Chehalis, WA being encounter — January 6, 1948

Bernice Zaikowski, sixty-one, told reporters that she saw an airborne man over her barn in Chehalis, Washington, on January 6, 1948. Contemporary January21–22 newspaper coverage survives in clipping collections. She placed the event around three in the afternoon and said schoolchildren asked to enter her yard for a longer view. Later claims of other adult witnesses were reported through her, without their names. She described an upright figure with long silver wings attached by a shoulder harness, apparently manipulating equipment at his chest. The wings neither flapped nor rotated. They reportedly drew closer during ascent and extended during hovering or level flight. She heard an unusual rushing or sizzling noise but identified no propeller or other visible motor. The figure eventually continued south. The original press account records skepticism from police and McChord Field personnel. That response does not identify the object, but it also does not establish a secret Army flying-man programme. This incident is separate from the April1948 Longview reports. The plate shows Zaikowski and representative schoolchildren beneath the complete reported flight apparatus. Exact wing construction, clothing and the barn are illustrative; no separate spacecraft or nonhuman facial anatomy was described.