in the cloudless conditions. Having circled over a lighted football stadium, he was preparing to land at about 9 pm when he saw the taillight of another craft passing on the right, though the tower had no other object on the radar.
• Gorman closed to within 1,000 yards to see a white orb “…about six to eight inches in diameter, clear white and completely without fuzz at the edges.” “It was blinking on and off. As I approached, however, the light suddenly became steady and pulled into a sharp left bank. I thought it was making a pass at the tower.”
• Gorman tried in vain to catch up with the object, and got behind it at around 7,000 feet when it made a sharp turn and headed straight for his P-51. Almost at the point of collision Gorman dived and said the light passed over his canopy at about 500 feet before cutting sharply once more and heading back in his direction. Then the object shot straight up in the air in climb so steep that his plane stalled. The object was not seen again. Gorman had been engaged in aerial maneuvers with the UFO for 27 minutes by the time he brought his plane in to land.
• Gorman reported that he noticed no sound, exhaust trail or odor from the object. And while he had reached speeds of up to 400 m.p.h. while in pursuit—he couldn’t keep up with whatever it was.
• “I’m convinced that there was definite thought behind its maneuvers,” Gorman said in a sworn statement to his commander. “I am further convinced that the object was governed by the laws of inertia because its acceleration was rapid but not immediate… [and] followed a natural curve.” “The object was not only able to out-turn and out-speed my aircraft… but was able to attain a far steeper climb and was able to maintain a constant rate of climb far in excess of my aircraft,” said Gorman.
• The small white orb UFO was also witnessed by air-traffic controllers Lloyd D. Jensen and H.E. Johnson, who were manning the Hector Airport tower. According to Johnson, the object was “travelling at a high rate of speed” and was “fast enough to increase the spacing between itself and [Gorman’s] fighter.” Johnson described the object as appearing to be “only a round light, perfectly formed, with no fuzzy edges or rays leaving its body.”
• Dr. A. E. Cannon, the pilot of the Piper Cub also flying in the vicinity, and his passenger also viewed the object both in the sky and upon their return to the airport where they immediately joined the traffic controllers in the tower. Two Civil Aeronautics Authority employees on the ground also reported seeing the object.
• Back in Fargo, after the Air Weather Service revealed it had released a lighted weather balloon 10 minutes before Gorman first saw the object, Air Force investigators pounced, proclaiming the balloon the likeliest explanation for the object seen. They determined that Gorman’s own maneuvers and high speed gave the balloon the appearance of moving in opposite directions as he passed by. Investigators also noted the bright appearance of Jupiter on that date, and that Gorman had been attempting to chase the bright dot of the planet at the same time the weather balloon was in range. This became the official government explanation.
• Gorman returned to the Air Force full-time, retiring at the rank of lieutenant colonel in 1969. He never spoke publicly about the encounter again, though he did tell friends “he was never convinced that he had been dueling with a lighted balloon for 27 minutes.” Gorman died in 1982.
In the words of Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, the man who investigated unidentified-flying-object reports for the U.S. Air Force in the early 1950s, the Gorman Dogfight remains one of the “classics” among UFO sightings.
The incident, which still lacks an airtight explanation, involved a 27-minute air encounter between a veteran World War II fighter pilot named George F. Gorman and a mysterious white orb at high altitude above Fargo, North Dakota. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Gorman told a local newspaper following the October 1, 1948 event. “If anyone else had reported such a thing I would have thought they were crazy.”
Captain Ruppelt operated Project Blue Book, which continued the work of Project Sign and Project Grudge, a series of hush-hush studies conducted by the U.S. Air Force between 1947 and 1969. His mission: to determine if UFOs were a threat to national security and to scientifically analyze UFO-related data.
What makes the Gorman Dogfight unique in the now-declassified pages of Project Blue Book is not only the length of the encounter, but that it was recorded both on the ground and in the sky by numerous reputable sources.
Chasing—and being chased by—a light
At the time of the incident, Gorman, a 25-year-old former fighter pilot, served as a second lieutenant in the North Dakota Air National Guard. It was this role that placed him behind the flight controls of a P-51 Mustang on Oct. 1, 1948, taking part in a cross-country flight alongside other National Guard airmen.
While the other pilots landed at Fargo’s Hector Airport, on that fateful evening Gorman stayed in the air in order to get in some night-flying time in the cloudless conditions. Having circled his P-51 over a lighted football stadium, he was preparing to land at about 9 P.M. Advised by the control tower that the only other plane in the vicinity was a Piper Cub (which Gorman could see about 500 feet below him), he witnessed what he believed to be the taillight of another craft passing on the right, though the tower had no other object on the radar.
Deciding to take a closer look at the unidentified object, Gorman pulled his plane up and closed to within about 1,000 yards. “It was about six to eight inches in diameter, clear white and completely without fuzz at the edges,” he said of the object in his report. “It was blinking on and off. As I approached, however, the light suddenly became steady and pulled into a sharp left bank. I thought it was making a pass at the tower.”
Deciding to follow, Gorman tried in vain to catch up with the object, reporting that he finally got behind it at around 7,000 feet, where it made a sharp turn and headed straight for the P-51. Almost at the point of collision Gorman dived and said the light passed over his canopy at about 500 feet before cutting sharply once more and heading back in his direction. Just as collision seemed imminent once again, Gorman said the object shot straight up in the air in a steep climb—so steep that when he tried to intercept, his plane stalled at about 14,000 feet. The object was not seen again, but according to Gorman he had been engaged in aerial maneuvers with it for 27 minutes by the time he brought his plane in to land.
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Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, Dr. A. E. Cannon, Fargo North Dakota, H.E. Johnson, Hector Airport, Lieutenant Colonel George F. Gorman, Lloyd D. Jensen, P-51 Mustang, Project Sign, U.S. Air Force, weather balloon
