On 11 August 1948, two children near Hamel, Minnesota, reportedly saw a small, round object descend into their yard, touch the ground and rise again. Their account reached military intelligence through the local postmaster and FBI office. Unlike many brief sighting files, the surviving record contains a scene inspection, correspondence about collecting soil and an actual laboratory report. Those documents establish an investigation; they do not independently establish the object the children described.
The report reaches the authorities
The National Archives file, Hamel, Minnesota, August 1948, preserves an FBI letter dated 12 August relaying information supplied by postmaster E. R. Sheridan. A father had told Sheridan that his sons had seen an object resembling two plates placed together. The letter passed the information to Captain Charles L. Victor, an Army area intelligence officer, and said the local FBI office was not conducting an investigation.
That reporting chain is important. The father and postmaster supported the children’s account, but the letter does not make them eyewitnesses to the descending object. Each stage records what somebody else said. The children’s identities and the private family address are unnecessary to understand the evidence and are not reproduced here.
The account recorded in the interview
A report by Victor records interviews on 13 August. The children placed the experience around midday on 11 August. They described a dull grey, round object about two feet across and a foot thick, with no visible windows or attachments. It allegedly descended between them, settled gently, spun and made a metallic sound on touching the ground.
They then described a whistle, an upward movement to about twenty feet, another pause and whistle, and a further rise before the object departed towards the northeast. Their parents said the boys had appeared frightened on returning to the house. The report preserves those reactions and estimated movements, rather than providing a film, a recovered object or measurements of its flight.
A later checklist condenses the same account. Its repeated details should not be counted as a second independent sighting. The record’s multiple documents often describe one reported episode, copied or summarised as it moved between offices.
An indentation at the reported spot
Victor inspected a roughly two-foot area identified by the family and covered with a washtub. He described dented ground and protruding stones that appeared to have been levelled, as though something heavy had landed or been placed there. This is an investigator’s observation of a physical feature after the event. It does not establish when the feature formed, what formed it or whether the reported object caused it.
Further correspondence shows a request to revisit the area, photograph it and obtain earth samples. By the later inspection, heavy rain had affected the site and water partly filled the depression. The record therefore contains a real collection effort alongside a limitation that cannot be repaired simply by calling the material a landing trace.
Photographs and negatives listed in the file concern the area and sampling work. They are not photographs of the reported flying object. The distinction remains important when an archive folder uses a general sighting label for both witness reports and later scene photographs.
What the laboratory was asked to examine
In a letter dated 9 September, Air Materiel Command submitted a sample to the FBI Laboratory. The request asked about unusual material adhering to the particles, structural changes and possible effects of heat, gases or radioactive substances. It also acknowledged that nobody had supplied soil from the surrounding ground for comparison.
The request described the rain exposure and proposed obtaining comparative material if the first examination revealed something worth following up. Those statements explain both the purpose and limits of the test. The laboratory was examining a submitted sample, not watching a landing or comparing a known vehicle with marks it had demonstrably produced.
The FBI acknowledged receipt in September. Subsequent messages sought the result and referred to the report being forwarded. These administrative exchanges should not be mistaken for separate experiments or additional positive findings. They trace the handling of one examination.
The completed result of 7 October
The FBI Laboratory report dated 7 October 1948 identifies the submitted specimen as pebbles, sand and dirt. It states that the examination found nothing unusual indicating that a metallic object had rubbed or scraped against the sample. It reported no abnormal structure in the stones and no indication of extreme heat or radioactive substances.
This is a negative finding within the examination described. It provides no support for claims of exotic residue, radiation or heat damage in that specimen. It also does not identify the cause of the children’s account or prove that no ordinary object could ever have touched the ground. The sample’s history, rainfall and missing comparison material remain relevant to how far the result can be taken.
The report said the specimen would be returned to the submitting office. No independent modern reanalysis or present location of that sample was established in this review. A historical laboratory report is the evidence available here; it is not a newly performed test.
Further interest and conflicting attitudes
The Army Chemical Corps wrote on 29 October that some of its scientists wanted more details, photographs and surface material. Later routing correspondence arranged for a checklist, the soil, the FBI result and scene photographs to be supplied. The reviewed file documents this request and transfer process, but not a separate completed Chemical Corps finding. Scientific interest is evidence of a question being pursued, rather than a positive answer to it.
Other sections are dismissive of the account, and the later record card labels the report unreliable. An astronomical assessment doubts that an astronomical phenomenon could fit the described landing and departure. These comments differ from a demonstrated identification. Rejecting a story, or rejecting one proposed class of cause, does not establish what actually happened.
The correspondence also includes a Cold War request to consider whether a hoax might have a political motive. The local FBI office replied that it had originally supplied the information for reference and could not undertake that investigation. The request itself does not establish a hoax, a political affiliation or a motive. None is inferred here.
Location and outcome
The map uses a broad Hamel hamlet reference in Medina, Hennepin County, from OpenStreetMap’s locality data, rounded to three decimal places. It does not identify the private home, the indentation or a publicly accessible attraction. No permission to visit the reported scene has been verified.
Outcome: Insufficient evidence. The file preserves a reported encounter, a later scene inspection and a negative soil examination. It supplies no independently substantiated object or demonstrated cause for the sighting. The ordinary laboratory result and dismissive administrative assessment do not settle every part of the children’s account.
Source review: 13 November 2026. The text attached to all thirty scans in the National Archives file was read, with decisive original images checked for the laboratory result, the testing request and the Chemical Corps request. No new physical examination, witness interview or independent reconstruction of the reported movement is claimed.