Arlington, VAAugust 1955

On the evening of August 23, 1955, two men standing near a house in Arlington, Virginia spotted several strange orange objects moving rapidly across the sky. One witness was a 55-year-old retired man who owned and operated a 400-power astronomical telescope and had studied planets, meteors, and comets for years. The other was a 28-year-old minister and private pilot. At around 10:45 p.m., they watched as an orange, disc-shaped object flew south at high speed, turned east, and disappeared. Within minutes, more objects appeared, sometimes three at once, traveling in different directions and occasionally stopping before continuing on their course. One object appeared to have a red dome visible through binoculars. The witnesses estimated the objects were flying at thousands of miles per hour at an altitude high enough to reflect sunlight.

Air Force investigators launched a thorough follow-up. They checked with the Air Traffic Control Center at Washington National Airport, Andrews Air Force Base, Bolling Air Force Base, and the US Weather Bureau, all of which reported nothing unusual. The Weather Bureau disclosed that a rawin sonde balloon (a weather balloon equipped with instruments to measure atmospheric conditions) had been released from the Silver Hill Weather Station at 10:00 p.m. that evening. By 10:15 p.m., it would have been directly over Arlington at about 15,000 feet and climbing, traveling northeast. A radar officer at a nearby observatory reported seeing a bright light with a red tint around 10:15 p.m., which he believed was a high-altitude aircraft, though the witnesses' observations seemed to point elsewhere.

The Air Force officer who prepared the report concluded that the witnesses had misidentified a weather balloon for the first object, and that a high-flying aircraft with multiple lights explained the other sightings. He noted that speed estimates from the naked eye can be deceptive, especially at night. However, the approving officer disagreed. He pointed out that radar contact had been negative in the Arlington area at the time, ruling out aircraft. While winds aloft could match a balloon's course, he wrote, the speed and duration of the sighting did not fit a balloon's behavior. The other objects, he added, did not conform to any known phenomena. The report was forwarded to the Air Force's central UFO investigation office marked "unknown."

The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives, containing 9 pages.