28.14N 166.05W N/W of Hawaiian Islands, April 1953April 1953

In late April 1953, three U.S. military officers aboard a Navy transport ship in the North Pacific reported seeing a gleaming metallic object roughly the size of a fighter jet. The ship, the USNS General A.W. Brewster, was traveling between San Francisco and the Far East, about 500 miles northwest of the Hawaiian Islands, when the sighting occurred around 5:00 p.m. local time on April 29.

According to the officers' detailed account, the object first appeared to their right at an altitude of about 2,000 feet and roughly half a mile away. It hung motionless in the sky for several seconds, then made a sharp 90-degree turn toward the ship and climbed. The object then traveled in a curved arc to a position behind the vessel before vanishing into the clouds. The entire sighting lasted about 60 seconds. The officers estimated the object was traveling faster than a jet fighter aircraft and noted that its movements were jerky and erratic, not the smooth, controlled motions of any conventional aircraft. Notably, the object executed near-vertical climbs and hard-angle turns that struck the witnesses as unusual for any known flying machine.

The ship's captain reported the incident through military channels but did not break radio silence at the time, doubting the accuracy of the account and wondering whether the witnesses might have simply seen a meteor. The three officers who made the report were Major Henry L. Brown, Captain Harold J. Lentz, and Second Lieutenant Lloyd V. Jan, representing the Air Force and Army respectively. Their statement was forwarded through the Navy's Military Sea Transportation Service to Air Force intelligence. The Air Force's evaluation of this case is not stated in the file.

The full case file, originally classified but since declassified, is reproduced below as held by the National Archives and consists of 13 pages.