The peaceful afternoon of May 24, 1949, started like any other spring day on Oregon’s scenic Rogue River. Five friends decided to spend their time fishing near Gold Beach, watching for jumping salmon in the crystal-clear waters. None of them could have predicted that within hours, they would witness something that would draw the attention of military investigators and remain unexplained for over 70 years.

Among the group were two men whose careers centered on understanding how things fly. Both worked at the prestigious Ames Research Laboratory near San Francisco, where cutting-edge aircraft designs were tested and refined. One was a draftsman who spent his days creating detailed technical drawings of experimental planes. The other, a wind tunnel mechanic, tested how aircraft behaved under different conditions. Both held security clearances and worked directly with classified military projects.

“We were just scanning the water with Navy binoculars, looking for fish,” one of the witnesses later told Air Force investigators. “That’s when we saw it coming from the northeast.”

What emerged from the clear blue sky defied everything these aviation experts knew about flight. A gleaming, metallic disc moved silently through the air, its surface catching the late afternoon sun like polished silver. To the naked eye, it appeared similar to a coin turned parallel to the ground. But through the powerful 8x military binoculars, the object revealed bizarre features no known aircraft possessed.

The two Ames employees took turns with the binoculars, each watching the strange craft for about a minute. Their trained eyes picked out details that would later frustrate military experts trying to explain away the sighting. The object was perfectly circular, like a pancake, with a mysterious vertical fin rising from its upper surface. Most striking was the complete absence of any visible means of propulsion – no wings, no propellers, no jet engines, not even the slightest hint of exhaust.

“The trailing edge looked wrinkled and dirty,” they reported, describing an unusual texture that seemed to ripple along the craft’s rear section. This detail would later fascinate investigators, as it suggested some unknown form of propulsion affecting the air around the object.

But it was what happened next that truly separated this sighting from typical UFO reports of the era. As the group watched in amazement, the disc performed a maneuver that should have been impossible. It turned completely around its vertical axis, rotating like a compass needle, without tilting or banking as any conventional aircraft would need to do. The movement was precise, controlled, and utterly silent.

Then, without warning, the object accelerated. In mere seconds, it matched the speed of the fastest jets of the day, disappearing to the southeast without making a sound. No sonic boom, no engine roar, just absolute silence.