Muroc Army Air Field CIC Affidavits, July 7–8, 1947 (Gilkey, Shoop, McHenry, Ruvolo, Scott, Robinson, Wise, Stapp)

Summary

Buried inside FBI 62-HQ-83894 Section 3 (pages 63–72) is a cluster of nine sworn CIC affidavits from Muroc Army Air Field (now Edwards AFB), covering UAP observations on July 7 and July 8, 1947 — the same week as the Roswell event, two weeks after Kenneth Arnold’s June 24 sighting. Seven of the nine were taken by Counter Intelligence Corps Agent Thomas A. McMillan between July 11 and August 13, 1947. The Gilkey statement was taken orally by Captain Harry D. Black on 11 August 1947. All nine are classified CONFIDENTIAL on the original.

The witnesses:

1. Colonel Gilkey, Commanding Officer, Muroc Army Air Field (oral statement, 11 August 1947) — observed an object he chose to characterize as “paper” — the only deflationary statement in the cluster, given by the base CO.
2. Major Richard R. Shoop, Office of Chief of Tech. Engineering Division, Muroc (sworn 11 July 1947) — independent noon 8 July sighting; wife observed simultaneously.
3. 1st Lt. Joseph C. McHenry, Billeting Officer, Muroc AAF (sworn 11 July 1947) — primary observer of the 8 July 09:30 sighting; recruited and tested three additional witnesses.
4. T/Sgt. Joseph Ruvolo, 4144th AAFBU NCO Billeting (sworn 14 July 1947) — corroborating witness recruited by McHenry.
5. Jannette Marie Scott, Secretary to McHenry, Muroc AAF (sworn 14 July 1947) — corroborating witness; observed both the original two-disc sighting and the third circling object.
6. PFC T. C. Robinson [signature on affidavit attributed to S/Sgt. Gerald F. Lauman/Nauman in document body — clerical anomaly] (sworn 14 July 1947) — corroborating witness; “I have been flying in and have been around all types of aircraft since 1943 and never in my life have I seen anything such as this.”
7. Major J. C. Wise, Test Pilot, XP-84 program, Muroc (sworn 13 August 1947) — independent 7 July 10:10 sighting from the flight line.
8. Captain John Paul Stapp, Flight Test, Muroc (sworn 12 August 1947) — independent 8 July 11:50 sighting at Rogers Dry Lake.

Plus McHenry’s second sighting later the same morning at the base dispensary, witnessed by registered nurse Mrs. A. C. Naum plus seven additional Muroc personnel — independently corroborated in Scott’s affidavit and Robinson’s affidavit.

This is among the earliest sworn primary-source UAP material on the official record anywhere in the United States, by date of incident. The witnesses are credentialed AAF officers and senior NCOs at the country’s premier flight-test installation, the affidavits were taken under CIC supervision while the events were still fresh, and the witnesses include Captain John Paul Stapp — who would later become the most famous human test subject in 20th-century aviation medicine (the Holloman rocket-sled experiments, “fastest man on Earth” 1954, the Stapp/Murphy’s Law episode, OSHA pioneer). Stapp is on the official 1947 record stating: “I think it was a man-made object, as evidenced distaintly by the outline and functional appearance.”

None of this material is referenced in AARO’s PURSUE Release 01 official catalog. It is buried inside the OCR’d 62-HQ-83894 archive at section 3, pages 65–70.

What the Affidavits Document

Affidavit 0 — Colonel Gilkey, oral statement, 11 August 1947 (Section 3 page 63)

The only deflationary statement in the cluster. Colonel Gilkey, Muroc Army Air Field’s Commanding Officer, gave an oral statement to Captain Harry D. Black, Intelligence Officer, on 11 August 1947. Black recorded:

“Colonel Gilkey, stated that the object he saw, he believed at the time to be paper and of no significance or the objects not important enough to be reported. There was nothing clearly enough seen by the Colonel to make any further reports justifiable.”

Gilkey is the same officer who, per Major Shoop’s affidavit (page 64), called Shoop’s attention to the noon 8 July sighting in the first place. Gilkey saw something. He chose to characterize it as paper.

This is the base CO’s deflationary commitment, contemporaneous with the eight other Muroc affidavits in this cluster characterizing objects in the same airspace on the same day(s) as silver, disc-like, oscillating, intelligently controlled, and conclusively-not-balloons. The asymmetry between Gilkey’s oral statement and the eight subordinates’ sworn statements is itself a data point.

