Beloit, WisconsinJune 1962

In late June 1962, residents of Beloit, Wisconsin reported seeing bright, burning objects in the sky over a two-day period. The sightings began on June 28 and continued into June 29. On the evening of June 29, a woman named Mrs. John Bishop, located at 828 Cranston Road in Beloit, observed a large, stationary object that she described as white with a haze around it. The object appeared to the southeast at a 45-degree angle above the horizon. She watched it dim out and then reappear several times over the course of an hour and a half.

Multiple other reports came in to Beloit Police during the same period. At 7:14 p.m. on June 28, someone reported a bright burning object west of Beloit headed toward Monroe, Wisconsin. At 10:28 a.m. on June 29, police received word of a grey object heading toward Gratiot, Wisconsin. Later that day at 12:32 p.m., another witness reported a bright burning object traveling from south to west to northeast. At 5:40 p.m., someone reported a bright burning object in the southwest area. Finally, around 2:05 a.m. on June 29, witnesses near Beloit observed a bright burning object in the southwest that appeared to be weaving back and forth. At 2:14 a.m., yet another bright burning object was reported headed west.

The Air Force investigated the sightings and obtained a report from Dearborn Observatory at Northwestern University. Weather conditions at the time were clear with calm winds. An intelligence officer noted that Venus was positioned at 130 degrees azimuth and 35 degrees elevation at the time of Mrs. Bishop's sighting, and suggested that Venus was the principal object observed. The officer also noted that although three unidentified flying objects had been reported flying in the vicinity of Truax Air Force Field near Madison, they could not be tracked on radar. A local newspaper, the Sentinel, had been inactive due to a union strike at the time, so no additional confirmation of the sightings was available.

The Air Force's final evaluation of the case marked it as "probably balloon," though the specific reasoning behind this conclusion is not clearly stated in the available portions of the file. The complete case file, consisting of seven pages as held by the National Archives, is reproduced below.