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Sighting record / 1957

Tamaroa Hovering UFO and Power Failure

November 14, 1957 · Tamaroa, Perry County, Illinois, United States
12Thinly documented UAP Unknown 15 sources

November 14, 1957. Tamaroa, Illinois. A small town in Perry County, home to 849 people at the 1950 census. Something hovered in the sky. It flashed. Just after, the power failed across a four-mile area. For about ten minutes, the lights stayed out. That is nearly all that survives. No names. No shape. No colour. The story lives on in a single line, catalogued by NICAP from two wire stories filed the next day. Yet eleven years later, atmospheric physicist James E. McDonald named Tamaroa before a committee of the US House of Representatives, as one of the cases where a UFO and a power failure arrived together.

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Context

November 1957. America was in the grip of a UFO wave. Tamaroa was a small town in Perry County, Illinois. It counted 849 people in 1950 and 696 in 1960.

Sources (15, most influential first)

  1. The Challenge of Unidentified Flying Objects, Appendix E · NICAP· 1961 · Research organisation · book
  2. The UFO Evidence, Section VIII · NICAP· 1964 · Research organisation · org report
  3. Statement of Dr. James E. McDonald, Symposium on UFOs · House Committee on Science and Astronautics (hosted by NCAS)· 1968-07-29 · Official document · gov doc
  4. Blackouts & UFOs · NICAP (Francis Ridge) · Research organisation · org report
  5. GSID by Category · NICAP · Research organisation · org report