Fort Riley, Kansas
Fort Riley is a United States Army installation located near Junction City, Kansas. In UAP research, it holds significance as the location where retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Philip J. Corso claimed to have personally observed a non-human biological entity in the summer of 1947.
Corso's 1947 Encounter
On or about July 6, 1947, Corso was serving as post duty officer at Fort Riley when he claims to have come across a crate in a storage area containing a non-human body preserved in a bluish liquid. In his sworn affidavit — which UAP Gerb treats as substantially more credible than the later co-written book The Day After Roswell — Corso described the entity as approximately four feet tall, with an oversized incandescent light bulb-shaped head, almond-shaped eye sockets, four-fingered hands, thin legs, and no facial hair or eyebrows. Skull features were arranged in a small circle on the lower part of an enlarged cranium.
Corso later determined that the crate was part of a convoy of five trucks transporting biological entities from an airfield in New Mexico along Route 40 westward through Fort Riley, with Wright-Patterson Air Force Base cited as the ultimate destination. His official military records confirm his placement at Fort Riley on that date, which UAP Gerb identifies as a meaningful corroborating detail for the temporal dimension of his account.
Credibility Context
The Fort Riley observation is one element of Corso's broader testimony that UAP Gerb assesses as relatively credible. The host distinguishes between Corso's original manuscript Dawn of a New Age — which contains this account in an unembellished form — and the co-written 1997 bestseller The Day After Roswell, arguing that co-author Bill Burns inserted fabrications and exaggerations into the published version. Corso's sworn affidavit describing the Fort Riley encounter is treated as evidence that should be taken seriously, even as other aspects of his public claims are approached with skepticism.
A 1964–65 FBI background check on Corso returned negative characterizations, and the Eisenhower Library confirmed he never attended an NSC meeting despite claiming membership — factors the host weighs against the Fort Riley affidavit without dismissing it outright.