Alaska 53 Deg N 171 Deg 11'W, February 1950February 1950

# Flying Flare Over Alaska, February 1950

In February 1950, a U.S. Air Force pilot flying near Bering Strait, Alaska, saw a bright object fall from the sky. First Lieutenant J. J. [REDACTED], co-pilot of a transport plane at roughly 900 feet altitude, spotted what he described as a red and white "flare" about 2,000 feet above the aircraft and 8 miles away, off the starboard (right) side. The object was elliptical in shape. It had a reddish core and a white fringe, and appeared to be burning. As the pilot watched, the flare fell through the sky. Over about two minutes, it shrank in apparent size, and the red core gradually turned white. The object then disappeared below the undercast, a layer of thick clouds below the plane. No parachute or other support device was visible. As the falling object passed below, it allegedly illuminated the plane's cabin.

When the burning object entered the undercast at 2,000 feet, another pilot on scene, First Lieutenant [REDACTED], climbed to investigate. He reached 10,900 feet but saw no other aircraft. He fired a flare sequence of his own, one red and two green, to signal, but received no response. Both pilots had seen meteorites before and reported bursting sounds from the area where this object fell.

The Air Force evaluation in the file is listed as "unknown." The OCR text of this file is garbled in places, making some details difficult to confirm, but the core account is clear: two experienced military pilots observed a bright, falling object that did not match conventional explanations available to them at the time.

The full case file, 18 pages as held by the National Archives, is reproduced below.