Biloxi, Miss., November 1949November 1949

On November 18, 1949, three guards at the Biloxi Veterans Hospital in Mississippi watched an unusual object pass through the sky over the Gulf Coast. The chief guard first spotted it while on duty at the main gate, roughly ten miles south of the facility near Ship Island. The object remained visible for about twenty-five minutes.

The witnesses described a white, cigar-shaped object that reflected sunlight brightly. Based on their experience with aircraft, they estimated it was about two hundred feet long with a diameter proportionate to a cigar of that size. The object flew steadily from west to east at a constant altitude between 2,500 and 3,000 feet, traveling at approximately fifty miles per hour. There was no sound, no exhaust, and no visible wings or control surfaces. The investigators noted that two of the three guards were familiar with dirigibles and insisted this was not that type of aircraft.

The guards who witnessed the sighting all worked at the hospital and had been employed there for several years with clean records. The hospital's executive officer vouched for their reliability, and one investigator stated he had known the chief guard personally for about two years and considered him entirely trustworthy. The men were trained observers as part of their security duties. Weather records from the nearby Keesler Air Force Base confirmed clear skies at the time.

The Air Force investigation closed the case in December 1949 but made no official determination about what the object was. The full case file, including weather data and witness interviews, is reproduced below as held by the National Archives across 23 pages.