Two Neighbours and a 'Big Silver Plate' over McKeesport

Mrs Nell Veway and Mrs Elizabeth Goltz were talking outside their homes in McKeesport, Pennsylvania. Something like a "big, silver plate" zoomed noiselessly overhead, heading towards Kennywood Park. Mrs Veway called out that it was not a plane but one of the "flying saucers". She put it at 12 to 15 inches across. It vanished into a bank of cloud and came out on the far side. There Mrs Goltz saw it too, until it went out of sight.

What is on the record

Project Blue Book logged the sighting as incident 161, and the whole of it rests on a single story in the McKeesport Daily News. The record card is marked "A/C", for aircraft. The analyst's note says the two women probably saw an ordinary aircraft.

The date is soft. The card gives "Date of info 8 July 1948 (Approx)". The archive's machine summary had 3 July from a misread newspaper date. NICAP's catalogue gives 8 July and spells the second witness "Geltz". NICAP also lists the case as a Blue Book unknown, drawing on the McDonald list and the FUFOR index. The card's own annotation says aircraft, and that is the tension in the record as it stands.

Why it sits where it does

L4 · OFFICIAL RECORD — a released government record names who saw it. The newspaper story Blue Book filed is what identifies the witnesses: Mrs Veway and Mrs Goltz. Neither woman's account survives outside that clipping. Blue Book's answer is an ordinary aircraft. Against it stands only Mrs Veway's cry that this was no plane.