Affidavit 0.5 — Major Richard R. Shoop, sworn 11 July 1947 (Section 3 page 64)

Sighting #3, 8 July 1947, ~12:00 noon, Muroc.

Major Shoop, Office of Chief of Technical Engineering Division. Colonel Gilkey called Shoop’s attention to the object — the same Gilkey who, in his August 11 oral statement, characterized what he saw as “paper.”

Shoop’s description:

“I observed between five (5) and eight (8) miles to the North what appeared to be a thin metallic object. It appeared to be metallic because the method in which it was flying caused the sun to reflect like an apparently aluminum colored surface. The object moved from an intermediate altitude in an oscillating fashion, almost to the surface of the ground and then started climbing again. It climbed to a fairly high altitude and moved off slowly into the distance.”

Eight minutes total observation. Object size was “approximately the size of a pursuit airplane but did not have the shape of a conventional plane.” Crucially:

“This same object was seen by my wife at the same time.”

Mrs. Shoop is therefore the second civilian witness in the Muroc cluster (alongside Mr. Lenz of Wright Field in Stapp’s truck). She is not separately deposed.

Affidavit 1 — 1st Lt. Joseph C. McHenry, sworn 11 July 1947 (Section 3 pages 66–67)

Sighting #1, 8 July 1947, ~09:30 PST, Muroc AAF (Rogers Dry Lake area).

McHenry’s narrative opener is striking. While in the Post Exchange that morning, he had said: “Someone will have to show me one of these Discs before I will believe it.” About fifteen minutes later, walking back to his office, he saw two silver objects of either spherical or disc-like shape, approximately 8,000 ft altitude, flying at ~300 mph on a heading of 320° (north-northwest), against the prevailing wind.

He immediately recruited three additional witnesses by asking them to come outside without telling them what to look for:

• S/Sgt. Gerald E. Nauman
• T/Sgt. Joseph Ruvolo
• Miss Jannette Marie Scotte

He then tested them: he asked each to tell him in what direction the objects were traveling, without indicating direction himself. All three independently answered: “moving toward Mojave, California.”

McHenry’s process-of-elimination commitments in writing:

• Not aircraft — no propeller arcs, no engine noise.
• Not weather balloons — moving against the prevailing wind, at speeds and on horizontal headings inconsistent with balloon behavior, and balloons would not stay at constant altitude.

Sighting #2, same morning, Muroc dispensary. McHenry ran to the base dispensary to recruit medical personnel as additional witnesses for the original objects. By the time he reached the dispensary back porch with Mrs. A. C. Naum (registered nurse) and approximately seven other personnel, the original objects had disappeared. But while standing there, McHenry and one other person spotted a second object — silver, spherical or disc-like — at approximately 8,000 ft, circling over the North-end of the field. He called the others’ attention to it. Five of seven of the additional personnel saw it.

Critical analytical commitment from McHenry on Sighting #2: “the object circled in too tight a circle and too severe a plane to be any aircraft that I know of. It could not have been any type of bird because of the reflection that was created when the object reached certain altitudes. The object could not have been a local weather balloon for it is very impossible that a weather balloon would stay at the same altitude as long and circle in such a consistent nature as did the above mentioned object.”

McHenry, in his own words: “I am familiar with the results of too constant vision of the sun or any bright object and am aware that optical illusions are possible and probable. I wish to make this statement that the above mentioned observance was that of actual subject matter.”

Affidavit 1.5 — Jannette Marie Scott, Secretary to McHenry, sworn 14 July 1947 (Section 3 page 71)

The third member of McHenry’s recruited witness group, sworn in her own statement. She times the original sighting to “approximately 10:00” — between McHenry’s 09:30 and Ruvolo’s 09:45.

“There were two, silver colored disc like objects flying toward Mojave, California, one directly back of the other, at a speed of about 300 to 400 miles per hour, having an altitude of approximately 8000 feet. I listened carefully for a few minutes, and heard no drone, such as should be heard from any aircraft… I was convinced these objects were not weather balloons due to the horizontal position in which they were flying. Nor could they have been birds of any nature, due to the definite reflection from the sun rays.”

Scott’s experience credentials, in her own words: “I have been on this Base, considering an absence of six months, approximately eighteen months, and am familiar with all type aircraft.”

