Within Memphis Case
Did Five Memphis Officers Really Corroborate the Sighting?
The case becomes stronger only if the officers described the object independently, before radio traffic shaped their accounts.
On this page
- What Todd, Jeter and the other officers reportedly saw
- Why timing and radio contact affect witness independence
- What records would be needed to test the corroboration
Page outline Jump by section
Introduction
The claim that five Memphis police officers independently reported the same unusual object is one of the strongest features of the 17 May 1977 Memphis case—if the reports were genuinely independent. Multiple witnesses can reduce the chance that an event resulted from a single person’s mistake or imagination. However, that strength depends on one crucial question: did the officers describe the object before they could influence one another through police radio traffic or later discussion?
The surviving public evidence suggests that there is at least some basis for treating the reports as partly independent. At the same time, the documentary record is incomplete. No publicly available set of original police reports has been released, and most modern accounts rely on later interviews with Officer Lamar Todd and documentary retellings rather than contemporaneous paperwork. As a result, the case is stronger than a single-witness sighting, but weaker than a fully documented multi-observer investigation.[PBS]pbs.orgufos over memphis ibgvhaUFOs Over Memphis | PBSMay 14, 2024…
Did the officers describe the same object independently?
The central claim is that two groups of Memphis police officers observed a similar triangular object from different parts of the city during the same night.
According to later interviews, Lamar Todd and Jerry Jeter encountered the object near Pine Hill Golf Course around 3.30 am. After the object departed, they contacted police dispatch to ask whether airport radar had detected any unidentified aircraft. Todd later said the dispatcher informed them that officers from the North Precinct had also reported a similar object.[PBS]pbs.orgufos over memphis ibgvhaUFOs Over Memphis | PBSMay 14, 2024…
The most important detail concerns what was said over the radio before the other officers responded.
Several published accounts state that Todd and Jeter initially reported only that they had seen an unidentified object. They allegedly did not broadcast its triangular shape or distinctive lighting before officers at the North Precinct came onto another radio channel and asked whether the object was triangular and carried multiple coloured lights. Todd and Jeter reportedly confirmed that description only after hearing the question. If accurate, this sequence means the second group supplied key descriptive details without first hearing them from the original witnesses.[Think About It Docs]thinkaboutitdocs.com1977 police encounter triangle ufo memphis tennesseeThink About It Docs1977: Police Encounter Triangle UFO, Memphis, Tennessee - ArticleDecember 26, 2012…
That chronology is the strongest argument that the reports were not simply copies of one another.
What Todd, Jeter and the other officers reportedly saw
The publicly available accounts do not preserve equally detailed testimony from all five officers.
Todd and Jeter gave the most extensive descriptions. They reported a large triangular object hovering silently above power lines for several minutes before accelerating rapidly away. Their account has been repeated in interviews, local journalism and the later PBS documentary.[wknofm.org]wknofm.orgWKNO-FMClose Encounters of the Memphis Kind | WKNO FMWKNO-FMClose Encounters of the Memphis Kind | WKNO FM
The three North Precinct officers are generally identified in later sources as John Birdsong, Michael Davidson and Forrest Bartlett. Their reported observation was briefer. They allegedly saw a triangular object with bright or multicoloured lights passing over or near their substation earlier in the night. Unlike Todd and Jeter, they did not become the focus of later interviews, and relatively little first-person testimony from them survives in the public record.[Think About It Docs]thinkaboutitdocs.com1977 police encounter triangle ufo memphis tennesseeThink About It Docs1977: Police Encounter Triangle UFO, Memphis, Tennessee - ArticleDecember 26, 2012…
This imbalance matters because modern discussions often treat all five reports as equally documented when, in reality, the detailed narrative rests primarily on Todd’s recollections.
Why timing and radio contact matter
Witness independence is not simply a matter of having several people present. Investigators instead ask whether witnesses could have influenced one another before recording their observations.
Several factors would support greater independence:
- The officers were reportedly working in different parts of Memphis rather than standing together.
- The observations appear to have occurred before direct conversation between the two groups.
