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Neapolis, Ohio, USA, on July 5, 1947:

Case number:

ACUFO-1947-07-05-NEAPOLIS-1

Summary:

The newspaper Kansas City Star for July 6, 1947, reported that pilot Capt. John L. Dobberteen and Flight Engineer Frank Corwin, both of Washington, both Trans World Airlines (TWY) men, saw a "white, whirling object" which "may or may not correspond to the description of the flying discs reported from various places in the United States."

On July 5, 1947, at 7 p.m., as they were ferrying an empty DC-4 from the East coast to Chicago, 20 miles east of Archbold, Ohio - which means they were near Neapolis - flying at 4,000 feet altitude, they saw an object below them.

They said the object had the appearance of a whirling exhaust fan blade about the size of a cub plane, with no sign of a body, fuselage or motor apparatus, just "a propeller-like whatsit - wings without a bird, so to speak."

Captain Dobberteen and Corwin said this spinning thing was moving at an estimated speed of 200 miles an hour, which would make it considerably slower than most of the flying discs thus far reported.

They then flew slightly off course in an effort to see where the object was going and so watched it make two complete circles below them before it disappeared.

Captain Dobberteen said he was certain it could not have been an autogyro or similar aircraft. He added that it probably had the appearance of a disc-like contraption when viewed from the ground.

"We thought it was a souped-up Fourth of July spinwheel when we first saw it," Dobberteen said. "But we know it could not have been fireworks."

The T.W.A. men continued to Chicago and reported the whirling object to the air traffic control authorities because it was on the airways and therefore was considered a hazard to other planes.

The case was later found in the Press by US ufologist Ted Bloecher, likely in the above source; he reported it in his 1967 book about the UFO wave of 1947.

A few other ufology sources later published brief summaries of this sighting.

Data:

Temporal data:

Geographical data:

Witnesses data:

Ufology data:

Classifications:

Sources:

[Ref. kcs1:] NEWSPAPER "THE KANSAS CITY STAR":

[Ref. tbr1:] TED BLOECHER:

Ted Bloecher indicated that on July 5, 1947, over Neapolis, Ohio, while ferrying an empty airliner from the coast to Chicago, TWA pilot Captain John L. Dobberteen and copilot Frank Corwin, both of Washington, reported that they saw a strange-looking flying object below them when they were 20 miles east of Archbold, Ohio (approximately over Neapolis) at about 7:00 p.m. EST. The pilots were flying west at 4,000 feet. They said the object they saw had "the appearance of a whirling fan blade and was about the size of a cub plane, with no sign of a body, fuselage, or motor apparatus. Just a propeller-like whatsit - wings without a bird," as they put it. The object was slowly revolving as it moved forward at an estimated speed of 200 miles an hour.

The pilots flew slightly off course in an effort to see where the object was going. They watched it make two complete revolutions below them before it disappeared from view. Captain Dobberteen said he was certain the object could not have been an auto gyro, or similar aircraft and that it might have had the appearance of a disc-like object from the ground. "We thought it was a souped-up craft. He add Fourth of July spin wheel (sic) when we first saw it," the pilot said. "But we know it couldn't have been fireworks." The TWA men continued on to Chicago and reported the whirling object to the air traffic control authorities because it had been flying in a commercial air lane and was thus a potential hazard to other planes.

[Ref. mhc1:] MICHAEL D. HALL AND WENDY CONNORS:

[Ref. lhh1:] LARRY HATCH:

[Ref. nsu1:] PAPER "THE NEWS SCIENCE OF UAP":

[Ref. wia1:] "WIKIPEDIA" (EN):

The source "208" is described as "6 Jul 1947, 2 - The Kansas City Star at Newspapers.com."

Aircraft information:

The Douglas C-54 "Skymaster" was a four-engine transport aircraft built by the Douglas Aircraft Company between 1942 and 1947 for the U.S. Army Air Forces. It was the first four-engine aircraft and the first tricycle-gear aircraft built by Douglas. After serving in World War II, it was renamed DC-4 and played a major role in the development of worldwide civilian airlines.

Below: a DC-4 in TWA delivery:

Discussion:

Ted Bloecher located the case at Neapolis; this is correct as the report say "twenty miles east of Archbold" and this puts us near Neapolis, Ohio.

John L. Dobberteen, of Prescott, Arizona, had been a pilot for TWA; he died in 1987.

"Skeptical" ufologists usually insist that as Kenneth Arnold's sighting was wrongly described as a sighting of "flying saucers" in the Press, people would then report "flying saucers" also. Clearly it is not the case here.

(Absolutely nobody so far has ever produced decent statistics that would prove that the 1947 sightings were generally of "discs" or "saucers".)

We see that the airmen knew they were expected to see "flying saucers" or "discs", but this did not make them describe what they saw accordingly. What they saw was not saucer-shaped of disc-shaped, and they said that.

What was it? Certainly no ordinary artificial flying machine, an no natural phenomenon, can fit this weird object in my opinion.

I thought the "closest" thing of the described object would be a windmill; but looking at the windmills in the USA at that time, I found that either they were small windmill for power production, always with many "wings", or bigger windmills for making flour, always with four or more wings and rather visible support (photos below).

Evaluation:

Possible extraterrestrial craft.

Sources references:

* = Source is available to me.
? = Source I am told about but could not get so far. Help needed.

• [kcs1] * Article in the newspaper The Kansas City Star, Kansas City, Missouri, USA, pages 1 and 2, July 6, 1947.
• [tbr1] * "Report on the UFO Wave of 1947", compiled by Ted Bloecher, USA, 1967, updated 2005 by NICAP.
• [mhc1] * "Alfred Loedding and the Great Flying Saucer Wave of 1947", book by Michael D. Hall and Wendy Connors, Rose Press publishers, USA, pp 57-58, 1998.
• [lhh1] * "*U* Computer Database", ufology database by Larry Hatch, USA, circa 2002.
• [nsu1] * "The New Science of Unidentified Aerospace-Undersea Phenomena (UAP)", paper, multiple authors, page 16, January 27, 2025, at https://arxiv.org/html/2502.06794v2
• [wia1] * "Table of reports during the 1947 flying disc craze", list on the Wikipedia (EN), as of 2026, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_reports_during_the_1947_flying_disc_craze

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This page was last updated on Hune 14, 2026.