350 mi NE Jacksonville Georgia, N.C., S.C., March 1957March 1957

On the night of March 9, 1957, a Pan American Airlines flight bound for San Juan encountered a brilliant greenish-white object in the darkness over the Atlantic Ocean. The pilot, Captain Matthew Van Winkle, made an abrupt climbing maneuver to avoid what he believed was a collision course with the mysterious light. The sudden evasive action jolted dozens of passengers out of their seats and caused several injuries.

The object appeared only briefly, described variously as resembling a spotlight or fireball. Multiple crew members observed it during those few seconds, and the pilots of at least two other airliners in the area saw something similar at nearly the same time. Because several planes spread across roughly 300 miles of ocean all reported the same type of object, this ruled out aircraft and guided missiles as explanations.

Investigation by the Civil Aeronautics Board confirmed that military forces in the area had no active operations and that no unusual astronomical events had been recorded. However, after collecting testimony from the crews and passengers aboard, air force officials concluded the object was almost certainly a fireball meteor, sometimes called a bolide. An independent review by a well-known astrophysicist associated with the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory supported this conclusion. The file concludes that the meteor analysis was sound, though the technical details necessary to reach this determination with certainty were not fully documented in the available records.

The complete case file of 111 pages is reproduced below as held by the National Archives.