Bently, MichiganMay 1960

Insufficient Data

Summary

On May 28, 1960, a teenager plowing a farm near Bentley, Michigan saw a flaming object fall from the southwest at a steep angle of about 75 degrees from the ground. The object landed roughly 5 feet from his tractor and scorched the earth upon impact. He recovered the piece after it cooled and gave it to his father, who contacted the Air Force base nearby.

An officer at Wurtsmith Air Force Base arranged to have the small metallic object picked up and sent to the Air Force's Aerospace Technical Intelligence Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio for analysis.

The lab found the object to be soft iron, roughly 1 inch by 1 inch in size and very thin, with one edge showing multiple layers of metal. The metal had been painted with a lead-pigmented coating and then heated until it scaled heavily. The analysis concluded the piece was likely a fragment of industrial material, such as Armco iron, rather than anything connected to an aircraft or spacecraft.

The file itself offers no official Air Force conclusion about the sighting. The full case file, consisting of 16 pages as held by the National Archives, is reproduced below.

Reported location

Bently, Michigan

Date of incident

May 1960

State / country

MI / US

Page count

16 scanned pages

USAF evaluation

unknown

Microfilm

T1206, Roll 38

Original case file scans

Original case file · scanned by NARAPage 1 of 16

View transcribed text

i a E—————— sr TP ————— ET TE RE -— Li CLE EES
i
\ ’ :
vi, | : PROJECT 10073 RECORD CARD :
4 |
1. DATE 2. LOCATION 12. CONCLUSIONS
| " |o Was Ball
28 May 60 . Bently, Michigan 0 Probably Balloon
| 3 DATE-TIME GROUP 4 TYPE OF OBSERVATION i Yweemy WaTewn |
LAOH cna © Ground- Visual O Ground-Rodor i Roiutty Rover oft |
| 1 ONES J SIN URAL S HVA VR, Sr RO 0 AirVisval O Air-Intercept Radar 0 Possibly Aircraft
5. PHOTOS . R s do gyrate 2a |
1]
ry Civilian DO Possibly Astronomical
7. LENGTH OF OBSERVATION 6. NUMBER OF OBJECTS | 9. COURSE # owmethyeical (iron) |
0 Insufficient Dota for Evaluation
Not given one Falling mn rH |
10. BRIEF SUMMARY OF SIGHTING 5 11. COMMENTS |
Farmers son plowing in field, noticed flaming |Plece of metal analyzed and found to be
object falling from SW at angle of 75° from iron (soft) with zinc pigment. Metal at |
ground. Landed 5 ft from tractor. Scorched one time had been subjected to extreme |
. |ground upon impact. Object recovered after it |heat and had been painted. |
cooled.
ATIC FORM 329 (REV 26 SEP 82)
3 | /
: : i

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Source: National Archives Catalog · NAID 28987011