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Aliens & the unexplained — the record in the sky, built whole
This section was never run. What follows builds it from the file system itself: the Air Force's own case indexes at the National Archives, the NICAP and CUFOS case literature worked from case files rather than retellings, the NUFORC database worked as a database, and the county press record. The discipline is the build's own, from the mysteries charter: a case is printed at the size its file supports, placed on the ground it actually happened on, and closed with the disposition its file actually carries. Most of this county's sky record, it turns out, belongs to the sister cities; this ground's share is measured, not assumed. As of November 2026.
The national frame: 1947 and the Air Force investigations, stated once
1947 – 1969
The file system every local case below is checked against: in the summer of 1947, beginning with Kenneth Arnold's sighting of 24 June 1947 over the Cascades, the United States received its first great wave of “flying saucer”…
Before the saucers: the 1896–97 airship wave, tested over this ground specifically
November 1896 – April 1897
Tested negative over this ground, at newspaper strength: between mid-November 1896 and the end of April 1897 the American press carried the mystery-airship wave — more than 1,200 articles in over 400 newspapers in 41 states and…
Case: 5 July 1947 — the first-wave report
5 July 1947 · South Bend — the sister city's ground
Eleven days after Arnold, in the nationwide rash of Independence Day weekend sightings that Alfred Loedding's history of the 1947 wave reconstructs day by day, South Bend appears in the wave's own chronicle among the cities…
Case: 13 October 1948 — the disc over the Studebaker works
13 October 1948 · South Bend — the sister city's ground
At 11:45 a.m. CST on a clear and cloudless day, two office workers standing at a window of the Studebaker Corporation in South Bend watched a silvery, flat, disc-shaped object speed silently through the sky at about 1,500 feet …
Case: 27 April 1950 — TWA Flight 117 and the red disc
27 April 1950 · airspace Goshen to South Bend — boundary airspace, no ground below in either township
At 8:25 p.m., Trans World Airlines Flight 117, a DC-3 westbound for Chicago at 2,000 feet over Goshen, Indiana, was overtaken from behind and below by a bright red, disc-shaped object — Captain Robert Adickes in the left seat…
Case: 8 May 1952 — the neighbouring-city index case
8 May 1952 · Mishawaka — the sister city's ground
The whole of this case is one line in the Air Force's own 1952 index, and it is printed whole: Mishawaka, Indiana — INSUFFICIENT DATA. No witness description, no object, no narrative survives in the open index record reached; the…
Case: 23 July 1952 — Captain Kloth's two objects, the county's official Unknown
23 July 1952 · South Bend — the sister city's ground
At 11:35 p.m., in the middle of the greatest flap month of the whole Blue Book era — four nights after the first Washington National Airport radar-visual weekend — United States Air Force pilot Captain H. W. Kloth, over South…
Case: 31 July – 2 August 1952 — the newspaper sky-watch
Summer 1952 · the Tribune's county-wide watch
Ten days after the Kloth sighting and in the immediate wake of the Washington flap, the South Bend Tribune did what the era's newspapers did at the flap's height: on 31 July 1952 it appealed to the public for help in a two-hour…
Case: January 1957 — the next index year, opened
January 1957 · index test
The register's floor opens the next index year after the flap years, and this section opened it: the Blue Book index and unknowns literature for 1957 were searched for a South Bend, Mishawaka or township entry in January 1957.…
The Blue Book ledger for the county, compiled whole and split by ground
1947 – 1969
The county's official file, every case the open official indexes name: (1) 5 July 1947, South Bend — press-wave report in the 1947 chronology; no case file, no disposition. (2) 13 October 1948, South Bend — Project Sign case, the…
October 1973: the great wave's share, measured honestly
October 1973
The state's centre lay in the south, and this ground's share was a watching brief: the October 1973 wave was the largest in American history, and Indiana's share of it was real — but its documented centre was southern and central…
The modern database era: NUFORC worked as a database for this ground
1974 – November 2026
Counted and dated, and separated from the file era: the National UFO Reporting Center — founded 1974 by Robert J. Gribble, a Washington-state nonprofit holding more than 200,000 reports, freely searchable with no paywall — files…
The drone era tested as its own period: winter 2024–25
November 2024 – January 2025
A separate period, and a separate verdict: from 13 November 2024 the United States ran a national drone-sighting episode centred on New Jersey and the Northeast — thousands of night reports over homes, reservoirs, Picatinny…
Investigators and organizations: who actually worked this sky, and what they filed
1947 – November 2026
The organizational record is southern, national, and — for this county — thin: the investigations behind this section's files were never local. The Air Force's projects sat at Wright-Patterson in Ohio. NICAP, the era's great…
What this record can and cannot support: the closing findings
Findings, November 2026
Findings: (1) This ground has a sky record, and it is small, dated, and mostly not its own: five Air Force-era cases for the whole county between 1947 and 1952, one press-wave report, one newspaper sky-watch, one modern database…