November 23, 1948 — Bavaria, Germany — Grnd Visual / Grnd Radar Track Object at 27,000ʹ

[jeffknox]

November 23, 1948 — Bavaria, Germany
10:20 p.m. The first documented ground radar–visual UFO case takes place at Fürstenfeldbruck Air Base [now closed] in Bavaria, Germany. A UFO is seen circling at 27,000 feet. An F-80 pilot sent to intercept it describes it as bright red. It climbs abruptly to 50,000 feet at 900 mph. A second F-80 pilot verifies the report. [Eberhart]

Record Card:

SIGN Incident 222:

Sources:
Edward Ruppelt, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, p. 46;

Brad Sparks, Blue Books Unknowns Catalogue, Case 141, p. 43;

NICAP, “Grnd Visual / Grnd Radar Track Object at 27,000ʹ”;

UFO Report

[Mimas]

If this is the first documented ground radar-visual UFO case, are there any earlier documented cases where UFO was recorded by some other types of radar?

[jeffknox]

I think it’s just that its the first case documented under the new Project SIGN. I think there were earlier radar-visual cases (like during the war). There was just not a ‘UFO’ project back than documenting them.

[Mimas]

Thank you Jeff for the clarification! I was asking because I would like to find out when the first known radar confirmation of an UFO has taken place.