1.8 miles north of Julien, KentuckyJune 1954

On the night of June 7, 1954, around 6:15 p.m., a man named Hilburn C. Keith watched an unusual bright object through binoculars from his home 1.8 miles north of Julien, Kentucky. The object appeared yellow and shaped like an ellipse, roughly 3/8 inch long and 1/8 inch wide when viewed through the binoculars. It hung in the sky about 20 degrees above the horizon, toward the southeast from his location.

The object moved erratically during the observation. It first headed southeast, then disappeared from view. Within a few seconds, it reappeared and moved northwest. After that, it shifted direction again, moving north, then appeared to rise straight up, and finally vanished toward the southeast. The entire sighting lasted approximately 20 minutes. A colored man servant named Fowler Rogers first spotted the object and brought it to Keith's attention. Keith's wife, Barbara, also observed it.

The weather was clear with only a few scattered clouds. An Air Force radar check conducted at Campbell Air Force Base at 0350 Zulu time (a military timekeeping standard) on June 7 found no flying objects within a 40-mile radius of the base. The case file notes that Keith was rated as reliable and that the weather conditions ruled out weather balloons, searchlights, or astronomical objects. However, the Air Force's final evaluation in this case is unclear from the available OCR text. The full case file, comprising 8 pages as held by the National Archives, is reproduced below.