Anacostia Naval Air Sta. 38 DEG 52'N 77 DEG 00'W, April 1948 - Incident Number: 126April 1948

On April 30, 1948, at approximately 10:15 a.m., Lieutenant Commander Marcus L. Lowe of the U.S. Navy was piloting an aircraft near Anacostia Naval Air Station in Washington, D.C. He spotted a yellow sphere ahead of him and roughly 1,000 feet below, at a distance of about one mile. The object appeared to be between 25 and 40 feet in diameter.

The object moved in a south-to-north direction at an estimated speed of about 100 miles per hour. It maintained a constant altitude throughout the sighting, which was unusual because winds were blowing from the north-northwest at the time. Lowe did not see any external fittings or attachments on the object. He did not pursue it further because it was entering restricted airspace over the U.S. Capitol and White House areas.

In a memo written shortly after the sighting, Lowe described the object as resembling a yellow or light-colored balloon. The Air Weather Service later investigated the incident and concluded that a weather balloon released from a nearby station could have been in the location where the sighting occurred, given the wind conditions at the time. Project SIGN officials reviewing the case noted that there was nothing in the description to suggest the object had any astronomical origin, and they concurred that it appeared to have been a balloon.

The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives, consisting of 12 pages.