Belle, Vernon, Pa., August 1950August 1950

On August 4, 1950, the captain and crew of the merchant ship M/V Marcala reported seeing an unusual object while sailing off the coast of Pennsylvania. The ship was traveling from Nova Scotia to the U.S. East Coast when crew members spotted a flying object near the vessel in the early morning hours.

The captain, who was about 38 years old, watched the object for roughly a minute and a half through binoculars from the ship's conning tower. He described it as ovular and cylindrical in shape, about 10 feet in diameter, with a shiny aluminum color that sparkled in the sunlight. The object flew at an estimated speed of over 25 miles per hour, traveling on a course opposite to the ship's heading and passing about a thousand feet away. It made no sound and seemed to have a churning or rotary motion as it flew. The Chief Mate, age 47, saw the object disappear into the horizon in about 15 seconds and estimated its speed at possibly faster than 500 miles per hour. He described it as elliptical, like an egg cut lengthwise, and noted it had three dimensions with a metallic white color. He also clearly saw its shadow on the water. The Third Mate, age 33, provided similar observations, describing the object as elliptical with a length about six times its breadth and a depth of two to five feet. He estimated the object traveled 28 miles in the 15 seconds he observed it.

Air Force intelligence officers who interviewed all three men noted significant discrepancies between the captain's speed estimate and those of the two mates, which could not be fully explained. However, the officers concluded that all three men had genuinely observed something unusual that was certainly not a conventional aircraft. The investigators timed the crew's movements during their recounting of the sighting to help verify the object's likely speed. The men were visibly upset by the experience.

A separate investigation by Army Air Forces personnel also documented observations from Pine Bluff, Arkansas, on the same date, with multiple ground-based observers reporting similar sightings of a bright, disc-shaped or round object.

The case file includes 16 pages as held by the National Archives.