She independently corroborates McHenry’s second sighting — the third circling object — without prompting:

“About three or four minutes, after these flying objects had nearly disappeared, I glanced around and sighted another flying object, similar to the above mentioned objects. This flying object was silver colored and was in the shape of a disc. Unlike the first two this object was flying in a tight circle, neither losing nor gaining altitude, at approximately eight thousand feet, therefore I was convinced it could not have been a weather balloon, and because of the tight circle it could not have been any type aircraft.”

So McHenry’s tight-circling third object is now corroborated by Scott (page 71) and McHenry (pages 66–67). Robinson’s affidavit (next) will corroborate it a third time.

Affidavit 1.75 — PFC T. C. Robinson [or S/Sgt. Gerald F. Nauman], sworn 14 July 1947 (Section 3 page 72)

A clerical anomaly: the affidavit body opens “The following is a statement given by S/Sgt. Gerald F. Lauman, 4144th AAFBU” but the signature line reads “PFC T. C. Robinson”. Either an OCR transcription error or a clerical mix-up in the original CIC handling. The affidavit is the second corroboration of McHenry’s first sighting and an independent corroboration of his second.

The witness’s own credentials:

“I have been flying in and have been around all types of aircraft since 1943 and never in my life have I seen anything such as this.”

Description of the first sighting:

“I observed personally two (2) flying disc, flying in a north west direction at an estimated altitude of seven or eight thousand feet, traveling at approximately three or four hundred miles per hour.”

And on the third (tight-circling) object:

“In addition to these two (2) disc I saw another object a few minutes later at the same altitude doing certain maneuvers such as flying in a tight circle. The two disc had already disappeared. This object to my knowledge of aircraft could not have been an airplane because of the very tight maneuver it was undergoing.”

Affidavit 2 — T/Sgt. Joseph Ruvolo, sworn 14 July 1947 (Section 3 page 65)

Direct corroboration of McHenry’s Sighting #1, three days after the event.

“About 09:45 he [McHenry] was returning from the Post Exchange when he called to me to come outside and asked me to look up to where he was pointing and to my surprise I saw two (2) flying objects which appeared to me like two (2) flying disc or saucer shaped silver colored objects, flying in a northwestern direction at speed approximately 350 or 400 miles per hour and at an altitude of about 7500 or 8000 feet. I could not hear a motor roar like one of our planes and it could not have been a balloon.”

Notable that Ruvolo recalls the time as 09:45 (vs. McHenry’s 09:30) and the speed as 350-400 mph (vs. McHenry’s ~300 mph). Two independent estimates of altitude: 7500-8000 ft (Ruvolo) and ~8000 ft (McHenry) — convergent.

Affidavit 3 — Major J. C. Wise, sworn 13 August 1947 (Section 3 page 68)

Independent observation, 7 July 1947, ~10:10, Muroc flight line.

Major Wise was on the ground running up the XP-84 prototype (the experimental jet that became the F-84 Thunderjet). He noticed everyone on the flight line was looking up.

“Off to the north about 10,000 to 12,000 feet altitude, was an object that I assumed at first to be a weather balloon, but after looking at it for a while I noticed that it was oscillating in a forward whirling movement without losing altitude. It was traveling about 200 to 225 MPH, and heading from west to east. The object was yellowish white in color and I would estimate that it was a sphere about 5 to 10 feet in diameter.”

Wise notes: “I did not have time to chase it in a P-80.”

Operationally significant detail: this is a credentialed test pilot at the Air Force’s premier flight-test base, on the flight line of the XP-84 prototype, who would have had ready access to a P-80 chase aircraft, who is making a non-deflationary characterization of the object as a 5-10 ft yellowish-white oscillating sphere in steady-state forward motion at 200-225 mph.

Affidavit 4 — Captain John Paul Stapp, sworn 12 August 1947 (Section 3 pages 69–70)

Independent observation, 8 July 1947, 11:50, Rogers Dry Lake, Area #3.

Captain Stapp was sitting in an observation truck at Area #3, Rogers Dry Lake, observing a P-82 ejection-seat experiment. (Stapp at this date was a young Flight Test officer — he would later become the Air Force’s lead human-tolerance researcher and the most famous human test subject in aviation medicine, holding the official “fastest man on earth” record at 632 mph in 1954.)

The setup: two P-82s and an A-26 were flying at 20,000 ft preparing to drop a dummy in an ejection-seat test. Stapp was watching the formation.

