Bridgeport, New YorkMarch 1956

On the night of March 5-6, 1956, a married couple in Bridgeport, New York, watched a bright, round object moving in the sky for about 25 minutes. The husband, a mechanic and former Army Air Corps aircraft mechanic, was awakened by his wife at around 1:55 a.m. She had first noticed the object through their bedroom window about 20 minutes earlier. Both observers described it as roughly the size of a quarter held at arm's length, with a yellowish-white glow and blurred or fuzzy edges. To the husband, it looked exactly like the bright afterimage you see when you close your eyes after staring at an incandescent lightbulb. The object swung back and forth like a pendulum, moved up and down, and gradually increased in altitude before fading from view toward the southeast. The sky was clear and cool with only a few stars visible.

The husband called the Syracuse Filter Center (a military radar and observation post) to report the sighting. When Air Force investigators arrived, they found both witnesses to be reliable and credible. The husband's military background and his prompt reporting of the incident impressed investigators. The wife, who worked as an assembly line worker, also gave a straightforward account and said the object resembled an automobile headlight from about a mile away, or a kite made of glowing material.

Investigators checked with multiple agencies to find an explanation. The 655th Air Control and Warning Squadron at nearby Watertown, New York, confirmed that no aircraft were in the area and that radar screens showed nothing unusual. The U.S. Weather Bureau revealed that illuminated weather balloons were released daily from stations in the region, including Buffalo and Niagara Falls. Such balloons could have drifted into the sighting area on the prevailing winds, and a faulty balloon that did not burst at high altitude would be visible up to about 10,000 feet on a clear night. An astronomer at Syracuse University Observatory noted that the planet Jupiter was rising in the east at the time but said Jupiter would have appeared for a longer period and would not have faded as described. The astronomer also mentioned that he had recently examined a bright light in the sky through a telescope and found it to be a weather balloon, which had impressed him with its brightness and star-like appearance to the naked eye.

The Air Force investigators concluded that the sighting was "probably caused by an illuminated weather balloon." The preparing officer noted that weather balloons from stations west of Syracuse could have reached the area, that the description matched the known appearance of weather balloons, that radar contact was negative (suggesting something too small or non-metallic to detect reliably), and that the witnesses may have misremembered the exact time. The approving officer agreed with this conclusion. The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives, 12 pages.