Buffalo, Hamburg, New YorkFebruary 1956

On the evening of February 29, 1956, residents and observers in the Buffalo, New York area spotted bright lights in the sky that puzzled local authorities enough to scramble an Air Force fighter jet to investigate.

The first sightings came from a man working at a car dealership in Hamburg, New York, around 8 p.m. He described a large, brilliant white light with unusual brightness concentrated on one side. The object appeared to swing like a pendulum from north to south and moved slowly westward over Lake Erie. He watched it on and off for about thirty minutes as clouds occasionally blocked his view. At nearly the same time, a 15-year-old civilian observer spotted a bright light while walking home in Lackawanna. He reported seeing two objects: a bright white one and a second object with a green halo around its edge, located about 25 to 40 miles away. Over the next four hours, he watched these objects flicker and change in brightness while moving slowly southward across the sky.

Based on these reports, the Air Force scrambled Captain Clifford Solon, a fighter pilot at Niagara Falls Air Force Base, in an F-86D jet around 9:10 p.m. Solon made visual contact with a bright, white luminous object that impressed him with its intense brightness. He described it as appearing similar to a searchlight without a reflector, and said it flickered and changed intensity throughout his encounter. Despite repeated attempts to close the distance, the object always remained ahead of him no matter which direction he flew. At 32,000 feet altitude, Solon saw a flashing red light coming from the object before it seemed to increase the gap between them. Running low on fuel, he abandoned the chase and returned to base. Notably, his aircraft's radar equipment, which was functioning normally, never detected the object. Ground-based radar stations also failed to make contact.

The investigating officers considered and ruled out conventional explanations. The object did not behave like an airplane, could not be caught on radar, and seemed to maintain its distance from the pursuing jet. Weather data confirmed clear skies with scattered clouds. After consulting with physicists, the investigators considered whether the sighting might be caused by ionized gas clouds, but ultimately concluded the most probable explanation was the planet Venus. Venus was the brightest object in the sky at that time of year and would have been setting in the west around 10 p.m. to 10:30 p.m., which matched the observed timing. The apparent motion and the pilot's inability to close on the object were consistent with the optical effects of observing a bright celestial body at a great distance. The Air Force's official evaluation was that the sighting was caused by Venus, though the file notes this conclusion was reached through a process of elimination rather than positive identification.

The complete case file, comprising 19 pages as held by the National Archives, is reproduced below.