The Back-Yard Saucer at Hamel

The two boys were playing in their back yard when they noticed an object coming down between them, about twelve feet up. It "settled to the ground gently - much as a balloon". On the ground it spun once and made a whistling noise the boys likened to a steam whistle. It shot straight up about 20 feet, stopped and whistled again. Then it climbed to about 30 feet, weaving round branches and telephone wires, and "shot off in a northeasterly direction". The boys described it as round and dull grey, about two feet across and a foot thick. When it touched down it made "a slight clanking noise, much as metal hitting against metal".

What is on the record

Project SIGN logged the case as Incident 162. The check-list and narrative are in DOW-UAP-D088, released by the Department of War on 12 June 2026. Their parents said the boys ran into the house "visibly frightened" and were afraid to tell. Their father told the Hamel postmaster, E. R. Sheridan, who reported it to the FBI in St. Paul. An agent's note describes the landing spot as about two feet across. It looked "as though some heavy object had landed there or had been set down", with the ground dented and protruding rocks levelled. The spot was covered by a washtub.

The Project Blue Book case file carries the rest. The FBI said it was not investigating and referred the report to Army intelligence. By the time Fifth Army officers photographed the spot and took soil samples, heavy rain had left the hollow a third full of water. The samples went on to the FBI Laboratory. Air Materiel Command's verdict was blunt: "This apparent bit of fantasy is hardly worth further consideration." J. Allen Hynek ruled out a meteorite and found it "incredible" as a physical event. He asked whether the children had normal vision, since a buzzard or hawk gliding to a landing might look strange to a short-sighted child.

Why it sits where it does

L0 · SINGLE ACCOUNT. One released record carries this case and the archive counts it once. The record names the two boys; this page does not, because they were children, and a witness the page will not name is not an identified witness on our ladder. So the grade is the lowest one, whatever the file holds. The trace is an agent's note on a dent in the ground. The Minneapolis Morning Tribune carried the boys' account on 14 August 1948 but adds no witness. The tier measures sourcing, not truth. What came down in the boys' yard is not resolved here.