Champaign, IllinoisJune 1960

On June 7, 1960, a photographer in Champaign, Illinois filmed what turned out to be one of Project Blue Book's more unusual cases: an unidentified bright object that moved across the camera's field of view in just one and a quarter seconds.

The photographer was filming a routine silhouette shot of a statue in West Side Park when the sighting occurred. The object itself was not visible to the naked eye, only appearing later when the film was previewed. The camera was a 16mm Volex Reflex mounted on a tripod at a 45-degree upward angle, using Eastman 7276 black and white film with a shutter speed of one sixtieth of a second.

The U.S. Air Force's technical experts at the Aerospace Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC) analyzed the film and determined it was a genuine photographic image. The object appeared as a light source of considerable intensity, bright enough to be fully visible even within eight degrees of the sun, an indication of extreme brightness. Most striking was its velocity. By calculating how fast the object crossed the camera's field of view, analysts concluded it was traveling at very high speed, roughly 500 miles per hour at an altitude of 500 feet, or proportionally faster if higher up.

Because the object moved so rapidly during exposure, the film showed only motion blur. This made it impossible to determine the object's actual shape, size, or distance. However, the combination of extreme velocity and exceptional brightness led the Air Force to an explanation: the object was probably a meteor of the "fireball" class, a particularly luminous and fast-moving type of meteor.

The Air Force retained the film in its official case file. No further investigation appears to have been conducted, and the case was closed under the fireball meteor conclusion.

The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives (20 pages).