Amityville, N.Y., December 1961December 1961

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Summary

# Amityville, New York, December 1961

On the evening of December 14, 1961, three high school boys in Amityville, New York, spotted an unusual object in the sky near the local bathing beach. According to their account, the object appeared as a large, bright light that hovered over the bay around 10:45 p.m.

The boys followed the object from several vantage points around the area. They reported that it traveled at tremendous speed between locations, covering what they described as a considerable distance in just a few seconds. When the object stopped, it hovered in place. As it moved and changed position, the boys heard a high-pitched whining sound that they found disturbing. When the object finally entered a cloud bank and disappeared, the sound intensified and grew extremely bright, lighting up the entire cloud area around it before vanishing to the south.

A local official who interviewed the boys found them credible. They were described as intelligent, well-behaved high school students with no history of pranks. They had initially reported the sighting to a school teacher, who directed them to the official's office. The boys came prepared on their follow-up visit with a camera and binoculars, apparently hoping to observe the object again, though no further sightings were reported.

One internal Air Force memo suggested the object might have been an F-106 interceptor (a fighter jet) based at nearby Dover Air Force Base, which sometimes traveled over Long Island with afterburners engaged. However, the file indicates the Air Force evaluation for this case was "unknown."

The complete case file, consisting of 9 pages as held by the National Archives, is reproduced below.

Reported location

Amityville, N.Y., December 1961

Date of incident

December 1961

State / country

? / XX

Page count

9 scanned pages

USAF evaluation

unknown

Microfilm

T1206, Roll 44

Original case file scans

Original case file · scanned by NARAPage 1 of 9

View transcribed text

1 x -
a ‘ PROJECT 10073 RECORD CARD
| 8 1 DATE i 2. LOCATION 12. CONCLUSIONS
1 | 0 Wos Balloon
4 14 Dec 61 tmityville N.Y. 0 Probably Balloon
| Ph I RTE RTT en EE = 0 Pes RIV BalISER
3. DATE-TIME GROUP 4. TYPE OF OBSERVATION
E onl 5 Vi " 0 Was Aircraft
2 FEE BR A A © Ground- Visual D Ground-Redor 0 Probably Aircraft
- oMT_____ 15/0345 O Air Visual O Air-Intercept Rodar |B Possibly Aircraft
; 5. PHOTOS 6. SOURCE O Was Astronomical
E OYes : O Probably Astronomical *
3 & No Drawing g Civilian OD Possibly Astronomical
3 7. LENGTH OF OBSERVATION © |B. NUMBER OF OBJECTS | 9. COURSE pet 7 UE SER Nr
. 6 Insufficient Dota for Evaluation
: i Generally E 0 Unknown
] 10. BRIEF SUMMARY OF SIGHTING “71. COMMENTS ;
| ut p i . ii sses did not i icie
; 3 boys of Amityville, N.Y. observed object ee sie ken td
which appeared to hover, move to new location Si on iy i oi Co piasni iba Shi sa
3 : od & Qa > f=] «© pf ] ” y'
4 at great speed, hover again before disappearin / gs io i Gem Heh, EL
- : i A Fie CR TRE ¢ v1T alt e ¥
3 Cbject was described as a light bright enough 7 v ih £ 4: a gs * opsLe ON
3 to light up clouds in area. Whining noise was | © * We abd a sd da |
: attributed to object as it disappeared. Witn- | © report would have been too long for
esses did not give time for duration of a/e to have remained visible.
1 event but did indicate changing their position
over a considerable distance while it was
1 occurring. Duration was too long for meteor. :
1 ATIC FORM 329 (REV 26 SEP 52)
#
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Source: National Archives Catalog · NAID 28995812