Project Blue Book Case File
24.14N 151.26W (Pacific), October 1962October 1962
Summary
On October 26, 1962, two pilots aboard a KC-135 aircraft saw a bright orange, horseshoe-shaped object near the rising moon over the Pacific Ocean. The object appeared just below the moon's edge, about one-third the diameter of the moon itself. The sighting lasted only about one and a half seconds. What first caught the pilots' attention was a flash of light on the horizon, followed by the bright orange color of the object. The moon was crescent-shaped and roughly two degrees above the horizon at the time, and the sky was clear with only a slight cirrus undercast (a thin layer of high-altitude clouds).
The aircraft was a KC-135 identified as DIANA 85, flying at 35,000 feet with a heading of 354 degrees true. The co-pilot was Colonel Holly Anderson of the 47th Air Division, and the pilot was Major A. E. Casperson. Both were based at Castle Air Force Base in California. After the initial sighting, the navigator tried to observe the object using a sextant (a navigation instrument), but the object had already disappeared and he saw nothing unusual.
The object did not move during the brief observation. It simply seemed to fade out. The pilots heard no sound and saw no exhaust or trail behind it. The Air Force evaluation noted that the sighting was likely due to the moon's rising and the optical conditions present at the time, possibly a mirage associated with the star Regulus and the moon, or possibly refraction of gas and light. The case file contains 7 pages as held by the National Archives.
Reported location
24.14N 151.26W (Pacific), October 1962
Date of incident
October 1962
State / country
? / XX
Page count
7 scanned pages
USAF evaluation
unknown
Microfilm
T1206, Roll 47