Astoria, Washington Area, August 1950August 1950

On August 20, 1950, at around noon, witnesses in and around Astoria, Washington saw a brilliant "ball of fire" streak across the sky in broad daylight. The object appeared silver or white with a glowing tail and moved from northeast to southwest at very high speed, faster than a jet aircraft. Multiple observers across the Pacific Northwest region, from Salem, Oregon to Seattle, Washington reported seeing the same thing. Some described it as brighter than the sun. One naval aviator at Astoria timed the sighting at 1:08 p.m. local time and believed it descended toward the ocean northwest of the city.

Dr. A.A. Presey, a science professor at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, identified the object as a straggler from the annual Perseid meteor shower, which was occurring at that time of year. The Air Force later confirmed this assessment. The phenomenon was a bolide, a term scientists use for a particularly large and bright meteor that remains intact as a glowing mass as it falls through the lower atmosphere, unlike smaller meteorites that burn up higher up.

The case drew attention from local media and eventually from a woman who wrote about her sighting to Congressman Thor C. Tollefson's office in 1958. In response, Dr. A. Francis Arcier of the Air Force's Air Technical Intelligence Center provided a detailed explanation of fireballs and confirmed that the sighting was indeed consistent with meteor shower activity, noting that the University of Pennsylvania's 35-year survey showed August as the month with the largest number of fireballs and meteors.

The full case file, containing 21 pages of official Air Force records and correspondence, is reproduced below as held by the National Archives.