Albuquerque, N.M., February 1949 - Incident Number: 255February 1949

The sky above Albuquerque came alive with strange luminous objects in February 1949, launching investigations that would puzzle Air Force officers for weeks. Three separate sightings, each with credible witnesses, painted a picture of anomalous phenomena that departed from the usual behavior seen in the region.

The most prominent sighting came on February 7 when a University of New Mexico professor of civil engineering watched an object drift across the Heights section of Albuquerque at approximately 1800 (6 p.m.). The object appeared initially as a brilliant white point about the size of the moon, shifting to a peachy color as it climbed. What made this sighting unusual was the object's shape change: it began round, then elongated into an ellipse, eventually stretching to ten times its own width. The witness observed it for at least six minutes as it traveled west to east, then north with a sharp, sudden climb to the south. The observer noted no trail, though the object became increasingly elongated. He described how at the turns, the object bent around corners "like a piece of bent pipe." The object either faded from view or diminished in brilliance until invisible. Because of the observer's background in meteorites and his demonstrated intelligence, investigators rated the sighting as particularly valuable.

Two other witnesses, including a truck driver who was a former police officer, reported similar phenomena on February 12, 1949, around 1500 (3 p.m.) from different locations in the Albuquerque area. Both saw a white light performing a vertical climb followed by a gradual ascent southward, and both noted a brief smoke trail the same color as the object itself, lasting several seconds. Both objects disappeared suddenly.

A fourth sighting came on February 27 near Los Alamos. An Army officer observed a greenish-white light traveling parallel to the ground in roughly two seconds from a point alongside the airstrip. The witness, who was returning between stations along the airstrip road, caught only a brief glimpse before the object vanished abruptly without leaving a trail. Due to the short duration, the officer could not estimate speed or altitude.

In March 1949, the Air Force's Office of Special Investigations noted that the recent reports of anomalous luminous phenomena showed descriptions consistent with earlier sightings in the New Mexico-West Texas area. However, the February 27 Los Alamos incident was flagged as containing "significant departures" from the usual behavior of these phenomena. The case file itself offers no final evaluation, leaving the nature of these objects classified as unknown.

The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives, comprising 26 pages of scanned records.