Area Dry Tortugas, FloridaAugust 1957

On August 27, 1957, near the Dry Tortugas, a small group of islands about 70 miles west of Key West, Florida, experienced pilots in military aircraft spotted a bright light in the night sky. The object had a pulsating red to reddish yellow color and appeared to be moving at extraordinary speed, roughly 950 knots. The pilots estimated its altitude at around 20,000 feet. What made this sighting notable was that the light was not only seen visually by two experienced pilots but also appeared on airborne radar as a large blip, initially at 24 miles away.

The pilots attempted to intercept the object, but the chase was unsuccessful due to the object's speed. The interceptor aircraft, traveling at 453 knots, could not close the distance. As the object moved away, it faded from sight visually, though the radar blip continued to grow larger in range, jumping to 38 miles away in approximately one minute. The radar return was larger than a B-47 bomber would have been at a comparable distance, which intrigued the observers.

Because the radar showed an unexplained signal and the visual sighting was credible, the Air Force launched a multi-agency investigation. Officials at Naval air facilities, Civil Aeronautics Authority air traffic control, missile testing centers, and other military commands were asked whether any aircraft, operations, or activities in the area could explain the sighting. All responses came back negative. No other air traffic was operating in the region at that time.

However, the investigation eventually concluded that the visual object was likely the planet Venus. An astronomical chart showed Venus, along with the bright star Arcturus and a lighthouse beam, all roughly aligned in the same area where the pilot reported seeing the object. The radar signals remained unexplained, but investigators noted that random radar signals could have appeared on the APG-51A radar set at the moment it was pointed toward Venus. The combination of these factors, Venus's brightness, its position in the sky at the time, and coincidental radar noise, most likely explained the sighting, according to the Air Force's analysis.

The full case file, reproduced below as held by the National Archives, consists of 23 pages.