Project Blue Book Case #85. On September 3, 1947, a witness in Oswego (now Lake Oswego), Oregon, observed a disc-shaped object in the sky during daylight hours. This early case occurred just two months after Kenneth Arnold's landmark June 24, 1947, sighting near Mount Rainier — the event that coined the term "flying saucer" and launched the modern UFO era — and in the same state.
Oregon was ground zero for the 1947 wave of sightings that followed Arnold's report. Hundreds of witnesses across the Pacific Northwest reported disc-shaped objects throughout the summer, and the newly created Air Force was struggling to assess the phenomenon. Project Sign, the predecessor to Blue Book, was being established at Wright-Patterson AFB to systematically investigate these reports.
The Oswego witness described a clearly defined disc-shaped object moving steadily across the sky. The object's distinct shape — flat and circular, unlike any conventional aircraft — was visible against the daytime sky. Its movement was described as smooth and deliberate, without the wobbling or tumbling that would characterize a windborne object.
As one of the earliest cases in what would become the Blue Book archive, Case #85 helped establish the investigation protocols that the Air Force would use for the next two decades. The case was classified "Unknown" — the object could not be identified as any known aircraft, balloon, or natural phenomenon. Its occurrence in the same geographic region as the Arnold sighting, during the same wave, made it a notable early entry in the official record.