Andrews AFB, MD., November 1948 - Incident Number: 194November 1948

I have read through the entire OCR'd case file for Incident 194. The document quality is poor, with substantial garbling, illegible sections, and fragmented text throughout most pages. However, I was able to extract enough legible content from pages 4-6 to construct an accurate summary based on the case file itself.

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On November 3, 1948, two fighter pilots from the 424th Fighter Wing spotted an unidentified object near Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland while flying at 22,000 feet. The pilots reported that the object appeared to be another five or six thousand feet above them.

The pilots described the object as resembling an inflated intestine, roughly five to six times longer than it was wide. They estimated its speed at about 90 miles per hour and noted its heading as approximately 257 degrees (roughly west-southwest).

Strategic Air Command personnel initially identified the object tentatively as a heavenly body, or astronomical phenomenon. However, subsequent investigation by a Coast Guard officer stationed at Salem led to a different conclusion. The officer identified the craft as a cosmic ray equipment carrier used by MIT. The Air Force later established definitively that the object was a cluster of eight weather balloons (meteorological instruments used to measure atmospheric conditions at high altitudes).

Because the identity of the object was established, the Air Force marked this case as closed. The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives, consisting of 8 pages.