Avon Park, FloridaOctober 1957

Unidentified

Summary

On October 18, 1957, at Avon Park, Florida, night controllers observed an unidentified flying object. The object had a reddish glow in its white center and moved very fast out of sight. It had a tail train similar to a jet on takeoff. The sighting lasted a few seconds. One observer thought the light just went out rather than moved out of sight. Air Force investigators found the description similar to a jet stream of an aircraft on takeoff. They noted that A/C Barnett and A/C Williams at Avon Park Bombing Range were competent, reliable aircraft controllers. The only discrepancy was that Barnett thought the light just went out rather than trailed off. The Air Force evaluation was C-3.

Reported location

Avon Park, Florida

Date of incident

October 1957

State / country

FL / US

Page count

3 scanned pages

USAF evaluation

unidentified

Microfilm

T1206, Roll 29

Original case file scans

Original case file · scanned by NARAPage 1 of 3

View transcribed text

PROJECT 10073 RECORD CARD

1. DATE
18 October 1957

2. LOCATION
Avon Park, Florida

3. DATE-TIME GROUP
Local [illegible]
GMT 19/0050Z

4. TYPE OF OBSERVATION
[X] Ground-Visual
[ ] Ground-Radar
[ ] Air-Visual
[ ] Air-Intercept Radar

5. PHOTOS
[ ] Yes
[X] No

6. SOURCE
Military

7. LENGTH OF OBSERVATION
Few seconds

8. NUMBER OF OBJECTS
one

9. COURSE
S/W

10. BRIEF SUMMARY OF SIGHTING
Sighting: object with "in contour" white light. Object itself was reddish in color. After a few seconds it moved out of sight very fast. Obj had a tail train similar to jet on take off. Second observer seemed to think light just went out rather than moving out of sight.

12. CONCLUSIONS
[X] Was Balloon
[ ] Probably Balloon
[ ] Possibly Balloon
[ ] Was Aircraft
[X] Aircraft
[ ] Possibly Aircraft
[ ] Was Astronomical
[X] Probably Astronomical
[ ] Possibly Astronomical
[ ] Other_
[ ] Insufficient Date for Evaluation
[ ] Unknown

11. COMMENTS
Probable meteor sighting.

/ 3

Use ← → keys to navigate · scans hosted by the U.S. National Archives

Source: National Archives Catalog · NAID 28972298