LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — The UFO era came to Nevada in a dramatic way 75 years ago. Tuesday, June 28, 1947, was the day when a military pilot flying north of Lake Mead had a close encounter with an unusual formation.
The pilot saw a group of five or six white circular objects flying in a tight formation and traveling at about 285 mph. You can check out the documents about the event at this link.
This came just four days after a more famous sighting over Mount Rainier in Washington state. That’s the case credited with starting the “flying saucer” craze that swept across the country in June of 1947.
Author Preston Dennett, who wrote “UFOs Over Nevada,” said the military tried to explain away the Lake Mead incident, but couldn’t.
“They were in a triangular formation and much closer than regulations allowed. So this clearly was unusual from the get-go. And they saw that these were no planes at all, moving really fast, and they ended up reporting this officially and I believe there are only 43 cases that were reported unidentified by Blue Book,” said Dennett said.
The Lake Mead incident is one of the dozens of notable UFO cases over Nevada. 8 News Now I-Team Reporter George Knapp put together a detailed history of the Nevada UFO incidents you can see at this link.
