AAF experimental test pilot Capt. John Paul Stapp, Mr. Lenz from Wright Field and two others in an observation truck at Area 3 of Rogers Dry Lake for a P-82 ejection seat test saw a round silver or aluminum-white object at first thought to be a parachute, about 25 feet wide, falling from a height below the 20,000 feet of the test aircraft at 3x the rate for an ejection seat test, drifting horizontally toward Mount Wilson at less than 50-80 mph, which when close to horizon appeared to have an oval outline with two thick fins or knobs on the upper surface which seemed to rotate or oscillate, no propellers, slowly disappearing below the mountain tops in the distance after 90 seconds. Others witnesses (Black?) independently, including Muroc Colorado Colonel Signa A. Gilkey and engineer Major Richard R. Shoop and wife saw from a different location 5-8 miles away to the north, apparently the same falling object, thin metallic aluminum colored and the size of a pursuit aircraft. The metallic saucer was observed by seven witnesses at the airfield for eight minutes (Stapp, John Paul; Lenz; Richard; Shoop; Gilkey, Signa A).

Ruppelt's account:

Two hours later a crew of technicians on Rogers Dry Lake, adjacent to Muroc Air Base, observed another UFO. Their report went as follows:

On the 8 July 1947 at 11:50 we were sitting in an observation truck located in Area #3, Rogers Dry Lake. We were gazing upward toward a formation of two P-82's and an A-26 aircraft flying at 20,000 feet. They were preparing to carry out a seat-ejection experiment. We observed a round object, white aluminum color, which at first resembled a parachute canopy. Our first impression was that a premature ejection of the seat and dummy had occurred but this was not the case. The object was lower than 20,000 feet, and was falling at three times the rate observed for the test parachute, which ejected thirty seconds after we first saw the object. As the object fell it drifted slightly north of due west against the prevailing wind. The speed, horizontal motion, could not be determined, but it appeared to be slower than the maximum velocity F-80 aircraft.

As this object descended through a low enough level to permit observation of its lateral silhouette, it presented a distinct oval- shaped outline, with two projections on the upper surface which might have been thick fins or nobs. These crossed each other at intervals, suggesting either rotation or oscillation of slow type.

No smoke, flames, propeller arcs, engine noise, or other plausible or visible means of propulsion were noted. The color was silver, resembling an aluminum-painted fabric, and did not appear as dense as a parachute canopy.

When the object dropped to a level such that it came into line of vision of the mountain tops, it was lost to the vision of the observers.

It is estimated that the object was in sight about 90 seconds. Of the five people sitting in the observation truck, four observed this object.

The following is our opinion about this object:

It was man-made, as evidenced by the outline and functional appearance.

Seeing this was not a hallucination or other fancies of sense.

Exactly four hours later the pilot of an F-51 was flying at 20,000 feet about 40 miles south of Muroc Air Base when he sighted a "flat object of a light-reflecting nature." He reported that it had no vertical fin or wings. When he first saw it, the object was above him and he tried to climb up to it, but his F-51 would not climb high enough. All air bases in the area were contacted but they had no aircraft in the area.

By the end of July 1947 the UFO security lid was down tight. The few members of the press who did inquire about what the Air Force was doing got the same treatment that you would get today if you inquired about the number of thermonuclear weapons stock-piled in the U.S.'s atomic arsenal. No one, outside of a few high-ranking officers in the Pentagon, knew what the people in the barbed-wire enclosed Quonset huts that housed the Air Technical Intelligence Center were thinking or doing.

Google map of this location.