6357 N 2235W (ATLANTIC), January 1961January 1961

On January 30, 1961, two Air Force pilots spotted a bright silver object in the sky near the Atlantic while flying at 20,000 feet in an F-89D jet. The object appeared as small as a match head but shone brightly against the daylight sky. It hung at a 45-degree angle above their wing, about 90 degrees to their left, while their aircraft headed northeast on a 290-degree magnetic heading. For five minutes, the pilots watched it move slowly westward. When they changed course to investigate, the object vanished.

The pilots radioed their sighting to the radar unit on the ground at Keflavik Air Base in Iceland, which was monitoring their flight. Despite being in radio contact with the pilots, the radar operators could not detect the object on their equipment or see it with their eyes. Other aircraft in the area, some flying as high as 30,000 feet, also reported seeing nothing unusual. Control tower personnel at Keflavik observed no unidentified objects at the time of the sighting.

The Air Force investigation turned to weather and balloon records. Keflavik's weather officer noted that a weather balloon had been released from the base around the time of the sighting, but tracking instruments showed it burst just nine minutes after launch. He ruled out balloons from Greenland or a weather ship 350 miles away, saying wind patterns would have carried any such balloon far to the east, not west where the pilots saw the object. Both pilots acknowledged they had never seen a balloon quite like this one, given its extreme altitude and brightness. Nevertheless, they did not rule out the balloon possibility.

The Air Force's final assessment focused on sun reflection. The comments section suggests the pilots may have been looking at a layer of ice crystals high in the atmosphere reflecting sunlight at just the right angle. The two pilots were positioned perfectly to see this reflection, the report noted, but when they changed heading and position, the reflection disappeared. As the file states, "Witnesses probably in right position at time reflection could be observed. When they changed position, it disappeared." The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives, consisting of 13 pages.