North Dakota Air National Guard pilot whose October 1948 'dogfight' with a small lighted object over Fargo became one of the most-cited cases in the Project Sign era.
Lt. George F. Gorman was a fighter pilot in the North Dakota Air National Guard who engaged in a famous aerial dogfight with a UAP in 1948. Flying an F-51 Mustang, Gorman aggressively pursued a highly maneuverable ball of light for nearly half an hour, unable to match its extreme kinematics. Gorman's key contribution is providing one of the earliest, most credible military accounts of a UAP displaying intelligent, evasive, and vastly superior flight capabilities. The 'Gorman Dogfight' became a classic case studied by Project Sign, the Air Force's initial UAP investigation program. His encounter proved that these objects could outmaneuver the most advanced military aircraft of the post-war era.