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◆ CASE FILEThe facts, corroborated

The Polished Disc on the Canyon Ferry Road

Just after noon on 29 July 1947 three people in a sedan on the road from Canyon Ferry to York, east of Helena, Montana, stopped to watch a disc "like highly polished nickel" hover and flutter a few miles ahead before it swooped away and "melted into thin air". A telephone-company manager sent their account to Army intelligence, the FBI filed it and nobody evaluated it. This is the record of what the three travellers reported, not a verdict on what hung over the road.

◆ THE SHORT VERSION

  • The Polished Disc on the Canyon Ferry Road is a reported UAP case on Road from Canyon Ferry to York, about a quarter mile north-west of Canyon Ferry, east of Helena, Montana, 29 July 1947, about 12:05.
  • Three people in a sedan on the Canyon Ferry road east of Helena, Montana, reported a disc gleaming "like highly polished nickel" hovering and fluttering ahead of them at about 12:05 on 29 July 1947.
  • The witnesses said the disc swooped north-east at tremendous speed and "melted into thin air".
  • A Pacific Telephone & Telegraph manager, R. J. Madden, sent the account to Army intelligence; he was not a witness.
  • The FBI's Seattle office forwarded the report and took no action, and NICAP lists it as a Blue Book case with no explanation.
  • For this case Fractured Realities holds 2 distinct sources, 2 corroborating primary documents and 3 distinct claimants on its resolved list.
  • The archive grades it L4 · OFFICIAL RECORD — a released government record names who saw it, the top of our scale, though no independent testimony sits beside that record.

Counts are resolved totals of what sources say, computed 2026-10-12; the reported details above are claims in the record, not findings. A record of reports, not a verdict on what happened.

The Polished Disc on the Canyon Ferry Road
Canyon Ferry Lake, east of Helena, from the air · photo: Murray Foubister · via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0) · CC BY-SA 2.0 ↗
EVENT DATE
29 July 1947, about 12:05
LOCATION
Road from Canyon Ferry to York, about a quarter mile north-west of Canyon Ferry, east of Helena, Montana · USA
COORDS
46.65°N 111.72°W
INDEPENDENCE
L4 · OFFICIAL RECORD
SOURCES
2 distinct
CLAIMANTS
3
STATUS
Known from released government records
NUMBERS COMPUTED 2026-10-12 · RESOLVED COUNTS, NOT A VERDICT
VIEW ON ATLAS →

Steve Herrmann was driving the sedan along the road from Canyon Ferry to York, about a quarter of a mile north-west of Canyon Ferry. Bob Brown sat beside him. At about 12:05 on 29 July 1947 the passenger in the back seat shouted that he could see a flying saucer coming over the horizon from the south-west. Herrmann stopped the car. All three saw a bright disc dead ahead, two to three miles off and about 3,000 feet up.

It hovered and "fluttered", rising and falling fifty to a hundred feet for about five seconds. Then it swooped off to the north-east at tremendous speed and "melted into thin air". From where they sat it looked about three feet across and three or four inches thick. It gleamed "like highly polished nickel".

What is on the record

None of the three wrote the report. R. J. Madden, a division plant manager for Pacific Telephone & Telegraph in Spokane, sent a "Report on a Flying Saucer" to Army intelligence at McChord Field on 8 August 1947. The FBI's Seattle office forwarded it on 13 September, and it sits in the bureau's flying-disc file 62-HQ-83894. The FBI noted that no action was being taken by Seattle. The same account appears as an entry in a set of early incident summaries, also released by the Department of War, which give Madden as the reporter. He was not a witness.

The two documents differ on the date. The incident summary gives 29 July. The machine summary of the FBI file gave 29 June. The July date is followed here, and it is the date the outside catalogues use. The scan's distance from Helena is also unclear. Canyon Ferry lies roughly fifteen to twenty miles east of the city, and the old townsite is now under Canyon Ferry Lake.

NICAP lists the sighting as a Blue Book case with no explanation. The Hatch database and Overmeire's catalogue also carry it.

Why it sits where it does

L4 · OFFICIAL RECORD: a released government record names who saw it. Steve Herrmann and H. J. (Bob) Brown are the two named here. The record names the back-seat passenger too but gives no age or title for him, so this page describes him by his seat. Only the two released documents carry their account. The tier measures sourcing, not truth. What fluttered over the Canyon Ferry road is not resolved here.

◆ CORROBORATION
✓38_143685_box7_Incident_Summaries_1-100 (government primary)
✓65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Section_3 (government primary)
✓3 resolved claimants
◆ SOURCES

Everything this file draws on, in the open — reports, not reality. Check us.

Documents & published sources

Government records, papers and journalism the archive links to this case.

government records · 2
DoW UAP Release · 2
38_143685_box7_Incident_Summaries_1-100corroboration
65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Section_3corroboration
DISC CRAFTGOVERNMENT RECORD1947USA

CASE FILES STATE THE RECORD AS OUR ARCHIVE HOLDS IT — FACTS, NOT OPINION. REPORTS, NOT REALITY.

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The Polished Disc on the Canyon Ferry Road — Case File · Fractured Realities