Chestertown, MarylandMay 1957

In May 1957, an assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Defense reported seeing strange lights in the night sky over Chestertown, Maryland, along with his wife and teenage son. Other people in the area also witnessed the same phenomenon. Because of the witness's high-ranking position, the Air Force investigated immediately.

The family saw the objects on the evening of May 24, 1957, floating over the Chesapeake Bay near their home. The lights appeared unusual and seemed to move in ways that caught the family's attention. The witnesses reported seeing multiple objects with different colored lights. Air Force investigators interviewed the family and other local residents, checked weather conditions, and reviewed radar data from the area.

The breakthrough came when investigators spoke with fishermen near Wharton Creek, not far from where the family lived. The fishermen remembered the exact date and time because a brush fire had started nearby that same evening. They revealed that they had seen similar phenomena before and had always traced them to experiments conducted at Aberdeen Proving Ground, a military installation located northwest across the bay. Military records confirmed that on the night of May 24, 1957, between 9:30 and 10:30 p.m., the Aberdeen Proving Ground was conducting an aerial demonstration for visiting West Point cadets. The demonstration involved B-26 bomber aircraft dropping World War II surplus parachute flares and flash bombs.

The Air Force concluded that the sighting was caused by the flares and explosives being tested at Aberdeen Proving Ground, which explained the unusual lights and movements the family and other witnesses had observed. The case file, consisting of 41 pages as held by the National Archives, is reproduced below.