- According to later accounts, the North Precinct officers volunteered the object’s triangular appearance before Todd and Jeter had broadcast those details.[Think About It Docs]thinkaboutitdocs.com1977 police encounter triangle ufo memphis tennesseeThink About It Docs1977: Police Encounter Triangle UFO, Memphis, Tennessee - ArticleDecember 26, 2012…
However, there are also reasons for caution.
Police radio systems allow information to spread quickly. Even if the initial description was limited, officers could have been aware that colleagues were discussing something unusual. Once an event becomes the subject of radio traffic, later recollections may also become less independent as memories are reinforced through conversation.
This does not mean contamination definitely occurred. Rather, it means investigators need precise records of exactly what was transmitted, when it was transmitted, and which officers heard each message before giving their own descriptions.
What weakens the corroboration
The main limitation is not evidence that the officers influenced each other. Instead, it is the absence of records needed to demonstrate that they did not.
Publicly available sources do not include:
- original incident reports from each officer;
- dispatcher logs showing the sequence of radio transmissions;
- recordings or transcripts of police communications;
- signed witness statements written before the officers compared accounts;
- radar or aviation records directly tied to the reported object.
Instead, much of the surviving narrative comes from retrospective interviews conducted decades after the event. While Todd’s recollections have remained broadly consistent, memory naturally becomes less reliable over long periods, particularly regarding precise timing and wording.[PBS]pbs.orgufos over memphis ibgvhaUFOs Over Memphis | PBSMay 14, 2024…
Because of these gaps, historians cannot confidently reconstruct exactly how independent each report was.
What records would be needed to test the corroboration
The Memphis case could be evaluated much more rigorously if additional archival material were located.
The most valuable evidence would include:
- Individual police reports written separately by each officer before discussion with colleagues.
- Dispatch logs showing the exact times of incoming calls and radio exchanges.
- Radio recordings confirming what information was broadcast before the North Precinct officers responded.
- Duty rosters and patrol assignments confirming the officers’ locations.
- Airport and FAA records documenting whether any conventional aircraft could match the reported observations.
Such material would not necessarily prove the object was extraordinary. It would, however, allow investigators to measure how much of the agreement between witnesses resulted from genuinely separate observation rather than later information sharing.
How independent were the reports?
The available evidence supports a cautious middle position.
There is credible evidence that more than one group of Memphis police officers reported an unusual aerial object during the same period, making the incident stronger than a solitary eyewitness claim. The reported radio exchange—in which the North Precinct officers allegedly identified the triangular shape before hearing that description from Todd and Jeter—is the case’s most persuasive indication of independent corroboration.[Think About It Docs]thinkaboutitdocs.com1977 police encounter triangle ufo memphis tennesseeThink About It Docs1977: Police Encounter Triangle UFO, Memphis, Tennessee - ArticleDecember 26, 2012…
Nevertheless, the surviving documentation falls well short of what modern investigators would want. Without original reports, dispatch recordings or contemporaneous statements from all five officers, it is impossible to establish exactly how independent the observations were.
For that reason, the claim of five corroborating police witnesses should be regarded as plausible but incompletely documented. It strengthens the Memphis incident within Tennessee’s UFO history, but it does not remove the uncertainties that surround the case as a whole.
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Endnotes
1.
Source: pbs.org
Title: ufos over memphis ibgvha
Link:https://www.pbs.org/video/ufos-over-memphis-ibgvha/
Source snippet
UFOs Over Memphis | PBSMay 14, 2024...
Published: May 14, 2024
2.
Source: wknofm.org
Title: WKNO-FMClose Encounters of the Memphis Kind | WKNO FM
Link:https://www.wknofm.org/news-and-features/2015-07-01/close-encounters-of-the-memphis-kind
3.
Source: video.wkno.org
Title: In this hour-long documentary, you’ll meet Lamar Todd, as wel
Link:https://video.wkno.org/video/ufos-over-memphis-ibgvha//
Source snippet
Over Memphis | WKNOMay 14, 2024 — UFOs Over Memphis UFOS OVER MEMPHIS Special | 56m 20s | CC An hour-long documentary detailing a broader...
Published: May 14, 2024
4.
