Thomas Jefferson’s report to the American Philosophical Society, regarding a UFO

Description of a singular Phenomenon
seen at Baton Rouge, by William Dunbar, Esq.
communicated by Thomas Jefferson, President A. P. S.a

Natchez, June 30th, 1800

Read 16th January 1801.

A phenomenon was seen to pass Baton Rouge on the night of the 5th April 1800, of which the following is the best description I have been able to obtain.

It was first seen in the South West, and moved so rapidly, passing over the heads of the spectators, as to disappear in the North East in about a quarter of a minute.

It appeared to be of the size of a large house, 70 or 80 feet long and of a form nearly resembling Fig. 5 in Plate IV.b

It appeared to be about 200 yards above the surface of the earth, wholly luminous, but not emitting sparks; of a colour resembling the sun near the horizon in a cold frosty evening, which may be called a crimson red. When passing right over the heads of the spectators, the light on the surface of the earth, was little short of the effect of sun-beams, though at the same time, looking another way, the stars were visible, which appears to be a confirmation of the opinion formed of its moderate elevation. In passing, a considerable degree of heat was felt but no electric sensation. Immediately after it disappeared in the North East, a violent rushing noise was heard, as if the phenomenon was bearing down the forest before it, and in a few seconds a tremendous crash was heard similar to that of the largest piece of ordnance, causing a very sensible earthquake.

I have been informed, that search has been made in the place where the burning body fell, and that a considerable portion of the surface of the earth was found broken up, and every vegetable body burned or greatly scorched. I have not yet received answers to a number of queries I have sent on, which may perhaps bring to light more particulars.

Note. The above communication was accompanied by an account of the first invention of the Telegraphec extracted from the works of Dr. Hook.

Mr. Dunbar was induced to forward this extract to the Society, as he supposed it had been less noticed than it deserved to be. But it was deemed unnecessary to print the Paper, as it may be seen in the works above mentioned, and is referred to by Dr. Birch in his history of the Royal Society. Vol. 4th, page 299.

–Transactions of the American Philosophical Society
Vol. 6 (1802), p25


Click to enlarge
Penelope.uchicago.edu has a webpage with the full entry, plus plenty of notes assembled by Bill Thayer. If the above interests you, the notes are well worth reading.

Here’s just a tidbit from the notes:

Thomas Jefferson, who at the time of this report was Vice-President of the United States, and would become President not much later. Several other items from William Dunbar were also passed along to the American Philosophical Society by Jefferson and included in the same issue of the Transactions. Dunbar, a resident of Natchez, was a tireless investigator of natural phenomena of the lower Louisiana, at the time still Spanish territory: rainfall, winds, rainbows, fossils, the Mississippi delta; he also writes of sign language among the native peoples in the area.

At the time this note was read, the existence of meteorites was a hotly debated topic, and it was not until 1803 with Jean-Baptiste Biot’s report of the fall of a meteor near the Norman town of L’Aigle that scientific opinion accepted that things do fall out of the sky; had Baton Rouge been in densely populated Europe where the terrain made investigation much easier, Dunbar and not Biot might have been the man whose name would attach to the history of meteoritics. On the other hand, the same issue of the Transactions includes several notes explicitly discussing meteors and meteoric stones — but this is not one of them.
…
If the observation of the object’s size is anywhere near accurate, it was not a meteorite: an object of this size, entering earth’s atmosphere at a speed typical of objects falling to earth from space, would probably have left a much larger trace of itself, and would almost certainly have killed the observer and anyone else near the fall. Scientists currently gauge the size of the iron meteor that created Arizona’s Meteor Crater, for example, at roughly 50 meters, only about twice the estimate reported by Dunbar.

Further confirmation that this was no meteorite seems to be given by the object’s speed. …