15 mi W of Las Vegas, NevadaJuly 1961

A couple driving west of Las Vegas on a gravel road near the Blue Diamond Mine saw an unusual object on the evening of July 17, 1961. The object approached from the south, visible first in their car's rear-view mirror. It passed to the left and above their vehicle at an altitude they estimated at about 1,000 feet above the surrounding mountainous terrain. The observers described the object as similar in appearance to a jet fighter.

What happened next was dramatic. The object stopped, turned around, and orbited for about three minutes above peaks ahead of the car. As it hovered and maneuvered, it created a powerful wind that forced the moving automobile backward by approximately three feet. The force was strong enough to blow the fan belt off the engine's pulleys and cause the radiator water to boil. During the orbit, the object's brilliance lit up the entire area with a glow comparable to daylight. After descending slowly behind the peaks, the object disappeared from direct view, but the observers reported seeing a green glow and steam rising above the mountains for another fifteen minutes before they left the area.

The sighting lasted about four minutes total. Weather conditions that night were clear, with no wind and a full sky of stars. The Air Force investigated, checking on commercial and military flights in the area. A Boeing 727 had taken off from nearby McCarran Airport at the time, but its flight path would not have brought it over the sighting area. A weather balloon had been released from McCarran earlier, but it drifted northeast, not toward the sighting location. The Air Force found no military flying activity from Nellis Air Force Base that corresponded to the sighting. In their final assessment, the investigators concluded the object was a powered flight vehicle of unknown origin and purpose.

The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives, 12 pages total.