Browning B-25 sighting west of Kansas City

Major Archie B. Browning, an Army Air Forces officer, reported a bright object while flying a B-25 from Ogden, Utah, to Kansas City, Missouri, on 6 July 1947. His sworn statement of 16 July 1947 gave the time as 1:45 P.M. and the position as about 100 miles west of Kansas City. He was at 10,000 feet. He first saw a very bright object low and to his left, about 10 miles away, and took it for the top of a water tank.

Browning wrote that after checking his map for 5 seconds the object appeared one to two miles off his left wing at 11 o'clock and 11,000 feet. He described it as round, disc shaped, very bright and silvery, and estimated its diameter at 30 to 50 feet. He put its speed at 210 MPH, the same as his aircraft, and said it disappeared when he turned into it. He gave the weather as CAVU. The statement was marked received by AFBIR-CO on 16 July 1947.

Handwritten notes in the same FBI file record a separate account of the interview. They place the sighting near Clay Center, Kansas, northwest of Topeka, and give the flight altitude as 10,000 feet and speed as about 200 mph. They say he thought it was a water tower at first, that it looked almost completely round, and that he believed it was supersonic because of how it vanished. The notes put the event at about 1315 and the landing at Kansas City at 1400 Central Time. They also say his co-pilot was not looking at the time.

The Air Force summary tables in the FBI file list the case as Report 9, at 1345 at Clay Center, Kansas. They record no deviation from straight flight, a round, disc-shaped object, and a manner of disappearance of "Unexplained". Two checklist compilations in Department of War files carry the same details under incident 39 and incident 89, with the direction of flight given as eastward and the time in sight as not stated. None of the pages gives a mundane explanation for the sighting.