17 Mi NW Of Marysville, OhioAugust 1959

On August 21, 1959, a piece of red-tinted glass fell from the sky near Marysville, Ohio. The glass landed on the roof of a house about 17 miles northwest of town, then tumbled to the ground near a man named Arnold Wiley. The object was small, measuring about two inches by four inches. Its surface was smooth except for four ground lines that crossed at the center, forming an eight-pointed star pattern. The edges of the glass looked charred, as if it had been exposed to extreme heat.

Wiley heard no aircraft and saw nothing in the sky at the time of the fall. He turned the object over to the county Civil Defense director, who contacted the U.S. Air Force. The glass arrived at Lockbourne Air Force Base in Ohio on August 25 for examination.

Air Force investigators determined the glass was a standard plate glass item, likely a "water house stop" used inside certain radar recording cameras. These small glass filters helped control how much light reached the film inside the cameras. The charring on the edges suggested the glass had been exposed to either extreme air friction from high-speed flight or had fallen from a very high altitude. The Air Force checked with North American Aircraft in Columbus, Ohio, but found no photo-equipped aircraft in the area at the time of the fall. Investigators recommended sending the object to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base for further examination.

The Air Force identified the glass as coming from a mosaic window. The burned areas on the glass resulted from heat damage that occurred when the glass was installed in the window frame using lead, which was the standard installation method for this type of glass at the time.

The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives, with 7 pages scanned.