Angelus Crest Hwy, CaliforniaOctober 1957

Insufficient Data

Summary

In October 1957, someone working at a defense contractor in Van Nuys, California, brought what looked like a small rocket to his supervisor. The object had Russian writing on it and came with photographs. The supervisor reported it to the Air Force Office of Public Information in Hollywood, which quickly sparked a wider investigation.

The Air Force Western Office examined the object and determined it was a homemade hoax. The parts were not a secret weapon, nor were they of Russian origin. Instead, the object was built from surplus U.S. military components and standard commercial parts. The aluminum fins bore markings from ATCOA, a U.S. manufacturer. The cable connectors were brand new American parts. Even the Russian writing, when examined closely, looked amateurish.

When the investigation got too much publicity, the man who made the object contacted the Air Force and admitted the truth: he had built it as a prank on his supervisor, never expecting it to cause such a stir. The Air Force agreed to keep his identity private to protect him from losing his job or facing other embarrassment. The object was eventually sent to Air Force headquarters, and Air Force officials suggested that if the case was shared publicly as part of a broader report on hoaxes, the Van Nuys location and the man's name should not be mentioned.

The Air Force concluded this was a deliberate hoax with no real intelligence value. The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives, 10 pages.

Reported location

Angelus Crest Hwy, California

Date of incident

October 1957

State / country

CA / US

Page count

10 scanned pages

USAF evaluation

unknown

Microfilm

T1206, Roll 29

| E vi PROJECT 10073 RECORD CARD a a oy doo . | I. DATE ; 2. LOCATION 12. CONCLUSIONS 4 ; O Wos Belloon October 1957 Angelus Crest Hw Californijt ogi 1+ 14 | 3, DATE-TIME GROUP 4 TYPE OF OBSERVATION Te O Was Aircraft Loco! rrr ————————r XGround- Visvel (») Ground-Rador o Probably Aircraft | ; GM 0 Air Visual O Air-Intercopt Rodar |D Possibly Airereft { 5 : Ot - » SOUR — ti dg pins i : os robably Astronomico | Ne Physical & OD Possibly Astronomical i FL) ¢= wizae 208 7. LENGTH OF.OBSERVATION 8. NUMBER OF OBJECTS | 9. COURSE A ET TL A (u]) vin esr Dote for Evaluation NA one NA wy | 10. BRIEF SUMMARY OF SIGHTING 11. COMMENTS A small guided-missile-appearing Object was hoax. No means &or object was submitted to PIO office, propulsion, Russian script was Hollywood, Object had Russian mark- amateurish, and couplings (brand ings. Photographs on file, new) were stricltly US type w/ US markings, The aluminum fins : * AR : had ATCOA markings on them, See hh WAC vy ] “S785 - 454 Finder admitted making object to | play "prank" on Loss, \ In Ro/fow ; ng Jie | ATIC FORM 329 (REV 26 SEP $2) ' : / : “ : [ ” s j A ARB ido Gd 5 SAE AA RA RA ma dT ; a