October 1, 1948 — Fargo, ND
8:30 p.m. 2d Lieut. George F. Gorman of the North Dakota National Guard, flying an F-51 near Fargo, North Dakota, spots an object traveling east to west. He describes it as a light 6–8 inches in diameter displaying incredible movements. He repeatedly gives chase beginning at 9:07 p.m., but each time is outmaneuvered by the light, which moves up to 600 mph.
On his first pass he gets as close as 500 feet from the light at about 5,000 feet altitude. Gorman climbs to 14,000 feet but stalled out, unable to intercept the light, which is at about 16,000 feet. The light makes evasive and aggressive maneuvers, such as seeming to try to ram the F-51.
When it drops to 11,000 feet, Gorman attempts to dive at it, but the light pulls up, rises vertically, and disappears at high speed. The light is also seen by airport control tower operators Lloyd D. Jensen and Manuel E. Johnson, as well as others on the ground and pilot Arthur E. Cannon flying a Piper Cub at 1,600 feet. Jensen watches the dogfight through 6x30 binoculars, the UFO appearing perfectly round with sharp edges and no fuzzy outline.
Project Sign personnel arrive within hours and interview the witnesses. Eventually they conclude the object was a balloon, with evasive maneuvers the product of Gorman’s imagination, since ground observers do not see anything comparable. Some ufologists, among them Aimé Michel and James E. McDonald, have rejected the balloon explanation. [Eberhart] This is a case of what has later been called the Gorman effect, named after this case, for incidents when pilots suffer spatial disorientation effects like auto-kinesis illusions and believe they are dog fighting an object that is relatively stationary. This is a well known effect fighter pilots experience.
SIGN Report:
Sources:
Flying Saucer Digest, no. 4 (Winter 1967): 7;
“Fargo Pilot Tells of Chasing ‘Flying Disk,’” Fargo (N.Dak.) Forum, October 3, 1948, pp. 1–2;
“Dogfight with Mysterious Flying Object Told by Pilot,” Decatur (Ill.) Daily Review, October 3, 1948, p. 1;
“Pilot Tells of Long Dogfight with Queer Flying Object,” St. Louis (Mo.) Globe-Democrat, October 3, 1948, p. 10;
“Flying Ball Plays Tag with Pilot,” Knoxville (Tenn.) Journal, October 3, 1948, p. 4;
“Pilot, ‘Disk’ Have Half Hour Tussle,” Lincoln (Nebr.) Sunday Journal and Star, October 3, 1948, p. 1;
“Wright Field Officers Probe ‘Disk’ Report,” Fargo (N.Dak.) Forum, October 4, 1948, p. 1;
Donald Keyhoe, Flying Saucers Are Real, 1950, pp. 102–107;
“The Gorman-Fargo, N.D., Case” from US Weird Science-Fantasy (EC, 1954 series) #26 (December 1954);
Harold T. Wilkins, Flying Saucers On The Attack, 1954, pp. 105-108;
Edward Ruppelt, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, 1956, pp. 41–43;
Aime Michel, The Truth About Flying Saucers, 1956, pp. 68-74;
Brad Sparks, Blue Books Unknowns Catalogue, Case 120, p. 39;
Donald Menzel and Lyle Boyd, The World Of Flying Saucers, 1963, pp. 77-85;
Richard Hall, The UFO Evidence, 1964, pp. 34,144;
Richard Hall, “Gorman ‘dogfight’” in Encyclopedia of UFOs, edited by Ronald D. Story, New York: Doubleday, 1980, pp. 151-152;
Loren E. Gross, The UFO Riddle: 1948, August-December, The Author, 1981, pp. 8-16;
Loren E. Gross, UFOs: A History 1948, The Author, 1988, pp. 56-64;
Curtis Peebles, Watch the Skies: A Chronicle of the Flying Saucer Myth, Smithsonian Press, 1994, pp. 24-27;
Loren E. Gross, The Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse: UFOs, a History: 1948, Supplemental Notes, The Author, 2000, p. 75;
Michael D. Swords, GrassRoots UFOs: Case Reports from the Timmerman Files, Fund for UFO Research, 2005, p. 138;
Jerome Clark, The UFO Encyclopedia, 3rd Ed., pp. 536–537;
Jerome Clark, The UFO Encyclopedia, 4th Ed., pp. 424, 425, 586–596, 1063;
Graff, Garrett M. UFO: The Inside Story of the US Government’s Search for Alien Life Here—and Out There. Avid Reader Press, 2023, pp. 48–50;
Wikipedia, “Gorman dogfight”;
NICAP, “Gorman (Fargo) Case”;
Tracy Briggs, “Fargo’s most famous UFO sighting happened in the skies above a Bison football game,” INFORUM website, December 15, 2020;
“Project Blue Book: Episode Recap - “The Fuller Dogfight” (Season 1, Episode 1) | History” History Channel Youtube channel, January 9, 2019;
[Project Blue Book tv series premiered with an episode based on the Gorman case, this is a recap of that episode]
“Project Blue Book: Declassified - The Gorman Dogfight | History” History Channel Youtube channel, February 16, 2019;
[Richard Dolan and Jacques Vallée discussing this case for the Project Blue Book TV series Declassified]
Gorman case from last year:
https://twitter.com/mrjeffknox/status/1576393282208563201
Spatial disorientation thread that went with Gorman:
https://twitter.com/mrjeffknox/status/1576395456762241024
“Gorman Effect” tweet from new Phenomenology book:
https://twitter.com/mrjeffknox/status/1576419372801069056