ACUFO index ▶ Home ☰

Cette page en français

ACUFO:

◀ Previous case Next case ▶

West Virginia or the Western Maryland mountains, USA, in 1944:

Case number:

ACUFO-1944-00-00-WESTVIRGINIA1

Summary:

The American ufologist Peter Davenport set up in the 2000s a Website, the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC), allowing people to submit, anonymously or not, their testimony of UFO sightings, which were then recorded in a database and visible on this website.

There is a testimony received in 2003 about a sighting that allegedly occurred in 1944 at 10 a.m. local time in the wilderness mountains outside Washington, D.C., in West Virginia or the Western Maryland mountains.

The reporter claimed that “US fighter planes shoot down pre Roswell UFO then military scour crash site & bury UFO remains at wilderness site”.

He claimed the “fighter plane bullets made holes in the craft which was shaped as two saucers together but each hole slowly closed back up until there were so many hits the saucer wasn't able to recover”, and “parachute devices ejected”, and the saucer was lost in the clouds.

It is claimed that “crack crash teams” left Bolling Air Base or Andrews Air Base, that civilian and military members found the remains, that a gigantic hole was found in the side of the mountain near the top with large trees sheered in half as the craft plowed into top side of mountain. No survivors and no dead bodies were found, the craft exploded upon impact.

It is claimed that “many of the thousands of pieces from the craft were field tested. The exercise lasted 3 weeks in complete secrecy. All the craft pieces not taken away were “buried in a large hole with dynamite.” All the men were ordered not to talk and could not bring any of the material from the craft. The metal had many qualities such as being as lite as aluminum foil etc.”

Data:

Temporal data:

Geographical data:

Witnesses data:

Ufology data:

Classifications:

Sources:

[Ref. nuc11:] "NATIONAL UFO REPORTING CENTER":

Aircraft information:

The only thing reported is that the planes were “American fighter planes.”

Discussion:

Of course, anyone can make up a UFO story and send it to NUFORC. Sometimes, the story includes enough errors so that it can be identified as a hoax.

We get no information about the story's origin: is the writer a witness? If not, who told him all this?

“Bolling Air Base”: before 1944, the place was referred to as “Bolling Field”, and in 1944, it was actually named “Naval Air Station Anacostia”. the “Bolling Air Force Base”, was constructed only in June 1948. It is not impossible, but unlikely, that a real witness of a real even in 1944 would call the place “Bolling Air Base” instead of Bolling Field or Anacostia Station.

In the same manner “Andrews Air Base” did not exist in 1944. There were P-47 fighter planes there but it was called “Camp Springs Army Air Base”. It was renamed “Andrews Field” only in 1947, and “Andrews Air Force Base” only after June 1948.

The feeling I have is that the author of the story just looked at some recent list of Air Force bases in the area where he decided the story had taken plane, ans used the modern names of the installation as ignorant of the name they had at the time of the story he made up.

Of course, the reference to Roswell is unlikely to have been made by a bona fide witness of such an incident. But it is totally likely that someone who would invent such a story would do so.

A blatant contradiction is that in this story, when the fighter planes attacked the saucer, it was “lost in the clouds” but in the rest of the story, it crashed into a mountain.

Another oddity is that we are told that “parachute devices” were seen though “no survivors and no dead bodies” were found.

Another contradiction is that we are told that the “crash team” people were forbidden to keep any debris, yet most of them were buried in the ground at a place they of course knew of, so that any of these people could just go back there and dig for debris.

It is hardly believable that holes on the UFO caused by aircraft machine gun bullets could be seen “slowly closing”.

And what about the “characteristics” indicated as “Emitted other objects, Aircraft nearby, Landed, Electrical or magnetic effects”; which has little to do with the full-text story?

My opinion is that this is just an entirely invented story.

Evaluation:

Probable modern times invention.

Sources references:

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

• [nuc1] * Witness web report to the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC) of Peter Davenport, USA, 2003, at https://nuforc.org/sighting/?id=27190

File history:

Authoring:

Changes history:

Feedback  |  Top  |  Back  |  Forward  |  Map  |  List |  Home

This page was last updated on January 21, 1944.