Dept. of DefenseUnknownAmbiguous

Soil sample from flying saucer depression — Wright-Patterson AFB (Project SIGN), September 1948

Sep 9, 1948Location of soil sample not specified (submitted by Wright-Patterson AFB)

⟳ Deeper read pending. This record is from the FBI 62-HQ-83894 flying-disc file, whose cursive, clippings and faint scans are under-read by automated OCR. It is flagged for a vision-transcription pass and likely undercounts what the source contains — see the documents collection note.

Analysis — our summary

On September 9, 1948, Project SIGN at Wright-Patterson AFB submitted a soil sample to the FBI Laboratory for analysis. The sample was taken from a depression approximately 2 ft in diameter and 1 ft thick, allegedly made by a flying saucer that settled gently and then rebounded to approximately 20 ft altitude. The FBI Laboratory was asked to test for unusual elements, heat effects, and radioactivity. No comparison soil sample from the surrounding area was included.

As reported — verbatim from the document

“Project 'SIGN' soil sample: depression approximately 2 ft diameter, 1 ft thick, made by object that 'settled gently, rebounded to 20 ft'; submitted to FBI Lab for analysis for unusual elements, heat, and radioactivity.”

Analyst notes — caveats & confidence

Physical evidence case. FBI Lab analysis results appear in Section 4 (soil determined to be ordinary sand). No geographic location of the original depression is provided in the available text. The same incident appears in Section 4 with additional detail including the FBI Lab response.

Provenance

Source document65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Section_2.pdf

Document typecase file compilation

Reporting agencyDept. of Defense

Source pages194

DeclassifiedFirst public at this release (2026)

Held classified~78 years (≥, to this release)

Extraction confidence ModerateHow cleanly this record could be parsed from the source — driven by legibility & redaction. It is not a measure of how credible or anomalous the sighting is.