“I observed a rounded object, white aluminum in color, which at first resembled a parachute canopy. The first impression was that a premature ejection of the seat and dummy had occurred. This body was ejected at a determined height lower than 20,000 feet, and was falling at three (3) times the rate observed for the parachute which was ejected thirty minutes later. As it fell it drifted slightly north of due west against the prevailing wind, toward Mount Wilson.”

The object descended into a “low enough level to permit observation of its lateral silhouette”:

“It presented a distinct ovular outline, with two (2) 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.”

Negative observations:

“No smoke flames, propeller arks, engine noise, or other clauable [audible] or visible means of propulsion were noted. The color was silvery, resembling aluminum painted fabric, and did not appear as dense as a parachute canopy.”

Witnesses: four of the five people in the observation truck observed it, including civilian Mr. Lenz of Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio. The other names are not given in the affidavit. The object remained in line of vision for approximately 90 seconds, lost when it dropped to mountain-top elevation.

Stapp’s explicit committed personal opinions, on the record, sworn:

“1. I think it was a man-made object, as evidenced distaintly by the outline and functional appearance.”

“2. It’s size was not far from 25 feet with a parachute canopy.”

“3. The path followed by this object appeared as though it might have been dropped from a great height.”

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

Why This Matters

1. Earliest sworn first-person UAP affidavits in PURSUE Release 01. The Apollo 17 VM6 case is December 1972. The Bronze Ellipsoid is September 2023. The USPER statement is late 2025. These Muroc affidavits are July 8, 1947 — the same day as the original Roswell press release. They predate every other case in the entire 162-item PURSUE catalog by 25 years.

2. The witnesses are credentialed Air Force officers at the country’s premier flight-test base. Muroc Army Air Field (now Edwards AFB) was the AAF’s primary flight-test installation. The witnesses include the Billeting Officer, an XP-84 test pilot, a Flight Test officer (Stapp), an NCO, and a registered nurse with seven additional Muroc personnel. The chain of custody — sworn affidavits taken by CIC Agent Thomas A. McMillan, classified CONFIDENTIAL — is the chain of custody Air Force counter-intelligence applied to credible witness statements at the time.

3. Captain John Paul Stapp. Stapp’s name is foundational in 20th-century aviation medicine and human-factors engineering. He would go on to redefine the human tolerance limits for acceleration and deceleration, hold the fastest-man-on-earth record in 1954, push for federal seatbelt laws, and be the originator of “Stapp’s Law” / the formalization of “Murphy’s Law.” His sworn 1947 commitment that the Muroc object was “a man-made object” — explicitly ruling out hallucination, balloon, parachute — is on the official record now in primary-source form. This is a fact about his life that has been buried for 78 years.

4. The “man-made” framing matters specifically. Stapp does not say “alien.” He says “man-made.” That qualifier is consistent with the broader 1947 AAF/CIC interpretive frame: that flying-disc reports might represent classified American or Soviet aerospace projects, not extraterrestrial craft. Stapp’s “outline and functional appearance” inference (he saw two projections that might be “thick fins or nobs” and rotation/oscillation) is the assessment of a flight-test officer reading aerodynamic surfaces. He concluded the object was engineered. He did not commit to nationality.

5. Multi-witness corroboration is uncommonly clean. McHenry’s Sighting #1 has four primary witnesses (McHenry, Ruvolo, Nauman, Scotte) plus a process-of-elimination test where three corroborating witnesses independently named the same direction of travel. McHenry’s Sighting #2 has six additional witnesses (Mrs. Naum + 5 of 7 dispensary personnel). Stapp’s sighting has four of five truck personnel including a civilian witness from Wright Field. This is not a single-source case.

6. Geographic and temporal alignment with the broader 1947 wave. McHenry/Ruvolo’s two objects “moving toward Mojave, California.” Stapp’s object “drifted slightly north of due west against the prevailing wind, toward Mount Wilson.” Both cases describe motion against prevailing wind, at the same altitude band (~8,000 ft for the McHenry sighting, descending object for Stapp), on the same date (July 8, 1947). The object descriptions are not identical (silver disc/sphere vs. ovular silver-aluminum with two upper projections) — but they are within the broader population of 1947 wave reports.

7. CIC custody chain identifies Thomas A. McMillan. The same CIC office that took these affidavits at Muroc was contemporaneously operating the document-custody chain that took possession of the recovered Davidson-Brown crash material on August 1, 1947 (davidson-brown-crash-mission-report). CIC Agent Thomas A. McMillan is now a name attached to specific operational paperwork that can be cross-referenced.

