High Point Confidential: The 1947 Flying Saucer Sighting That Still Baffles

They call 1947 “the year of the flying saucer.” That summer, reports of unexplained airborne objects — often described as saucer-shaped — swept the nation. High Point, a practical city known for furniture and textiles, had its own puzzling encounter.

Backstory

The nationwide wave of sightings began on June 24, 1947, when pilot Kenneth Arnold reported seeing a formation of fast-moving, unidentified aircraft near Mount Rainier. News of similar reports surged in the weeks that followed and intensified after a controversial story in early July claiming the recovery of a crashed extraterrestrial craft near Roswell, New Mexico. Whether one believes those accounts or not, the atmosphere that summer primed many witnesses to scrutinize the skies.

The High Point Sighting

On the evening of July 12, 1947, two local aviators—Ed Lewis and Dick Milsaps—said they encountered a strange object while flying roughly 10 miles south of the city. At about 7:20 p.m. and an altitude near 1,000 feet, they reported seeing what they described as a revolving, cylindrical object that looked like “a huge red ball of fire.”

"The lower portion appeared to rotate clockwise, and periodical bursts of fire came from underneath, as if from some form of exhaust," one of the men later recalled. "It crossed directly in front of me at about the same altitude we were flying... it appeared to be traveling between 300 and 400 miles an hour."

The pilots said their two-seater was doing roughly 115 mph and that they momentarily tried to follow the object, which then darted away toward Winston-Salem and vanished, emitting a bluish glow as it sped off. They judged the craft larger than an ordinary airplane and estimated speeds far beyond their own aircraft’s capabilities.

Who Reported It

The witnesses were considered credible in the community. Lewis, then about 32, was an Army veteran and a former newspaperman who wrote a weekly aviation column and helped launch an aviation magazine; Milsaps worked as a staff writer for that magazine. Their report was published in a local paper the next day and was picked up by other regional outlets, giving the episode a brief moment in the spotlight.

Possibilities and Legacy

Nearly eight decades later, the High Point sighting remains unresolved. Explanations include an atmospheric or astronomical event (such as a meteor or ball lightning), misidentified aircraft or experimental military technology, or an embellished or mistaken eyewitness account influenced by the national flying-saucer fervor. A deliberate hoax is also possible, though nothing definitive has ever emerged to confirm any single explanation.

Whatever the truth, the July 1947 encounter endures as a quirky piece of local lore — an intriguing snapshot of a moment when the skies felt a little more mysterious to many Americans.