That Time the FBI Investigated Flying Saucers in Hagerstown

As Halloween approaches, Radio Free Hub City is going to post a few articles looking at the paranormal. Today’s article is focusing on FBI investigations of UFOs in Hagerstown, MD.

HAGERSTOWN, MD (10/15/2022) – In 1947, a rash of sightings of unexplained flying objects (UFOs) swept America. Although the newly formed U.S. Air Force was the primary investigator of these sightings, the FBI received many reports and worked for a time with the Air Force to investigate these matters. The FBI’s official records for these investigations include multiple mentions of Hagerstown, and several incidents stand out that are worth discussing.

July 1947 UFO – Hagerstown, MD

In the July 7, 1947 issue of The Washington Post, Madlyn Ganoe, 30, who claimed to see multiple flying discs in a “2-1-2” formation racing at “terrific speed” from her back porch in Hagerstown. She said that the discs sounded like a “faraway train”. While it’s absolutely not unusual for Hagerstown to have reports of unidentified flying objects (in fact UFO Stalker currently has 11 pages of reports), the fact that this not only made the Washington Post and was subsequently highlighted by the FBI as something to potentially investigate shows this might have been something of interest.

Newspaper clipping from the July 7, 1947 Washington Post. Fair Use.

August 1, 1951 UFO – Hagerstown, MD

An even more interesting case of interest to the FBI was the August 1, 1951 sighting which made front page news in the follow day’s Morning Herald. The FBI took even more interest in this case, with multiple pages of notes regarding the over 500 sightings reported to the Morning Herald.

Newspaper clipping from the August 2, 1951 Morning Herald. Fair Use.

FBI Report Notes on Hagerstown UFO Sighting, August 1, 1951. Public Domain.

Flying Saucers – Aliens, Secret Government Projects, or Figments of Imagination?

There is a lot of debate if flying saucers are real, and if so, if the flying saucers are space aliens or just secret government programs. Of a total of 12,618 sightings reported to the United States Air Force’s Project Blue Book, 701 remained “unidentified.”

According to the United States Air Force, Since the termination of Project Blue Book, nothing has occurred that would support a resumption of UFO investigations by the Air Force. Given the current environment of steadily decreasing defense budgets, it is unlikely the Air Force would become involved in such a costly project in the foreseeable future.

Furthermore, per the USAF, “Persons wishing to report UFO sightings should be advised to contact local law enforcement agencies.”