CARIBOU, MAINEDecember 1955

Unidentified

Summary

On the evening of December 21, 1955, a resident of Caribou, Maine saw a bright round object in the night sky. The object was gold in color, about the size of a jet fighter, and shone with a brightness comparable to the sun, though it did not hurt the eyes to look at. The witness watched the object for between three and eight minutes.

The object appeared to move, though the specifics of its path and direction are difficult to extract from the heavily damaged OCR text in the case file. The witness noted that the object had sharp, clearly defined edges and appeared solid rather than transparent.

When the Air Force investigated this sighting, they evaluated it as unidentified. The file indicates they considered the possibility that the object was a balloon, but made no definitive conclusion on that basis. The observer's description of a bright, golden, round object with sharp edges and considerable brightness did not match any conventional aircraft or astronomical phenomena the Air Force could readily explain.

The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives across 14 pages.

Reported location

CARIBOU, MAINE

Date of incident

December 1955

State / country

ME / US

Page count

14 scanned pages

USAF evaluation

unidentified

Microfilm

T1206, Roll 24

Original case file scans

Original case file · scanned by NARAPage 1 of 14

View transcribed text

P i
3 in Bae LCR ig PROJECT 10073 RECORD CARD Nk v3
i Le . 5 LX \ LS PE,
© |. DATE 2. LOCATION nd 112. CONCLUSIONS °° pe
© 21 DECEMBER 1955 CARIBOU, MAINE |o os Sloss
E Ses J st {0 Probably Balloon
1. DATE-TIME GROUP | 4. TYPE OF OBSERVATION 0 Possibly Balloon
9 ras Vi O Wos Aircraft
. Local 2300 To) : | XY Ground- Visual O Ground-Radar k Probably Aircraft
~ GMT Se = G AirVisual O Air-Iintercept Rader Lo Possibly Aircraft
5. PHOTOS - SOURCE iO Was Astronom:cal
E O Yes {0 Probably Astronomical
x No Civ {a Possibly Astronomical :
7. LENGTH OF OBSERVATION | 8. NUMBER OF OBJECTS | 9. COURSE FARE Hoel 1 TT dT
3 i O Insufficient Data for Evaluation
3 -8 min. . 1 Lh Unk
5 6 8 De | | A Unknown
LD. BRIEF SUMMARY OF SIGHTING [1 CommenTs Sis Se po
1 ; i l
: Round obj. color as of gold, about the size
| of a jet fighter, had the brightness of the
: sun, only was not hard on the eye. | {
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~ ATIC FORM 329 (REV 26 SEP 52) :
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Source: National Archives Catalog · NAID 28964413