Source: pbs.org
Title: behind headlines our financial mess part two
Link:https://www.pbs.org/video/behind-headlines-our-financial-mess-part-two/
5.
Source: pbs.org
Title: behind headlines election season
Link:https://www.pbs.org/video/behind-headlines-election-season/
6.
Source: pbs.org
Title: behind headlines kroger parking lot incidence
Link:https://www.pbs.org/video/behind-headlines-kroger-parking-lot-incidence/
7.
Source: video.wkno.org
Link:https://video.wkno.org/show/wkno-documentaries/
8.
Source: pbs.org
Link:https://www.pbs.org/show/wkno/
9.
Source: pbs.org
Link:https://www.pbs.org/show/wkno-documentaries/
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Source: pbs.org
Link:https://www.pbs.org/show/wkno-documentaries/specials/
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Source: pbs.org
Link:https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/interactive/unresolved/cases/joseph-franklin-jeter-sr/
12.
Source: thinkaboutitdocs.com
Title: 1977 police encounter triangle ufo memphis tennessee
Link:https://www.thinkaboutitdocs.com/1977-police-encounter-triangle-ufo-memphis-tennessee/
Source snippet
Think About It Docs1977: Police Encounter Triangle UFO, Memphis, Tennessee - ArticleDecember 26, 2012...
Published: December 26, 2012
13.
Source: wknofm.org
Title: close encounters of the memphis kind
Link:https://www.wknofm.org/news-and-features/2015-07-01/close-encounters-of-the-memphis-kind?_amp=true
14.
Source: nuforc.org
Link:https://nuforc.org/sighting/?id=7777
Additional References
15.
Source: medium.com
Link:https://medium.com/%40johnmooner-chief/two-policemans-close-encounter-in-memphis-tennessee-88f26c53991
Source snippet
May 9, 2023 — Image TWO POLICEMANS CLOSE ENCOUNTER IN MEMPHIS TENNESSEE Johnmooner-chief 9 min read May 9, 2023 -- Share Press enter or c...
Published: May 9, 2023
16.
Source: justice.gov
Title: Civil Rights Division | Jowers’ Allegations
Link:https://www.justice.gov/crt/jowers-allegations
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Introduction For several years beginning in the late 1960s, Loyd Jowers owned and operated Jim's Grill, a tavern located below the roomin...
17.
Source: podcastufo.com
Title: a 1977 ufo sighting by police officers in flora mississippi
Link:https://podcastufo.com/a-1977-ufo-sighting-by-police-officers-in-flora-mississippi/
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A 1977 UFO Sighting by Police Officers in Flora, Mississippi – Podcast UFOMarch 4, 2024 — PODCAST UFO A Weekly Live Recorded Podcast and...
Published: March 4, 2024
18.
Source: memphisflyer.com
Link:https://www.memphisflyer.com/memernet-mattress-guy-top-comment-and-ufo-app/
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MEMernet: Mattress Guy, Top Comment, and UFO App - Memphis FlyerMay 29, 2024 — MEMERNET: MATTRESS GUY, TOP COMMENT, AND UFO APP Image by...
Published: May 29, 2024
19.
Source: youtube.com
Title: Declassified UFO Photos over East Tennessee NUCLEAR WEAPON Facility
Link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lj9XiXuOCdI
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'Source of great concern' | Newly-released Pentagon documents outline decades-old [Oak Ridge]({{ 'oak-ridge/' | relative_url }}) UFO sightings...
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Link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1krk9u_5XYA
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21.
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Title: Starseed: An East Tennessee experiencer interacts with UAPs
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Movie Boy Mike Goes to Tennessee (Part 1)The Making of My UFO Documentary...
22.
Source: youtube.com
Title: UFOs over Memphis
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Declassified UFO Photos over East Tennessee NUCLEAR WEAPON Facility...
Published: July 30, 2015
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Link:https://www.newswire.com/news/mufon-celebrate-the-existence-of-ufos-in-memphis-with-the-first
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Link:https://archive.commercialappeal.com/entertainment/festivals/world-ufo-day-festival-touches-down-for-first-time-in-memphis-ep-1161431771-324138181.html