8. AARO’s catalog does not surface this material. Despite being among the most evidentially structured early UAP material in PURSUE Release 01 — multi-witness, sworn under penalty, taken by CIC under classification — none of these affidavits appear in AARO’s official catalog. They are inside 62-HQ-83894 because the FBI eventually received Springer’s Aug 27 1947 transmittal of the AAF’s “Investigation of Flying Discs” packet. They survive in the archive as enclosure material, not as catalog cases.

Connections

• PURSUE full inventory
• PURSUE master report
• maury-island-1947
• davidson-brown-crash-mission-report
• philadelphia-1950-soap-suds-disc
• 1947-california-montana-cic
• PURSUE program
• AARO
• Department of War
• UAP disclosure (concept)

Open Questions

• Pass 5 update: The cluster is now confirmed to span Section 3 pages 63–72 (10 consecutive pages, 9 affidavits). Page 63 (Gilkey, oral, deflationary), 64 (Shoop), 65 (Ruvolo), 66–67 (McHenry, two sightings), 68 (Wise), 69–70 (Stapp), 71 (Scott), 72 (Robinson/Nauman clerical-anomaly affidavit). Pages 73 and onward shift to non-Muroc CIC investigations (the Switzer Cedar Ravine Road and Madden Montana cases — see 1947-california-montana-cic).
• Who were the other observers in Stapp’s truck? Stapp names only Mr. Lenz of Wright Field. The remaining three of the four-witness group are not identified in the affidavit. AAF/CIC investigation paper would have followed up on this.
• Did anything become of CIC Agent Thomas A. McMillan’s full investigation file? The affidavits are clearly enclosures to a larger CIC investigation packet. The covering CIC report would address how the affidavits were collected, what investigation followed, and what conclusions CIC reached. That covering document is the obvious next mining target — likely either elsewhere in Section 3, or destroyed when CIC’s records were absorbed into Army G-2.
• Did the AAF investigate the “moving toward Mojave / Mount Wilson” headings? Both McHenry’s and Stapp’s sightings describe objects moving against prevailing wind on consistent NW-W headings. If anything was tracked off Muroc by radar that morning, the records would be in Air Defense Command’s contemporaneous operations log — outside this release.
• Did Stapp ever discuss this sighting publicly later in life? Stapp lived until 1999, gave countless interviews and lectures across his career, and was a careful and direct communicator. His public posture on UAP throughout his life would be informative. Worth checking whether his oral histories at Wright-Patterson, the Air Force Museum, or other archives reference this Muroc sighting.
• The XP-84 was being run up that morning. Major Wise’s affidavit places him on the XP-84 prototype’s flight line. Was the XP-84 program’s contemporaneous activity log preserved? It would establish exactly who else at Muroc was on the flight line and would have had visual on Wise’s 7 July 10:10 sighting.

Quotes Worth Keeping

“Someone will have to show me one of these Discs before I will believe it.” — 1st Lt. Joseph C. McHenry, in conversation at the Muroc Post Exchange, ~09:15, 8 July 1947. Approximately fifteen minutes before he saw two of them.

“Tell me what you see up there.” — McHenry to S/Sgt. Nauman, T/Sgt. Ruvolo, and Miss Scotte, 8 July 1947, recorded in his sworn affidavit. All three independently said “flying Discs.”

“I think it was a man-made object, as evidenced distaintly by the outline and functional appearance.” — Captain John Paul Stapp, sworn affidavit, 12 August 1947. Section 3 page 70. The first opinion of three he committed to writing under CIC oath, regarding an object he observed from a Rogers Dry Lake observation truck on 8 July 1947 at 11:50.

“Seeing this was not a hallucination or other fancies of a sense.” — Stapp, same affidavit. Closing line of his three-point personal-opinion section.

“I did not have time to chase it in a P-80.” — Major J. C. Wise, XP-84 test pilot, sworn affidavit, 13 August 1947. Section 3 page 68. Reported regarding a 5-10 ft yellowish-white sphere oscillating in steady forward motion at 200-225 mph at 10,000-12,000 ft altitude north of Muroc on 7 July 1947 at 10:10.

“From my actual observance the object circled in too tight a circle and too severe a plane to be any aircraft that I know of.” — McHenry’s process-of-elimination commitment regarding his second 8 July sighting at the Muroc dispensary, with Mrs. A. C. Naum (registered nurse) and approximately seven additional witnesses present.